Leeneia, a lot of what you're saying makes great sense but once again I worry about the pessimism inherent in so many of these posts. There is always a tendency to think our generation was the last to know how to sing - and it's tied into a lack of faith in the young, who are just finding what songs fit their lives in the way we did when we were that age. Personally, I'd like to hear anything as anti-establishment as Anarchy in the UK in the current scene, but it's doubtless being made - I've just lost the map to find it!

Specifics:

1. I'm an ipod addict and I sing all the time, both for fun and - when people are fool enough to pay me - for money. I don't think that you can blame people not wanting to sing on the technological distribution of music. If this was the case, then the folk boom of the 60s - in the midst of cheaper vinyl LPs, multi-tracking, etc - shouldn't have happened.

2. and 5. You have to pick and choose your tunes from contemporary popular music - John Legend's Ordinary People is a prime example of fantastic melody in the pop/R&B genre - what filters through from the past is the stuff that's left when the samey dross is forgotten. Just look through a collection of Victorian parlour ballads if you doubt this.

4. links a little to 3. - some people I know decided that they couldn't sing the day they were turned down for the Sunday School choir!

TTFN
A former choir soloist who nonetheless gets whupped at karaoke!