Maybe.

Most of what is on the radio today strikes me as crap, but then most people I know grew up knowing nothing else. If they were exposed to better or more interesting music, maybe it would be more popular.

It strikes me that popular music is less the favorite of society than it is an average of the tastes of society. It's sort of whatever the largest percentage of us can tolerate rather than what we necessarily most enjoy. So, I listen to the classic country station in the car. It's not my favorite and it's not what I listen to all the time, but I don't mind it. Somebody somewhere is probably assuming that I just love Hank, Jr. and Dolly Parton. I don't. They're at the outer edges of my pop-country fusion tolerance, but I still listen to that radio station because sometimes they play Hank, Sr., Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb, or something else that I really do like. Someone else is listening to it for the Bocephus and only putting up with "Walking the Floor Over You" in the hopes that the next song will be "Bob Wills is Still the King". Ta-da: We average out to the same apparent tastes.

I know a lot of people who will listen to Sheryl Crow or whatever (I don't even know who's cool these days) on popular radio but then go home and have music collections consisting almost entirely of independent and obscure artists, old blues, roots country, etc. Excellent but commercially uncool music.