Mediocrity has always reigned, now, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. That's why pasty white boys did gutless covers of real R&B songs that outsold the originals: They were safe. Ever heard the Everly Brothers' cover of "Lucille"? It's painful. And the Everlys weren't even the worst. That's why there were white women singing cleaned-up "blues lite" when blues first became popular.

While I agree that the majority of American pop culture today is throw-away, at best, I'm not sure I'm convinced that it's a "new" problem. Time does a great job of sifting out the quality from a whole lot of mediocrity. The recordings/writings/artwork that survive, survived because they were great. In their time, I can assure you they were surrounded by dreck. Granted, there is more material overall now--we're a bigger country, bigger population, bigger industry, bigger everything--so we feel like it's harder to find, and the good stuff may be a smaller percentage overall since production has increased exponentially, but there are still good artists out there. Even in America.

Meanwhile, since I handle printed material all day long, I'll tell you that there is a Hell of a lot of music, drama, literature, artwork, etc. that was utter crap 150 years ago and that we have, consequently, forgotten. Most of this was based on themes recycled from earlier stuff, just as it is today. There were fewer toilet jokes and more freakish ethnic stereotypes but it wasn't any more intellectually challenging than it is now. And what I've seen I'm sure is only a representative sample of a much bigger load of drivel. That's why it's called "ephemera". (No, I haven't seen Borat. There are other, better, and more interesting movies out there on which I could spend my $8. Some of those are even American, too.)

And for goodness' sakes don't gauge everything by the tastes of teenagers. Most people become more interesting as they get older, anyway. My brother was into Metallica and Rammstein when he was a teenager but has since seen the light and switched to folk, bluegrass, Classical, independent rock and country, and various Cuban genres (having been to Cuba on an archaeology project).

Commercial radio is the skin on the top. The worst of the worst. Just because you catch me listening to Randy Travis once in awhile doesn't mean I don't also like Son House, Hobart Smith, or Jean Ritchie.