Couldn't agree more, Kendall

I love Skylark (Hoagy Carmicheal, Johnny Mercer)
Stardust (Hoagy and Mitchell Parish)

More modrin? Some Beatles. I even like Bachrach and David.

Most of the newer pop songs are poorly written, musically unattractive,
monosyllabic or monotonic, cliche chord progressions (unlike the great Gershwins, Porter, Berlin etc.) or one of my faves Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story)

or "Send in the Clowns".....Sondheim by Judy Collins

or young Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon.

The problem today with pop music is that the public is so uneducated when it comes to musical appreciation, since it was cut in the schools, and it goes along with the other educational lobotomies inflicted on the American public, a public official running for office can't find Libya on a map, Creationism is actually being taken seriously, scientists are being dissed because they are not politically viable,
and on it goes, doesn't it seem reasonable that the American public taste in pop music has been debased?

Music is an index into culture and society. Corruption doesn't stop in Washington or Wall Street but is carried on into the music biz.

Pop music today (I repeat) has been lobotomized.