Somebody: Here's what I'm curious about when I hear opinions like this expressed: do you believe it's *ever* been the case that art has declined in any society in history? Was there a decline in Greek art between the fall of Mycenea and the rise of Athens? Was there a falling off in sculpture technique in the city-state of Ife in Nigeria after the 13th century? Or is it the case that art is always of equivalent value, and only traditionalists bemoan the end of (insert artistic genre here).
Personally, I think it's clear that music has declined in the West over the last couple decades. If you listen to popular music today, it seems evident that the basic genres have fossilized. Rock, rap, dance, country, and pop music genres are not developing today at the same rapid rate they were a generation ago. Mostly they're updated with improved production techniques and technology and are remixed and hybridized. But, we haven't seen the rise of whole new genres to the same extent we used to. Sgt. Peppers would have been a little shocking to a guy fighting in Korea. But the latest album from The National or Phoenix would not be very revelatory to a slacker from the 1990's. He'd probably be like, what, *that's* supposed to be from the year 2010??
So, no, it really isn't the case today that as many parents are yelling at their teenagers that what they're listening to isn't even music. If anything, the grown-ups could easily have been listening to more outrageous death metal and gangsta rap than the indie rock, Disney pop, and electronic dance music their kids are listening to. ________________
GB: The level of art in a society changes, sometimes declining, sometimes getting better. There needs to be some caution about what constitutes quality. My parents thought rock and roll was children's music -- simple chords and chord progressions, simple lyrics, simple rhythms. They thought I would outgrow it and recognize that more sophisticated, complex music was better. I thought so, too, actually, but it never happened. Instead, I concluded that sophistication is not necessarily quality. And there's always the issue that we will value different things in art. Still, it's hard to figure out a set of dramatic values that doesn't put Jacobean drama ahead of any other period in English dramatic literature. So no, I wasn't stating a general principle about the equivalency of all art.