Or just plain poor taste! - joey

No, I think it's boils down to laziness. As in, "I'm too lazy to muddle through the internet in search of something good, so I'll just buy the same crap that gets repeated 10 times a day in the radio". - Steven Perez from IM

Whatev. I'm sure I have terrible taste in music according to any number of people. Musical taste seems very much subjective to me, more so than style/fashion. - aldenoneil

When I was a kid (graduated HS in 1990), there weren't a great many places where one could buy music. You could go to a record store and get overcharged. You could go to a department store and get stuck with a lousy selection. Mail order? C'mon. Today, most artists have some presence on the net, at least a place that points to a online store where one can download their wares instantly. Hell, I couldn't even listen to most albums back in the day before I bought them. As I said, laziness. - Steven Perez from IM

Yes, Auto-Tune is the cause of mainly painful songs, too. - Steven Perez

It's like food, in a way. If all I want is something fast and right now, yeah, I could get fast food, but that's not all that healthy a diet. Making something healthy, or even getting a meal that isn't fast food, is more rewarding in a number of ways, but again, time is sometimes a factor. I think searching for good music is similar. Sure, you could put up with the dreck that the radio spits out (and let's be clear, this isn't a slam on modern pop music - going back through what I used to listen to at the tender age of 17 was a journey in embarrassment, too), but actually searching for good music you like is much more rewarding. And again, with the choices available today, there is little reason to put up with Top 40 radio. - Steven Perez

Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure Cher was making fun of people using auto-tune by cranking it up on that song. Another funny thing, the dude that started this trend in rap/hip-hop (T-Pain) is actually an extremely talented artist, but you'd never know by listening to his singles. I also have a sneakin suspicion that the crap radio you guys are talking about is better quality than what passes for music here in GA. Although, maybe everything has finally converged... - Rah-PM 2012

That's the other part of it, Rahsheen. By consolidating most of the music scene among a few companies and having one large corporation running the majority of radio stations in the US, radio everywhere sounds depressingly the same. I've lived in several cities, and local music has rapidly become a thing of the past. Some places still give it lip service, but the majority of radio stations are a lot like McDonald's: same food, same combos, same old product. - Steven Perez from IM

Local music on radio died in the '60s or earlier. With the exception of college radio. - Spidra Webster