The quality of popular music ebbs and flows over long periods. In the late 19th and early 20th century opera was popular music. Verdi’s funeral attracted crowds that were more astonishing than those that showed up for Jackson’s funeral, particularly given the relative lack of mass media to hype the event and that Verdi’s music was not available to the masses by radio, television, MP3 player, etc.
Those who claim that today’s popular music on average is as good as the popular music of prior periods are just indulging in a nihilistic relativism. It is hard to conceive of popular music as technically and morally contemptible as today’s popular music. Any claim of some sort of equivalence between rap and hip hop with big band music, for example, would be as contemptible as claiming that a Monet is no better than my 6 year-olds finger painting.
Comparing specific composers and performers can be more difficult. The Beatles did have some pleasantly lyrical melodies, even though as performers they lacked skill, discipline, or ability - or perhaps all three. But none of the Beatles’ work measures up to the quality of even a simple piece like Chopin’s Walze in A minor. I admit, by the way, that the comparison with Chopin is a bit unfair. Chopin was a rare musical genius; none of the Beatles were. To give the Beatles their due, as popular music since “Rock Around the Clock” goes, some of the Beatles work is really pretty good.
I won’t enter the fray in the discussion about Cole Porter vs. the Beatles because I don’t know a lot of Cole Porter, but it is clear that a couple of the posters have inflated views of “their” music simply because they grew up with it AND it is all they know. I have “grown up” with many types of music and have grown through several types of musical immaturity. I’ve also performed everything from rock to classical.
Music is a good bellweather for the condition of a culture. What popular music since at least the 60’s -and especially today’s popular music - indicates about the culture is that we have entered a period of extraordinary moral degradation.
As my dad used to say, "Music is a reflection of how people feel -- some of them must feel awful!"