That's not really based on a preconception it's just an observation.

An observation based on closedminded preconceptions.

Well it's a generalization to say newer music sucks I admit, but it's based on the fact that a great majority of modern music isn't to my liking.

No I don't think all modern music sucks, but do I think contemporary music is worse now than previous decades? Yes I do. What's so irrational about thinking (in terms of preference) that an artform can have a certain peak and go downhill from there?

The same things that are irrational about thinking that the low point was in the past. You know, like the people you were complaining about.

I thoroughly enjoy Hands Up.

Because I can't ever recall you listening to anything off your own back.

When was the last time you actually picked up an album by a band you've not heard of & judged it on your own merits?

I don't think I've ever seen you do it in the whole time you've been on this forum.

Modern music doesn't suck at all. There's absolutely tons of great stuff out there, fresh for the listening, ready for your ears to devour. People's ears just need to be switched on. They need to ditch commercial radio almost entirely because that isn't doing anything new anymore, end of story. Go online. Hit up lastfm. Pandora, whatever other similar sites there are out there. You'll find gobs and gobs of awesome amazing stuff, all tailored to your very own tastes in most cases. The beauty is you get sort through it THINK FOR YOURSELF and tailor your own tastes and library accordingly.

It's actually a freaking great time to get into music, just get off your ass and quit being spoonfed a bunch of crap from an industry model that is dead or at least dying.

As Peter Gabriel put it... 'The music industry is dead, but there's still plenty of interesting creatures crawling out of the carcass".

Not true, people send me stuff often from artists I've never heard from and I tend to like it, perhaps because they have an idea of what my taste is.

You're making a proconception about how I judge music just because I don't quite open up about everything regarding my tastes. Mostly as a defensive mechanism and also because discussing artists people haven't heard of tend to die fast. It doesn't mean I only like popular music.

I used to think newer music was mostly bad until 2 things happened around the same time.

1) I started finding newer bands that were actually pretty good
2) Someone pointed out that the reason all the old stuff seemed so good was that the large majority of bad music released in the 60's-onward had been forgotten

There will always be bad music, and some of it will always survive, but deciding an entire era is terrible is inaccurate.