...but this flavorwire article actually makes a decent argument why maybe I should be:
Have Pop Stars Killed the Rock Star?

And the one thing I really have to agree with in the article is that rock these days and for several years now has gotten exceedingly boring and safe. I do think there is a lot better rock music out there than what the article mentions, but the better stuff is further underground than ever and listened to by fewer and fewer people. There hasn't been any exciting, dangerous, rebellious rock music with any kind of mass appeal since when?

I think a lot of what this article is saying - but doesn't seem to realize that it's saying (I guess, not going to read the entire thing right now) - is that the whole "rock 'n roll ethos" of risk, rebellion, and emotional and sexual openness has been so thoroughly absorbed into the mainstream as to be a completely natural component of pop music at this point. For rock to self-consciously try to resurrect any of that generally just makes a band feel like a nostalgia act or like they're play-acting.

I mean I'm open to whatever kind of music sounds interesting or moves me, and I don't necessarily have anything against pop music. But time and again when a major pop act is hailed as really doing something different or taking chances, when I do bother to listen I find that the music sounds completely bland, predictable, and sterile. All of the clips posted in that article suck. There are new things I like all the time that could qualify as pop, though, but they're often a little more in the "indie" category and as such sound a little more personal, unique, rough around the edges, and interesting. Like Grimes. I really enjoy that album, much more than I thought I would. I suppose you could consider John Maus to be "pop", too, but his vocals are a little too "mumbly" to ever be mainstream.

My point, if I have one, is that this article just says what a ton of people, especially younger people, have been saying or or acting out on the internet for a lot of the past decade. People have been insisting that rock music is dead or stale for a long time, and it's been cool for hipsters to embrace pop since at least as far back as Justin Timberlake's first solo stuff. But who cares about that stuff now? Mainstream pop is typically just an amalgamated reflection of where popular culture is at any given time, and as such it's certainly relevant. But at present, and for a pretty long time, I've thought that it's been pretty ugly and empty. I don't need to listen to pop music to tell me what I already know about the world around me, and it certainly doesn't inspire me in any way. It does inspire some younger musicians because a lot of the sounds and overall effects of pop songs still sound fresh to them, and it will always serve a useful function as music for young people. I just don't see the need to actively follow it or try to like it in order to know what's going on.

In response, I would ask the question, is it that rock is safe, or is it that society is so crazy with other media/real life that music pales in comparison?

What I mean is, in the 1950s when bands were rocking songs with lightly veiled allusions to sex, it was revelatory and taboo because the culture which surrounded the music was so much more closed and private on those matters. In 2012, I can't even venture to guess what a band would have to do to be considered "dangerous".

*edit* I didn't read the article, btw but plan to. Just responding to Nobody's post.

Remember when tattoos were edgy?

Illustrated perfectly

Better than my words I typed.

We adopted / invested in the general aesthetic of "edginess" 40+ years ago, and things have taken their course. Eventually there's not much more you can do to hit that button and get a response without problems. It's not a limitless slope.

I don't even know what "edgy" means but it sounds like it sucks. You could argue though that the White Stripes were at least somewhat arty (or maybe edgy. I dunno) and they have 2 or 3 songs that are going to be in the rotation on rock radio for the next 20 years. I mean, the guitar on "Icky Thump" is a pretty fucked up thing to hear on a mainstream rock station, no?

That's how I described the feeling bad coke gave me.

Music is virtually redundant now that pornography is so freely available.

Pop music survives as a sort of pornography-lite for young children and adolescents. It's sex with glitz and dazzle and spectacle attached to it which makes it palatable to younger kids and particularly girls.

Everything else that was attached to music - from political ideals to musicianship doesn't really matter any more and has been overtaken or replaced by technology or socio-historic conditions.

parents are more scared of video games, music is something they want to be bffs over.

I am not going to go in depth about this article, but the predisposition is sort of clear. This thesis has been in and out and reversed in conversation for decades.

It's all pop music to me...

I do enjoy a lot of pop music these days.