@homeland.lsw that's your opinion OP. What time period of music are you exactly referring to as the better kind?
And there's no difference in 2012 and prior music??? O_o
The simple answer maybe you hate black music. Never before like now have black people been so dominant in music. That comes with industry change and cultural diffusion, the globalisation of hip hop and white Pop music implementing urban sounds in their songs.
Like Taylor Swift doing Shake It Off, Natasha Bedingfield being all soulful. Adele as well, Lily Allen doing reggae songs and collabing with black rappers, white people rapping, Asians rapping, Jay Sean incorporating R&B into Indian music, jazz and rock and reggae being kin, people looking up to Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston being one of the top selling artists in the world, all of this has tied into modern music and the modern sound.
I personally think the industry and mass appeal has changed since around 2006. Not for the worst, just changed.
Like pop punk. What happened to all those bands? Yellowcard, Taking Back Sunday, ****ing Fallout Boy, Gym Class Heroes, even Avril Lavigne has changed up, Blink 182, Switchfoot, Story of the Year, LostProphets, MCR, (well Panic! is back), I mean that whole 2005 and earlier; Papa Roach, 3 Days Grace, whoever you wanna name; Linkin Park. Evanescence even. So many more. They faded out. Nickleback lol all them. So maybe they broke up for whatever reason but you still just don't hear music like this on the mainstream anymore. Paramore then came out after this effect and that's why everyone jumped on them, they were the remaining rock sound and look. But even she went and did a collab with B.O.B. with "Airplanes."
It's because of Kanye West, Soulja Boy, T.I., 50 Cent, Eminem, Beyonce going solo, Britney Spears falling apart, all around the 2004-2005 area these artists came out. Then Chris Brown and Lil Wayne. Rock got ignored. So now the face of music is hip hop and hip-hop-ish Pop like Iggy and Ariana Grande, Taylor playing around, new rappers coming out like moles, Katy Perry's antics, Lady Gaga first had a hip hop sound and did rap duets if you know about that, they're all reflections of this new change in the industry. Rap has taken over oh well.