When I was 10-14 I used to listen to a lot of gangster rap, and religiously listen to the Radio One Rap Show every week. In my later teens I listened to Muse, Incubus and RATM, pretty much exclusively. When I went to uni I listened to The Mars Volta, Deftones and Tool. Then I went through a pretentious phase of listening to nothing but my own music. These days I listen to something new every day. I really enjoy a lot of the jazz/hip-hop fusion stuff going on at the moment, but there's loads of other good stuff around. Every so often I switch the radio in my car to Radio One to see what's "happening". Yesterday I caught the end of a terrible electronic pop tune, but then they played something brand new picked up through BBC Introducing that I quite liked. Then there was a Miley Cyrus track which was just good old "paint by numbers" pop music - not my thing, but it's basically the same sort of tune you play at weddings to get people dancing.
I get young kids coming through my studio all the time, playing instruments, and writing their own songs. A lot of it's terrible, but there are some real gems
Given that music is subjective, how could it possibly be getting worse?