When did mainstream music go downhill?

1970

Interestingly, I have a similar view on this as some others: somewhere around mid 90's!
The best mainstream music was made 1982-1993.

Definitely as soon as the 90s started. Glam metal hairbands went out of style and that boring grunge bs became popular.

I was just gonna ask this question myself but I consider the early 1990's to be the last great era of mainstream music before it steadily started to go downhill, I've thought music from 1997 to 2003 was really bad, it started to get decent again from 2004 to 2008 and then collapsed again.

Since it's inception. There's something about music in every era that makes people say 'music is going downhill.' Maybe it's because it's not what people are used to or because it doesn't match what came before, but music is progressive. It's always moving forward and, in most people's eyes, downward. But I think mainstream music (music videos aside) has made some leaps as well some dives.

I would argue that our perception of what pop music was like is distorted by the fact that we only really remember the greatest hits of the time and not all the garbage in between. There were as many good songs released in the 00s, as there were in the 90s and 80s etc and just as much crap released in between each good song. It's just that the further away we move from the past the less of the crap we remember.

[deleted]

everyone sounds the same now