I've always chalked it up to the 90's and the onset of computers and the internet. The music industry - I'm talking the old school way of how music was produced and consumed - more or less was destroyed over the course of roughly 10 years. There wasn't really a single link in that decades old chain of how music was consumed that wasn't reduced to rubble.
There's no "self sustaining infrastructure" left. Radio is a wasteland. There's no good old fashioned record store to go to and peruse through a thousand latest releases. There's no local stereo equipment store to go and listen to the latest and greatest equipment from entry level to holy grail rigs. There's no Epic or Atlantic or Island or Warner Brothers or Sony record label churning out new releases every week. There's no (for example) Blue Oyster Cult this week and Yes next week and Scorpions a month from now coming to the local arena (and 150 others across the country throughout the year). And holy shit, Pink Floyd and the Stones are doing a stadium concert tours this summer!
It's all gone, and I doubt it's ever coming back.
I've been on spring break all week. Because of the weather, my original plans were ruined - so I've spent most this week re-organizing my listening room. Sort of a cleaning, re-arranging equipment, etc project - I've got 3 complete rigs set up in it. Sort of my version of a listening room one might have found in a stereo equipment store back in the 70's. One wall is all the gear (CD players, a turntable, a tape deck, tuners, and amps/receivers).
Been listening to my music collection all week, roughly 5,000 songs I'd estimate. Maybe more. A lifetime of music. My bet is maybe tops 3% is post-2000 music. What is that, 150 songs?
This is the song playing right now...recorded it from Youtube about a week ago - newest song in my collection. Only way to get it at this time. I'd BUY it if it were possible.