She has a point tbh. It's prob why our generation has no Prince/Bowie/Madonna artists and we're stuck with mostly attractive people with little to no musical talent/knowledge/artistic vision

She's right but you hit the nail on the head.
This is the problem.

true

thank God for Adele and Gagz

true

thank God for Adele and Katy Perry

Does this apply to the major stars today though? Adele, Bey, Taylor, Drake, Kendrick are all considered "artists" by the general public. Even Katy is seen as a writer.

atrl now gets excited about selena and meghan performances

all of them except kendrick debuted last decade tho. I'm talking more about the new generation of pop stars

Yes I think having mainstream appeal is more important than ever now

Love u Cyn but it's kinda the opposite actually

Well she didn't lie. The industry has been style over substance for a long time now.

There are still great artists out there though and talented ones, you just have to sift through the industry props.

Bey has been around since the late 90's so my mind didn't go to her tbh.

But I feel like there's a general "image over substance" tendency in the last few years. Sure, there are still new people who can sing their asses off (Ariana) or have some extent of star quality, but the majority feel watered down and inferior to me compared to previous generations, in all aspects

Like who though? Bruno is seen as an artist. Meghan, Lorde, Ariana are seen as talented. What major new star is seen as image over substance?

You can't realistically expect new "Prince/Bowie/Madonna artists" to debut every six years. Besides, all those artists listed in BlueTimberwolf's post are very much "this generation" and some of them do have the potential to go on to become greats (chiefly Adele, Beyoncé, Drake, Kendrick, and Katy).

There is definitely a problem when it comes to the way the industry scouts new artists and how the creative freedoms of emerging artists are now largely curtailed by their cash-strapped labels, but every generation has had its Selenas and Meghans, to cite your examples. Bad pop stars are nothing new and not who Cyndi's addressing.

Thank god for Bieber and Beyonce

You have a point, most recently successful people don't have the "popstar" look. Let me rephrase. It's more like marketability (made up word?) over substance I guess. The vast majority of the people that get smash hits right now are absolutely unable (often unwilling) to perform them live. Which is the lowest of all lows for the industry and one of the reasons why awards shows are so appalling now. But these stars still have a following, a hype machine, label support and easy access to surefire hits, so they keep going. The industry is obviously no stranger to the concept of a cash cow, but the cash cows of the past could handle a stage. There are exceptions and you mentioned most of them, but Idk, the industry still feels empty to me. It's subjective though

With the mention to punk music, I don't think Lauper's saying "Wow the artists today are talentless and this is why music sucks": punk was all about anyone getting to do music despite barriers like """"talent"""" and budget constraint. She's more upset with corporate getting to dictate consumption, rather than musicians: Adele is just as much part of the problem as Selena Gomez, in this view.