A group of music sophistos such as yourselves is bound to have seen this, but I'm posting it anyway:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/hit-charade/403192/I knew this was the state of Nashville (some ungodly percentage of hits is written by interlocking groups of the same six guys), but I didn't know it was this bad in pop music.
It's trite for a person whose musical tastes were formed in the 80s and 90s (or the 70s, or the 60s) to say "boy, pop music sucks these days," but hit factories and associations past never reached the level of ubiquity of these hacks.
It was bound to happen as the money machine ground down. I feel guilty for not going to see Death Cab in Raleigh now, or just buying tickets to show my support.