As said elsewhere, the issue is "today." You're looking at the top40 charts expecting to see a measure of skill and innovation, but what you're really looking at is how well bands cater to today's trends. People want danceable club music? You're going to get simple and/or repetitive beats. People want "provocative" things? You're going to get artists selling their looks & willingness to show them off. No matter when you look, you'll be able to find bad or mediocre musicians selling cookie-cutter copies of recent trends... and doing well.

At the same time, a lot of hit artists today are clearly talented. Whether you like them or not, Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber (and others, I'm sure) are clearly talented. They might punch above their weight class because of their looks, but they have skill. And mid-range popular artists with real talent abound. Genre artists like Kendrick Lamar aren't "pop" but they're certainly making hit music, and they're talented too.