Let's look around at what's going on out there with the state of music these days.
I like to look around once in a while for people submitting new music they create. The weekly feedback thread here in WATMM. The melting pot thread in r / listentothis. I have this bookmark of only "I made this" flair posts in r / music:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/search?q=flair%3A%22i+made+this%22&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all
Been checking these for years. Take a look at how these artists posts are doing though. Sort it by top of past month, year, all time. Nobody does well. Usually it's all ignored 1's.
The general public doesn't seem to dig around trying to find diamonds in the rough, looking for new music.
The material musicians create isn't that bad. It's usually how it was done in the past. Generally nothing experimental and groundbreaking. They're similar in what classifies a song for it to be in that genre. For example, for it to be EDM it usually has to sound like it did in the past. So they're pretty much all the same, nobody doing anything different. You know how a rock song will play out, no surprises there after the first minute. Hip-hop, bark bark bark non stop vocals, not much variation with the simple drum beat till the song is over.
Check any song, you can assume you're going to hear a normal drum kit at beat timing. Why not use other noises? For melody, they'll use default stock synths and not create their own instruments made from sound effects in the same key as piano. The song structure will often be like it was in previous decades with chorus, verse, etc.
A few weeks ago I was wondering about the all time plays on youtube in recent years. Looked that up, saw a wiki list but couldn't hear them. I made this playlist of those 80:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3Xn0y5dFtzDUJsIRZvtzBeHxIwBR5ydz
I posted it in r / popheads wondering what they thought of which songs got more plays than others. Some of the teen girls would say, oh, these ones, they're "boring". That's what kids think of a typical song these days. They're bored with it, so they're tuning out from music.
Take a look at the front page here on reddit. It's NEVER music. Why's this going on? Because they knew if they'd play whatever song it would sound like it did in the past. Nothing new that's exciting. Look around for new material, can't find anything that makes you go "wow".
You're wondering about the sea of mediocrity out there. Way more artists creating music than they did before computers. Yet they're all buried and lost in the shuffle. How would you get your music out there?
Check music hosting sites, on the front page they'll try to feature some band you've already heard of. They never help an unknown band get discovered.
All those sites are the same. You'd think one of them would be different, but no. Wouldn't that be interesting if a new music hosting site would have staff dig around looking for interesting material. Help those undiscovered artists out by posting their stuff on the front page instead of some washed-up act who got famous back when CD's sold. But no, they don't. Independent artists try to post their material and it never gets discovered. So who's at fault here, it's those lame site which are all the same.
I like to listen to internet radio stations. Whatever genres. I like to check what's out there. Dig deep on those, add hundreds to this winamp playlist. Play those on random when I'm doing whatever. Can't find any new music.
It's often old material back from when bands used to sell CD's. Rock music is the worst for being stalled-out. You don't hear of any new rock songs. It stopped at 2000.
How about famous bands who had hits in previous decades. You never hear of a new catchy song from them. Why's that?
There's this stalled-out state of music going on where the flood of artists are creating new music but nobody is getting any of it out there.