Oh a music debate.
I'm very confidant that modern "Pop" music is most definitely not mindless garbage. It is garbage, but usually their are multiple writers, multiple producers, multiple engineers but only one musician if you can even call them that.
A lot of energy goes into chart topping hits, so much research is done so that they start on top of the trends and then associate that into a form of musical expression so that everyone gives them money. The reason they don't last long is because the sound only fits that mood for like a month or two rendering it useless afterwards.
That being said. I do not like modern pop music. It ruins everything that art is supposed to stand for, people have just found another way to distract the public and grab at their wallets and not give real passionate and usually fantastic underground bands a chance.
I don't know how Nicki Minaj happened and I'd prefer not to talk about it.
You see with mega popular acts like One Direction for example I can somewhat look past their popularity because they are all talented singers, Bieber on the other hand is just an annoying post-pubescent swaggot with the emotional range of a spoon. He is little more than a cereal box mascot for his brand.
Oh! I also want to make it very clear that "Indy" is not a genre. So if you go and say that Tame Impala or Alt-J are Indy bands, think about what that means. Most similar bands are signed to major record labels. I know that tame Impala is signed to an Australian label who is distributed by Universal. So indy is alternative pop, cool? Cool.