Is today's music bad? Yes and no. Today's pop music, as in the music that you can find on the Billboard charts, tends to be less complex than that of the recent past in relation to traditional counterpoint, literary quality, and harmony/melody (compare today's pop to the jazz standards of the 20s to 60s or the classic rock scene of the 80s for some proof). However, that doesn't make new pop music bad. Bad is a judgement call. A piece can be good simply by virtue of its ability to make you want to move or dance. And something else to keep in mind is the tech that goes into today's music. Sounds are manipulated with computers in ways that could not have been done previously. I can't stand some of it (dear auto-tune, please die except when being used for satirical or ironic purposes), but the new methods in computerized sound manipulation give today's pop music a unique sound, and may even become the focal point of a new piece, especially when the other musical aspects are watered down.
In the realm of so-called "serious" music, or music that people learn to write by studying "classical composers" or "concert works" (poor jazzers, self-taught composers, folk music performers/writers, etc., that live in the world between pop and academic circles), there is also no specific answer. Is the new music bad? Some is, some isn't. The idea of a composer as one who goes to school to study composition is really faltering, largely because of back-assward curriculums and the distance that academicians like to create between their work and the stuff that people tend to pay more to hear. And there's the fact that school's do not often prep you with the tech aspects prominent in today's world of composition (how many comp schools require that their students take a class on a music notation program or learn how to work proficiently and efficiently with a DAW?). I had a masterclass with composer Frederic Rzewski yesterday, and he felt that, much like the painter, the composer is a dying breed and perhaps not so relevant, at least in a traditional sense, to today's society. Whose duty is it to revise academia and perhaps make it more inclusive and well-rounded for today's world? Should the academic beast be left to collapse under its own weight? I feel more and more that a composition degree is pointless (consistent one-on-one lessons with composers and self-study would be just as, if not more, useful, as long as you still had a community of musicians, especially performers, to interact with). What is the role of today's composer? Should music literacy be a requirement from a young age? Where does the music of non-western cultures fit in? Why don't we learn more about rhythm? Do the curriculums of today stifle musical creativity? Just some things I've been thinking about recently.