Re: "What ever happened to music"...
The answer is simple and yet very profound. All styles of popular American music have already seen their greatest days.
I agree to a certain extent. I would not go quite as far though. The focus on musicianship & improvisation is certainly less important in modern music. Along with the edit & paste style of producing albums that has become the norm. It would probably have been easier to become a working musician 30 or 40 years ago though.
There is still a lot of good music being made. Most of it is not going to have a place in the traditional mainstream though. The less commercial based music is on the net now as opposed to when there was more of it on tv or radio in the past. Certain genres & formats have peaked though, over the last few decades. Rock music is not as popular as it once was. Jazz equals music in elevators to most people these days. Dance and hip-hop have taken a much more prominent role in recent years. Things are changing. Music will always be present but it is always evolving.
Dont' get me wrong I love the classics but I do like some of the mainstream music of today too. Good music recently made (imho): Killswitch Engage, Silversun Pickups, Deadsy, Jon Mayer, Stone Sour, Kanye West. I can even stand some of the mainstream pop stuff occaisionally.
The tunes are still there, but they are a not the same as they were back in the day. As much as I love classic rock, I really couldn't stand those 70's throwback bands that were popular in the 2000's. (Jet, Wolfmother, etc) Not that those bands weren't good musicians. Their music seemed to lack originality, & to me was more about going backward than forward.
I dig 2 types of music, the kind that moves me emotionally & music that make me want to move physically. Good stuff is still here, you just have to find it!