I don't think that "things being released nowadays" are any more or less subsumed than things of previous generations. Consider the '50's: if it wasn't Big Band, it wasn't music. Further back, Medieval England: if it wasn't Biblical chorus, it was heretical.

Right now, our free market economy has produced a handfull of major record labels that produce the most advertised music, but they are not responsible for all variety. Check out Borders or Newbury Comics: there are more types of music than there were even ten years ago.

Who in the 1970's would know of grunge, alternative, pop alternative, hardcore, screamcore, emo, jazz fusion, classical reiterative, hardcore punk? Who in the '50's would know of disco, or psychedelic? Just as information density increases over time, music density has increased, regardless of how much publicity each category gets.

I can name four independent record labels in my home state off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are more. On the surface, music may seem like an impenetrable layer of shite, but just underneath, there is a cornacopia that humanity has never experienced before now.

Because we are part of the generation, it is impossible to determine the worth or value or even the patterns in which our generation's work follows. It is easy to say: "Oh, look at the value of impressionism" now because we are so far away from that time period and can observe it objectively. Simiarly, it is very important to note that the famous works that are signature to generations (Beat Generation, Modernism, Realism, etc) were usually very unpopular at the time. This is another reason to believe that we really just don't know what is important or even if our work has any worth compared to those of other generations until after this generation has passed. What is popular today will be neglected in the eyes of future critics. The important figures of tomorrow will be the ones that we do not recall seeing today.

I'm part of the new generation and yes, I agree we are all fake. We do nothing for ourselves, decent anyway. I try not to conform. I work for myself. I try not to take the easy way out by paying for things I could do myself. I go to better music, not the pop stuff that means nothing. I listen to Industrial because it means something for me. I'm goth. Maybe I'm that way because of how my generation works and because I notice that. All I know is every day I go to school and people wear the same clothes and listen to the same music and read the same things and it makes me want to hide my face.

Socrates thought thousands of years ago that his new generation was declining in thought and art. Every generation thinks this is happening. The truth is that classics only come out every few years. You see that even from thousands of years there is only about 100 classics. Think about it.