[jdietrich]

Your comments betray a profound ignorance of historical fact. The "old literature" you refer to is a carefully curated set of highlights, the loftiest and most sophisticated work collected over a span of centuries, written at a time when literacy was largely confined to an elite.

Disposable pop culture has always been with us, we just have much poorer records of it precisely because it is disposable.

I have a particular interest in broadside ballads, cheaply printed song lyric sheets that were made between the sixteenth and nineteenth century. All the critiques of modern pop lyrics are equally applicable to music that is older than the American republic. It's all there - sex, violence, drunkenness, repetitive lyrics, rehashed old melodies.

For example, are you dismayed by the crass sexuality of "Anaconda" by Nicki Minaj? Take a look at "The Maid's Complaint", a charming ditty from the late 17th century that features lyrics like this:

  For I am a Maid and a very good Maid,
     and sixteen years of age am I,
  And fain would I part with my Maiden-head
     if any good fellow would with me lye:
  But none to me ever yet proffer'd such love,
     as to lye by my side and give me a shove
  With his dil doul, dill doul, dil doul,
     O happy were I, etc.

http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/21716/citation

The impression most people have of history is mere propaganda, a self-aggrandising origin story. Our past was systematically bowdlerised by generations of puritans and reactionaries. By any conceivable standard, we have not degenerated from some halcyon ideal; rather, we have advanced greatly, becoming more educated, more civilised, more peaceful, prosperous and decent.