The hardest thing about our social system is that everything is judged on how well it sells. We are all about the polished, finished product because if it sounds like Bad Boy or the Neptunes or Timbaland, then it will sell like them too and sales is the ultimate motivation for most records nowadays. The corporate business model would never support a well written, but poorly produced song because the listeners need it to have 48 tracks with each instrument having been perfectly chosen, mixed and presented in a format that sounds like everything else that's out there....

This kicks open the door for cats that can't write but have style to get paid. Look at how folks like Busta Rhymes, Mary J., and others have progressed in their career. They started out with well written artistic lyrics over less than amazing beats and now they do tracks with Mariah Carey, where they are hardly saying (or singing) half-assed lyrics over a sick beat...and whether or not the producer is well known, the sound is very "over-produced" to make up for the lack of artistry in the fiber of the song (lyrics that have a universal meaning/message).

Imagine Busta "Unplugged"...
*guitar strums*
Baby if you give it to me
I'll give it to you
I know what you like

Because of the very technical advances that made this change possible, music will quite likely never be the same....

Dope music still exists and always will...be glad there's the Internet so that you can find out about it...because my guess is that if a Bob Dylan were to hit the streets with his original demo today, he'd get laughed out of every record company/radio station around because his stuff doesn't sound like it was produced in a multi-million dollar studio. That's just where music's at because of DIY studios, because of the evolution of hip hop music, because corporations own the industry now, and because consumers don't buy the more artistic music...they'd rather buy millions of copies of 50 cent and Ja Rule talk about gunshots, murder, pimpin and bitches over Dre or Tim's dopest track than they would any underground artist who might actually write a cohesive song about anything of substance.