We still have a fairly constant supply of good gigs. We've had Mastodon, Red Fang and Thurston Moore's new band playing here in just the last week.
Xfactor's shit and so is MTV Rocks but you don't need to even turn on tv these days to find out about decent music. And it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to acquire.
There's still a lot of terrible music being made but it's easier to ignore these days. While you've pissing and moaning about all the shit stuff that's come out lately Converge, Torche, Goat, Deerhoof, Death Grips, Theesatisfaction and Deafheaven have all been bringing out deadly albums
This might be blasphemy around here but I think pitchfork's ok. I've found out about some great stuff from there. Once I avoid anything with the word shoegaze or doom metal in the description it's generally alright.
And personally, I'll take mediocre surf over shit grunge or britpop.
We don't agree on anything except Deathgrips so I won't go into this too heavily, however my problem with the internet, of T.V and Radio is that when I was growing up, listening to music was something I did to relax, it was something I could do passively and when things were good, 120 minutes, or John Peel or alternative nation etc I could relax and be exposed to plenty of music that I otherwise wouldn't have heard. The internet is a great tool for "finding" music but the act of looking breaks the relaxation aspect of it for me and as such it's less affecting.
MTV rock is a pretty perfect example of what's wrong with music now, it's been divided into genres and reduced by search engines to the point that if you listen to a band you like instead of getting something "new" from the internet you typically get something that sounds exactly like the band you've been listening to. Hence the Surf Rock thing and why I don't get it. Friends of mine listen to it and I'm convinced it's all the one band, it's not but because they can get hold of so much of it so easily they own 20-30 albums all of which sound exactly the same. And it's not just surf either, god forbid you listen t The Jesus Lizard and play any of the suggestions generated by the internet, you'll see what I mean.
All of that being said I have listened to internet radio stations and had the same relaxation/exposure thing happen but it's rare bacause the stations themselves subscribe more and more the the "internet" ideal of how to produce their shows and so again it seems to be a constant barraige of identical bands.