Capitalism creates a race to mediocrity, and the lowest common denominator will, by necessity, become the most prominent product. It isn't really surprising and has pretty much always been the case in music, just moreso since roughly the mid-80s with the advent of music TV. There are major, usually pleasant exceptions but even they were/are propped up to some extent by easily digested, safe pablum and heavy-duty marketing machines. Look at the list of best selling albums and you'll see half of it is garbage flavour-of-the-month stuff that nobody talks about now, the rest of it is stuff that maintained relevance throughout the years.
This isn't to say that anything massively popular with wide appeal is unremarkable, but that unremarkable is more likely to be massively popular with wide appeal.
If you're saying that the more recognition music gets the 'better' it is then you're basically saying that things like, the Jonas Brothers, and Lady GaGa are better than [insert your favourite band here], in which case... why would you even listen to that music when theres more popular (read: better) music out there?
Underground music isn't any less good than any other music. There is no direct relation between popularity and quality when it comes to the arts. An eithiopian man could paint the most breathtaking picture in the history of mankind, but he later starves to death and his work is gone from this world forever... just because no one knew about it doesn't mean it wasn't spectacular.
Yeah that was probably way too much ranting but I hate when people are like... well if it was good then why isnt it popular... if things are good they're popular etc. etc. because its really not the case. Things that are spectacular can go unnoticed, and mediocrity is celebrated on a daily basis.
