The Internet has started the great fragmentation of pop knowledge and I'm not sure how to feel about it.
No earlier generation had anything like X Factor or the Kardashians. They are phenomena as large as or larger than the nearest equivalent cultural omnipresences of earlier days (Elvis, The Beatles).
Hell, I'm having trouble figuring out what teenagers are listening to today. Radio will not tell you that. Apps like hypemachine may tell you what's popular on blogs, but I can't figure out a pattern. It's like there has been an explosion of artists and I can't understand the music landscape.
And the discussion about pop (and that's what pop ways, after all: a big discussion) is poorer/reduced, as fewer people participate to it per segment of "popular" culture.
Like them or not, past musicians, due to the centrality of pop music to everyday life, the huge amplification of their message (not easy to escape in micro-niches), and lack of alternative diversions, were part of a huge cultural discussion. Not encompassing everybody of course, but still huge, which gave added meaning (even if it was just an "interpretation" and nothing inherent) to their work and news, and especially gave it potency beyond "affecting a single person".