For some reason this just sounds depressing.
Imagine bonding over gruel, because everyone else is eating it and you can’t connect with them unless you are able to discuss the consistency and mouthfeel of the gruel.
Imagine bonding over gruel, because everyone else is eating it and you can’t connect with them unless you are able to discuss the consistency and mouthfeel of the gruel.
Pop music isn't gruel. A lot of it may be slop, but it's deeply appealing. Somebody somewhere solved for what "works", and a million copycats cloned it with minimal effort because it works.
So don't think gruel. It's more along the line of... McDonald's. Bad food, but it's appealing. And people do bond over it, or at least they used to before people stopped caring and fast food places became utter hellscapes. You still see kids bonding over McD's in Japan.
Time signatures, instrumentation, arrangements, chord progressions, etc are the base gruel that forms the core of almost all (western/popular) music.
The "new" contributions of most artists are more like flavorings or spices with the occasional unexpected twist on the base. And, critically, this is necessary to find an audience.
Even bands that "change music" are just permuting on the basic gruel. And, usually, just popularizing the permutations that other bands have tried first but were too early/didn't break out of their local audience/etc.
Often these permutations only get popular because they bring with them a new and appealing (or under-represented) aesthetic. It's not even really the music, necessarily.
There are exceptions, there are some real musical innovators. They rarely get popular though, no matter how much respect they earn from their peers.