The difference between the genres of music so far is control.
Bear with me, I have a point.
Rock was uncontrolled, so while it lasted for a while, it burned out when the public burned out, paving the way for new music, ie. Punk.
Punk was mad and over the top, and a reaction to the old guard of rock. It was never going to last, because it was a grassroots rebellion with no clear end.
The eighties was about the music industry trying to control what people listened to and bought by manufacturing music. In the same way that industry tries to supply in mass quantities what is demanded by the public, the music indsutry created massive amounts of supply, trying to create a demand.
Rap, new wave punk, hip hop, were originally intended as an uprising from the streets to take back music once more, in the same way as punk, this was the nineties, but the corporations had grown to massive sizes now, and so when the 'grassroots' artists got too big, the music companies just signed them on, destroying their punk credibility.
This leads to the noughties, where music is controlled entirely by the big producers. If they want someone to become big, they market the crap out of them until they are big. If they want someone to stay small, they completely ignore them, and trust that the public will do the same.
So in the tens, unless there is another massive grassroots rebellion of rock, punk, or some other style of music we haven't heard from for awhile, pop will continue its stranglehold on what we listen to.
Sorry for wall of text, wanted to make my argument clear.
