One of my favorite things about being a college Arts editor is the free CDs. True, a majority of them end up in the “who-the-hell-is-this-person” pile, but there are always a few highly anticipated gems that come in and garner much excitement.

Over the summer, I was the only one checking the Arts mail; thus, I was the only one who got to see the CDs and steal the good ones before anyone else got a look. I was also lucky enough to get a contact at the record label Epitaph — a label associated with many of my favorite bands.

So, in the course of the past few months, I’ve received four CDs I was very excited about, coming from some of my favorite bands — Bouncing Souls, Dropkick Murphys, Rancid and Pennywise. Imagine my excitement! I was going to hear the new albums before almost anyone else in Madison.

Then reality set in. First up was the Bouncing Souls, which I always liked for their blend of ska, punk and a terrific lead singer with a unique voice. As I popped in the group’s latest effort, though, I was disappointed. Gone are the quirky punk anthems with lyrics like “Who’s gonna throw the toilet off the roof?” and “I’m a hopeless romantic / you’re just hopeless.” What’s replacing them? Well, not a whole lot. The album is bland, predictable and even leans a bit in the direction of — gasp — emo.

I brushed that disappointment off and moved on to Dropkick Murphys. At least they couldn’t change too much, I thought. After all, Irish punk is Irish punk — there aren’t too many new directions it could go in.

Wrong again. While there’s still a taste of the old Irish flavor of albums like Sing Loud Sing Proud, the majority of the new album sounds like generic punk, with nothing to distinguish the Murphys from any other band.

Now I was beginning to get disheartened.

Next up was Rancid, a mainstay in the somewhat-mainstream punk scene if there ever was one. I didn’t even get a chance to listen to the album before I saw the video for its first single. The video (which was on www.mtv.com) features not only Kelly Osbourne, but also the lead singer of Good Charlotte, a band I despise more than almost any other “band” out there. End of story — Rancid has finally just reached the point of giving up.

By this time, I was too jaded to even have the heart for the new Pennywise disc. I just couldn’t stand listening to yet another boring, so-so album from a band that has made so much great music in the past. Where are the quirky sounds, the interesting lyrics, the videos that don’t feature mall punks and guys that don’t wear their mohawk up anymore (ahem, Tim Armstrong)?

All this left me wondering what, exactly, has happened to music these days, and at the risk of sounding like an old fart, I blame the mediocrity of mainstream music of almost every genre on two things: MTV and radio stations.

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but chances are good that if you did nothing for a whole day except watch MTV, you would hear the same five or so songs at least twice each, if not more (of course this is assuming MTV still played music videos, but that’s a different column entirely). Same with radio — after working in an office all summer, with radios in all the cubicles surrounding me tuned to the same station, I think I can safely say that if I hear “Drift Away” by Uncle Kracker one more time, I’m going to open fire.

So, if people’s main outlet for music videos and their main outlet for listening to music both play the same songs all day, why do we still listen to them? Ratings for MTV and mainstream radio haven’t gone down significantly over the past few years, as far as I have noticed. Maybe it’s just that people don’t really care about music anymore.

Think about it. If people don’t care about music, they probably just want to turn it on and tune out. It’s more background noise than anything else, really. That means what’s going to sell is the music that fits that scenario — boring tunes that don’t really stick out. If something happens to come along that does stick out, it gets overplayed to the point of becoming routine, making it blend in even more. What’s an artist to do?

Apparently the answer for too many artists is to play into this scene and become, well, bland. It seems it wasn’t always this way — Rancid was played on MTV quite a bit back when …And Out Come the Wolves was released, and that music still stuck out, although perhaps that distinction is partly to blame for today’s copycat bands.

The one good thing about all of this is that it forces true music fans to dig a little deeper, to search a little harder for the really good stuff. Chances are you’ll discover far more greatness digging through the stacks at B-Side than you will by watching eight hours of MTV or making a trip to Best Buy. The good music is out there — now it’s our job to find it.