There's music like that in every generation. The reason why we remember bands such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and such today is because truly good music will stand the test of time. Every decade has had it's share of awful 'popular' music while the great stuff is few and far between. The Rolling Stones, CCR, and Steppenwolf, for example, were definitely not topping the music charts in the 60's. You know who was? The Archies. I bet you've never heard of them before; and that's just paramount to my point.

Other great bands that barely ever scored top hits in the billboard were pre-black-album Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Pantera, Diamond Head, The Cure, Iron Maiden, Rush, etc etc. We remember them as 'the greats' because the music was actually good. But back when those bands weren't considered 'godlike' and other stuff was making the top 10 [like A-ha], you had to really dig to find them. That's how it is now, as well. There's plenty of good music being made this generation, it just takes a lot of searching outside the Billboard Top 100.

If I must give examples; Coheed & Cambria [Pop-Prog], Anarchy Club [Hard Rock], X Japan [Power-Speed-Metal], Lake of Tears [Gothic Rock/Metal], Brand New [Alt Rock], Nujabes [Jazz/Hip-Hop Fusion], Alestorm [Pirate Metal], Beck [Alternative], Between The Buried And Me [Prog], Drudkh [Black Metal], E.S. Posthumous [Orchestral], Have A Nice Life [Black Shoegaze], Idaho [Slowcore], etc etc

I could ramble on but I think I've made my point enough.