I listen to a wide range of music but the music I listen to most and am the most fond of is metal, thrash, doom, sludge, black you name it. I go to shows and hang out with allot of people in that "culture". I gotta say I have never met a nicer and more emotionally stable group of people than i have in the metal community. I understand there are always shit-birds but as a whole the metal community is fucking solid. funny enough there are allot of similarities in personality between those who enjoy metal and those who listen to allot of classical symphonic music. you are correct tho, popular music is pretty damn vanilla now a days. im going to look down my nose and raise my pinky for a sec here and say if the mainstream popular music is the only music you listen to than you might not be a big music fan, and its probably not the medium that speaks to you to provide your emotional outlet anyway.