First of all, it's not "hating." Hating is an irrational action, an intense feeling of animosity based on such obscure terms as someone's looks, a perceived wrongdoing against one's person by another person or a group of people, etc. Just because I don't like commercially made material with no artistic merit whatsoever, doesn't mean I "hate" either the people who make it or the people who buy it. You can't get everyone.
As to whom I actually like, there are lots of artists and bands (mostly non-mainstream, but a few who are in the mainstream, like MJ and Phil Collins) who are not only talented, but also artistic and original. They earn not only my respect but my utter admiration.
Your last statement is not only ridiculous but completely invalid, seeing as I'm a member of a Michael Jackson fan site. Last time I checked, Michael Jackson was a superstar--the single biggest superstar of all time. In addition to that, however, he was an artist who minded his image to the best of his ability and abstained from doing stupid things simply for shock value (as compared to others, both among his peers and among the recently popular mainstream musicians), and whose music actually had artistic value and made a lasting contribution to human art. The guy was a bona fide genius, and there's no one who can seriously dispute that. Moreover, the bulk of his material was not trite melodies about sex/drugs/partying/money, but about relevant issues and concerns to humankind, as I am sure you know. In order to be an artist, you have to create art--conforming to the cookie-cutter standards of the mainstream music industry and crooning about what the other singers have been going on about for the last 20 years is not art. It's marketing based on someone else's previous history of success.
The issue is that most "superstars" nowadays not only lack significant/extraordinary talent but vision and originality (or in the rare case they have it, it is seriously repressed by the mainstream labels they choose to sign on to, which restrict their artistic liberty because they are first and foremost a business, and it is easier to have someone imitate previously successful strategies/acts than to introduce something completely novel to the mainstream and risk complete and utter failure in that investment), which is why some have to resort to "barbaric" (simplistic) shock tactics to get people to look at them, and/or conform to "fad" musical styles that are ill-fitting to their vocal qualities in the case of the few who can actually sing impressively, like Beyonce. (Exhibit A: this song that even her fans largely dislike.)
Are we undergoing a shortage of talented musicians? No. We are not. There are many incredibly talented (even multi-talented) musicians and artists who go unnoticed because they wouldn't appeal to the mainstream's target audience: teens and young adults. Das Problem ist: major labels would rather pay a mediocre and malleable person (or a mildly talented one who is particularly fame-hungry and thus vulnerable and ripe for maipulation) who does as they desire and appeals to the masses based on their cultural values than pay an actual talented artist to create art and emotive, heartfelt, sincere music. That's my only issue, and from my perspective, that does not qualify as "hating."
P.S. The fact that some people earn more money for lip-syncing and gyrating their hips on-stage (or being modern-day gladiators in the case of pro-athletes, who are just as overpaid as most pop singers) than important/useful members of a healthy and educated society, such as doctors and professors/teachers, verges on the terrifying.
