Alexis Petridis: When did pop become so boring?

"Pop music is having a potentially fatal existential crisis: when did pop cease to suggest a life more glamorous or exciting than your own? When did it cease to be aspirational, strange and intriguing?" - Alexis Petridis asks - "how did we go from Lady Gaga wearing the contents of a butcher’s counter to the 2010 MTV awards to nondescript artists who are only distinguished from their audience because they’re the ones on stage?"