Zappa called the decline of the music industry back when the snowball was just beginning to roll downhill (see: l"Tinseltown Rebellion", written in 1981)
Assorted random thoughts:
1. Much as I would like to see it, the SNL incident probably won't make a dent in Ashlee's career. The record company will make some excuse and say "Shut up and buy her CD"
2. I remember while working for Best Buy that the Best Buy Radio (which really wasn't "radio", just 3 CDs on rotation) before each song would have some guy promo-ing the upcoming song, and what would make me equal parts laugh and be sick was when he promo-ed every new band as some fresh hybrid of genres, when it was just the same old shit. Examples would be him saying "This band plays a fresh mix of punk, rock, metal and hardcore" and it would be some horrible "We wish we were Blink-182" B-level punk song.
3. And speaking of hybrids, I finally heard the crossover-attempt-to-end-all-crossover-attempts the other day when my g/f played the Nelly/Tim McGraw (at first I couldn't even tell it was Nelly since he wasn't altering his voice through a mixer, but that's another story) song "Over and Over Again", which is appropriate since the song plays the same monotonous melody over and over again. It takes the good things about both genres and tosses them out the window.