From about the era of post punk and power pop (late 70s) through to about 10 years ago (the 2000s) it was very common for a lot of artists to utilise catchy, memorable power chord hook progressions in choruses or throughout entire songs. Typically these consisted of 2-5 chords in a loop. In the last decade or so, use of this has declined heavily, and even bands such as Green Day, Foo Fighters and Idlewild, which used to be synonomous with doing so, now only do so on odd songs. Beat or thrashiness (is that even a word?) have become the main focus instead with most artists. I'll search iTunes looking for music and only come across a handful of new songs a year by a select few artists that still sound the way I like.
I made some threads/polls on other forums and it seemed that very few of the users, in particular younger ones (me being an exception, of course), liked music that only utilised a few chords in the entire song, and many even said they found this music among the most forgettable stuff they'd heard. Instead, they preferred "complex" music that I can't get the grip on remembering. I took a musical preference test in which I had to give my opinion on about 30 samples, and got a "very high" score in the unpretentious category, which could explain my preference.
Here are some examples that do what I'm talking about:
The One I Want - Green Day
When I Come Around - Green Day
Learn To Fly - Foo Fighters
Stay The Same - Idlewild
September Gurls - Big Star
Slackjawed - The Connells
Pieces - Dinosaur Jr
Private Plane - Husker Du
We Go Down Slowly Rising - Primal Scream
So where's all the music like this gone?