This general topic has come up at least a half dozen times since I joined the forums 7 years ago. And every time it has surfaced, one extremely cogent point gets lost in the discussion.

BIAB is NOT a DAW.

It HAS a DAW built into it as a convenience to users, but it is NOT a DAW. It is a musical generation tool. MUSIC generation, not drum loop generation.

The best analogy I can use here is to say that a rock is a hammer because you CAN use a rock to drive nails, though it was never intended to be used that way.

As far as "current music" quality, what you are hearing in your mind's ear is not the raw music. You are hearing the effects of high end mastering, possibly higher end than can be done without extremely expensive and advanced mastering plugins that a lot of us hobby level users do not have. (I use Izotope.) The actual content of the music is not that much better, and in some cases not as good, as some of the stuff created just by the users of this forum. Remember that A does not equal B on this forum, meaning that the roster of members here does not necessarily equal the number of copies of BIAB out there. If it did, then the number of users would grow consistently with every sale. I was on this forum for about 8 weeks BEFORE owning the program so I could read, listen and learn without commenting. (There are some who refer to that as "the good old days", but that's another story.) When that song hits the radio and you hear it, you don't get to hear it during the fermentation period.

The writing itself is the focal point for me. Again note, FOR ME. That Drake tune that is listed as the top song is a piece of crap, resolving to vulgarity to draw attention and sell units to that lowest common denominator audience who think it is somehow "underground hip and cool" to curse on the radio. Songwriting in almost every genre is sadly and pathetically formulaic.

You may have heard this on youtube, but it's a fun listen so check it out again. 6 country songs laid on top of each other.

6 song mashup