This is a huge factor. When I heard that opening guitar of "Baby Blue" on the Breaking Bad finale it gave me chills. A lot of people who didn't know anything about Badfinger were exposed to that song and absolutely loved it. They rushed to iTunes to buy it. The MCU is pretty much the biggest thing ever and they've had some of the best needle drops I've seen. "Moonage Daydream" in Guardians, "Dear Mr Fantasy" in Endgame, "Immigrant Song" in Ragnarok just to name a few. I've heard people say that Marvel is too on the nose with their song selection but it works for them.
And commercials expose people to so many great songs, past and present. I've discovered so many artists because of some song I heard on an Apple commercial.
But if you drill down far enough I think it comes down to one thing, modern pop music has style but no soul. Everything is over produced and pristine. They have a formula and they stick with it. It's about time for another Kurt Cobain to come along and destroy the formula.