Interesting, and seems to go along with the influence factor as well. For the past couple of years I've been caretaker of my friend's dead father's record collection while she's been living abroad (got that?) It's chock-a-block with the white man's blues. I've been surprised of how much of it is familiar to me -- not the songs themselves per se, but the sound of it.
Also, kids today are as into music as they ever were, if not more. I think it just doesn't look that way to a lot of us because the way they acquire and digest it is so different than what we grew up with. But most teenagers follow music on some level, tastes all over the place, and I would argue that there's even wider knowledge of a broader range of music among them now because it's so easy for them to access it and develop their taste early.