Good pop music is great but most of the stuff that I've heard can be listened to death, some pretty quickly. This just doesn't happen with good classical. I've only lived for 2 decades so perhaps l'll get sick of it in the future, but the beethoven, mozart, bach, handel I listened to as a kid is still brilliant and really enjoyable, stuff I can listen to all the time. Often a week or two is too long to listen to a pop CD. Of course some can be listened to for much longer and does have "real musical worth" (whatever that means).
You could also say that most pop is very similar, which contrasts with different composers in classical, but that would be very unfair because we've had less than a century of pop, probably more like 50 years or less for most of the pop we listen to today. It seems likely that most music written in any 50 year period in one culture is probably going to be pretty similar. Most people probably agree that 95%+ of pop is rubbish, but the figure is probably just as high for classical - we've just forgotten most of the mediocre composers.
Maybe people have trouble moving from pop -> classical listening because they are trained to listen out for certain things in pop which just aren't there in classical, like "hooks" or the little hummy bits that you remember after hearing the song just once or twice. Most pop songs seem to have 1 or 2 of these stuck onto one of several possible chord progressions. It's not that classical music of different periods doesn't have its own cliches, but often the "tune" part of the music seems to be a bit longer and more sustained than in rock, needing concentration or a few listenings to fully emerge. When it does it's usually much more satisfying for long-term listening. I think it's this, more than the larger number of instruments, that makes classical better.
Having said all that, I can't stand people who regard classical as the only real music. Firstly, like some people said earlier, these people are often just elitists who might not actually listen to that much music. Secondly, that view is wrong on the basis of evidence: a huge body of brilliant folk music (and early music) has survived for centuries, lots of it much older than any classical, so it must have some worth. Thirdly, if you take the elitist viewpoint you are essentially claiming that there was *no* worthwhile music of any kind before 400 years ago or so. Since we haven't evolved for 500-1,000x that span, at least, there have been at least 500-1000x musical geniuses to rival the best of the classical composers in human history - is it likely that they didn't come up with anything good? (Don't want to get into a deep discussion here of division of labour or anyhting, but I'm sure you get the general point).
I listen to both pop and classical. They're not the same thing and they're not for the same mood. They can both give you a musical high, though you probably burn through a lot more pop albums than classical cds to stay there. Sometimes folk or metal can be awesome, but other times it just gets really boring...then it's time for handel. For anyone who thinks classical (as one giant genre) is boring I would say give it another try
There's so much variety you might just not have liked whatever it was you were listening to. Listen to some beethoven (maybe Symphony #9) or handel (maybe Concerti Grossi) and give them a few plays before you stop listening. Listen to recordings on period instruments to eliminate those soppy romantic strings
If you like folk music but not classical, try some early music as a gateway drug. That's how I got back into classical after some angsty teenage years. Try Alfonso X El Sabio - Cantigas de Santa Maria or some rennaissance lute playing - John Dowland maybe - modern folk is based on a lot of that kind of stuff.
But the best music subjectively is what you enjoy listening to the most...
Edit
periurban - you're right that classical music isn't looking very commerically healthy at the moment. But that doesn't make it a less valid form of music or art (and doesn't necessarily make it a better one, either). Both classical and pop are written and produced with money in mind, just like any human activity. Commercial concerns have and always have had an impact on the production of music, because the composer/artist needs to eat. You're right, as others have already said, that a lot of elitists with no special love of music listen to classical, and always have. But then, at least as a high a proportion of pop music's listeners, and probably higher, have no particular interest in music either. It's silly to say classical music is stuck in a time-warp. In a few hundred years, the music written today which has endured will be in the classical category (which is not, of course, a label indicating a certain style, but more an extremely broad and productive period in musical history). Also, you must be aware that huge amounts of money - much, much, much more than goes into promoting orchestras - goes into convincing you to listen to current pop music. The great majority of pop music listened to today would simply not be listened to if not for the relentless hype machine of promoters, pop magazines, and so on. You're also spot-on when you say that pop culture may continue indefinitely by constantly discarding old acts and bringing on new ones - but Beethoven's symphonies - and presumably a small fraction of the pop we listen to today - are not disposable in the same way. It's this music, which still has an audience long after fashions have changed, that is better, IMHO.
