I guess I'm a bit older than you, and therefore probably brought up on a different musical diet. SHP is, to me, simply infectious pop music that, stripped of everything else, is hugely enjoyable.
Yet I remember working with a young woman who was going through a very painful time, who told me that Everybody Hurts was an incredibly important song for her. But that's the thing about music I guess. It's intensely personal and, in my humble opinion, there is no such thing as 'bad music'.
I like a bit of smelly fromage from time to time, in fact I went to a great big cheese fest in Leeds last Saturday - it was stinkin'ly good.