Did classical music help create/form the music we have today?

Lady Gaga, Eminem, 50 Cent, etc. are pop singers performing music that is enjoyed by the masses. There has always been music that appealed to the masses. They tend to be simple, catchy, short with much repetition. Over the centuries much of it was lost because it wasn't written down. Over time, "serious" composers who wrote music for royalty and the educated started to utilize music of the people (folk music) in their compositions which saved the melodies. During the 19th century composers such as Brahms and Liszt wrote compositions that either quoted folk music or resembled folk music. During the 20th century classically trained composers such as Bartok, Granger and Vaughan Williams went around their respective countries recording singers, who were often untrained, who knew old folk songs. Cecil Sharp traveled Great Britain and the Appalachian area of the United States collecting old ballads that had survived by oral tradition in those locales. He would find numerous variations of each song since they were often changed as singers forgot words or parts of the melody. Many of the folk songs that you learned in elementary school were "pop" songs in their day and were kept alive through oral tradition, then eventually published. Once a thriving music publishing industry was created that catered to the masses, pop music started to be printed, and with the advent of recording devices, it was disseminated via records and radio. So, classically trained composers help save some of the folk (pop) music, but who knows how much was lost over the centuries. Just as the music of Beethoven and Mozart has lived on for two hundred plus years while their contemporaries Spohr and Salieri are more or less forgotten , some pop composers works will undoubtedly live on as well while others will be forgotten because the masses are always fickle and want something new and different.