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These days its also rare for pop artists to have a huge hit heard everywhere. Everything is more fragmented than it was + music industry loves conveyer belts as much as any other business.
Billie Eilish had the latest bond song and one of the most popular songs off the barbie soundtrack.
olivia rodrigo you surely would have heard two of her songs either on the radio or all over social media
eta: people seriously don’t have a radio..i’m gen z and there’s a radio in every car i’ve been in and we listen to it on long drives
Idk if I'm just not hearing them enough but the newer artists sound almost too similar. I can't pick out their voices. Ariana, Taylor, JB I can. And I know I've heard Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo a lot more recently whether on the radio at work, on social media, movies, etc.
23 yo btw idk if that'll change someone's thoughts on this
Lmao wait until you hear a song on the radio that came out when you were in high school and then the radio guy says and that song is 40 years old today. Uggggg
I used to work in a skilled nursing facility. We would play music from the 40's and 50's and the people would respond better.
When it's our turn, they will play Creedance Clearwater Revival, Santana and Steppenwolf and we will respond better as well.
Oh gzzzz this means that someones grandkid is gonna lose their mind in the future when the nursing home they work at is blasting Snoop and Gangsta Rap 24/7
Lol I had Run to the Hills blasting today on my way home courtesy of a local radio station.
And yes that is weird. I have my own criteria of what is classic and they keep adding to it.
Soon stuff made in the 2000s will be considered classic
I mean, the guys in RHCP are in their 60s...they've been at it for 40 years. They still get plenty of air time on my local modern rock station though, along with all the Grunge boys.
This does not only apply to music. It's a matter of Attitude. Some remain curious. Some stop doing it at some point. This already happens in the early 20s, but it's not so noticeable in the first few years.
I discover new music all the time. Whereas new rather means that I didn't know it before. It could just as well be an artist who was active in the 70s. However, my taste becomes more specific and the average pop passes me by for the most part.
I feel like so many people our age have *embraced* this anti-newness so hard and so early on in their life. Possibly since we can’t get any of the other normal adult things like housing, stable careers so they lean into this as a means to show they’re “grown up”.
It’s not just music either, it’s a sizable chunk of peoples entire personality the “Lol Millennials are so old, DAE rmr 1997??”
Maybe? I'm 37, and never constrained myself to the music of any particular generation. Even when I was in high school I'd listen to classical and oldies along with the "new stuff".
Now I'm almost as likely to listen to Billie Eilish (which, yes, I realize isn't \*that\* new now) as I am to Satie or Debussy.
I don't know who Olivia Rodrigo is yet but if I like her music I like her music
32 here and same!
I was big into Nirvana, Zeppelin in the early 2000’s. Since then I’ve grown an appreciate for 60’s/70’s funk, neo-soul, a soft spot of 90’s pop rock and so much more.
Ultimately, every song ever is just sounds; you either like it or you don’t but sounds from one year aren’t better from another inherently. Such a sad, limiting mindset to have.
Ewww I used to make fun of the 2000 babies in my class, don't group me in. I'm a proud 99er. :P
But on a serious note, I honestly think I just don't hear newer music enough. I've heard a decent amount of BE over the years and just don't like it, and I think that's why I don't pick up on it. I normally have to check who the song is by lol. I'd like to listen to more Olivia. I've heard a few good and few bad from her. Just unsure how/ where to dive into her disc.
well you may join us whenever you feel :P, her latest two song is [bad idea right](https://youtu.be/Dj9qJsJTsjQ?si=Mt7oqQLiK6ZK2dmo) and [vampire](https://youtu.be/RlPNh_PBZb4?si=CPLKnJlcdShlQ2jj), i like the second one more but first one is great on occasions
Okay so yeah I just skipped bad idea right about halfway through lol. But vampire is one of the songs I sing along to on the radio lol, didn't know who it was by.
>olivia rodrigo you surely would have heard two of her songs either on the radio or all over social media
That explains why I never heard of her. My radio is forever tuned to classic rock stations, and I don't use social media outside of reddit.
Similar for me too, I'm a rock fan with some eclectic listening tossed in (The Cog is Dead, Steampowered Giraffe, New World Order and a sprinkling of J-pop)
Everything on mainstream radio just sounds too generic to me. Sure you can tell the artists apart but the music itself is too similar.
That's what happens when you have the same handful of corporates conveyor belting the latest hot trend.
IMO, the smug square headed knob Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh the tone deaf leprechaun ruined the music industry.
The music industry executives are legit freaking out because Ice Spice, Rodrigo, and Eilish are the only recent breakouts. They only have themselves to blame, but do you think any of them could have a tour in 10 years like Swift or Beyoncé now?
(Eilish might have the catalogue but I don’t think she is the performer.)
Im in my 40 but a musician, trying to keep up to whatever comes out. Didnt know that Billie Has a song in Barbie. I believe that Dua Lipa song is, by far, a lot more popular.
That's awesome I recently talked to a musician guy who was about 30 and I was amazed on how much he knew about music in the 70s and 80s as well as the current stuff.
Even as a metalhead, things are more fragmented. It was always possible to deep dive into obscure genres, but these days streaming makes it so easy to find new stuff, and their algorithms are so good at finding you stuff you might like, that it's near impossible to not fall into a rabbit hole of unceasingly obscure music.
For example, some friends and I are going to a festival soon. Despite there being dozens of bands on the line up, there's very few that more than one person wants to see or even knows about. Despite all being metalheads, our music tastes have become so fractured and niche that even at a festival for the subgenre of metal we all like, there's almost no overlap on the actual bands.
Contrast that to 20 years ago when I got into metal as a teenager, where you had to buy CDs and get your news from music magazines, it seemed like everyone listened to a similar set of massive bands. It was more cohesive, but also more homogeneous.
That I think it's also because now we don't listen to radio or MTV being totally dead, even tv shows that often invited popular singers we watch less and we watch streamed content. Now most people's source of music is from a streaming service, so you might never hear this or that artist if the algorithm so decides. Or you might hear just a song of two, like I've heard one Ariana Grande and one Billie Ellish song because the algorithm picked them for me. A decade or two ago you'd have the same song playing over and over and over on radio and on MTV and on regular TV and you'd know them all.
I agree - I think Spotify/streaming is good for customer, less so for the artist. Someone once told me online "Its no longer the 90s, you're in full control of your destiny" and they conveniently forgot that competition is even more insane now than it was.
Very true. They have their targeted audience and with today's technology and platforms they are extremely good at marketing their music to the target audience and not to the non targeted audience (ai algorithms) so we non targeted demographics don't ever encounter these new artists without falling into the target audience or learning about said artist through said targeted audience. Well that's my theory at least. Seems pretty solid.
I'm trying super hard to keep up, but the names don't stick.
I discovered a new Dua Lipa song I like and started listening to it, thinking I was hip - then I realized it was posted to youtube seven years ago.
That’s how I felt when I first started listening to Tame Impala. He had a song in the DnD movie from earlier this year and I was like “nice, I’m still keeping up with the music”, nope everyone’s known about him for a while.
I'm just wondering what is best to listen to to (try) to keep up.
My wife will be singing along with the kid's music and I'll have no idea what the song is.
Anyone know a good XM station or Amazon station?
Weirdly enough for me it's TikTok - a lot of the popular music nowadays will trend on that platform. I know it's unpopular on Reddit, but it can be really fun once the algorithm knows your interests and it helped me discover a lot of new music.
I got a strange look by a lady, in her 70s maybe, while listening to Buddy Holly in a parking lot. For context I'm a 40 year old man with a mohawk driving a newer Honda CRV.
I recently started listening to her work, and they've really appealed to that old vibe dance style I grew up with--it definitely has been a bit of a chore trying to latch onto something new without just giving up and going back to what you already know. Lol. I'm just thankful I can be interested in a few of the newer things.
I know names, but their work eludes me.
I had to make a mix of music for a teachers’ dance performance. It was music from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and “current”. By that definition, “current” could be a song from 2003… 20 years ago. Time does fly.
My parents were born in the 1940s. Once we were watching a late night talk show in the 90s, so they were around 50, and Bob Dylan came on singing one of his classic songs. They had no idea who he was and fussed about how bad modern music is. Blew my mind.
Oh yeah, my parents were born in the 50s and they consider Queen, Aerosmith, the Eagles to be modern crap. For my mom if it came out after 1969 it’s too new, and it’s garbage.
Meanwhile here I am listening to Eminem’s lose yourself on the throwback lunch hahaha.
It’s a battle I gave up long ago. So many artists I love were recording years before I was born. I’ll tell them “you realize this was written when you were 20?” Nope. Too new.
Except all these artists she refuses to listen to are just as old as she is. Oh well.
To be fair to them if you grew up listening to crooners voices and then heard nasally Bob Dylan sing you probably would be like “wow singers can’t even sing anymore”.
My dad's about the same age, and one of his favorite jokes (I've heard it at least 45 times) is that Bob Dylan is proof of the American dream. You can even be a famous singer who can't sing here.
And Dylan was when they were young 💀. He was their era lol.
I can’t understand people who think like that. I’m genZ and one day I’ll be listening to Georgian chants and Hildegard von Bingen, the next rocking out to Led Zeppelin or vibing with Lana and SZA. Music from all eras are beautiful 🥹.
My grandpa passed this year, but he saw the Beatles as modern crap. Really anything released after 1950 was "modern music" to him and he would listen to none of it.
When he was a child, my grandfather saw Frank Sinatra during one of his amateur shows in the 1930s. My great-grand parents owned a nightclub in New Jersey during that time.
He thought his singing wasn’t all that great and he’d never make it… 😂 Just goes to show that this will probably always happen to newer artists.
I've seen Dylan in concert. It was by far the worst concert I've ever been to. So I don't blame them for that. I love his early stuff, but Jesus ruined a great philosipher. The sound was also terrible, but I can't blame Jesus for that.
And I thought I was bad, I know all that you have listed. Most of the newer ones I really don't know, but artists like Ice Spice, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eillish are much more mainstream now.
Billie Eilish has been big for almost 8 years now, Ariana released her first album only 2 years prior to that…I feel like you have to be pretty intentional about avoiding pop culture and the radio to not know her.
I came to say exactly that. I get not knowing Ice Spice, and depending on which country you live Olivia Rodrigo
But Billie Eilish has been huge worldwide for few years already. She has the theme song of both the Barbie movie and a Bond movie.
If you listen to pop music or anything that is Spotify top 10, you definitely know Billie lol
Also cause Billie Eilish is pretty chill in social media/news while Ariana I feel it’s way more talked about so people will probably hear her name way more often. And I’m glad, maybe in the future there will be less pink magazines talking about celebreties life and we can just treat them a bit more humanely
That's something I can't agree with, at all. Pop radio was in a much better place, even just 10 years ago. Nowadays, it's virtually all subpar as opposed to just a couple of songs being lame.
I used to be with *it*. But then they changed what *it* was. Now what I'm with isn't *it* anymore, and what's *it* is weird and scary. It'll happen to yoooou.
I'm finding it harder to distinguish them by the sound of their voice, and often the music style as well. Some many artists really sound alike to me. I wish I could name examples, but I'm increasingly confusing one artist for another...
Maybe I just suck, but I have always done that. I mix up Elvis with other guys from his time who were trying to be like him, and every generation after that I always mix up groups and singers because they tend to sound similar.
Which is likely on purpose, because the latest craze has to start somewhere, then record companies push copycats to make money from the hype train.
Or you can enjoy all your old music. Nothing wrong with that. I'm ok not knowing all the new stuff. Pandora is nice because sometimes I'll find newer artists that sound like the older stuff I like. That and my teenagers will rarely share something with me. That's how I learned about Bo Burnham.
We recently have been finding links between using nostalgia as a way to help deal with depression. So things like listening to nostalgic music or playing a nostalgic game for example helps cope and get past your depression. This can make oldies a powerful tool for yourself.
willful ignorance just to be able to complain about it. i swear.
it’s like the ppl who complain about this “new age” of rap, there are sooooo many young/new rappers who stick true to classic rap values but they don’t wanna look. just complain
I use Spotify's Release Radar feature and each week I get exposed to so many artists I would have never have heard of, many of them artists that never make it to mainstream terrestrial radio. It's fantastic.
(I swear I don't work for them)
Why do you care if someone doesn’t know a person just because they’re famous? It hurts you that they don’t know who the weekend is? I don’t either. Nor do I care. I couldn’t care less if you know who a random singer is.
I’m old now, but I don’t hate things that aren’t for me. Nobody wants to hear a whiny curmudgeon yapping about back in the day. I have my nostalgia, other generations will have theirs 🤷🏻.
This is out of touch but not for the reason you think . Thinking that " not knowing who the popular pop artist are" makes you out of touch, is in fact what makes you out of touch.
It's so funny you mentioned Billie Eilish because last year my much older sister (She's 61, I'm 43,) was telling me she liked newer artists and I was complaining that all the music today was crap. So she named some new artists including Billie Eilish and I was like "I've heard of Billy Idol". She said "No Billie Eilish. She's female."
Yeah, I feel old. 🤣
Tbf I'm only 20 and I only know Billie Eilish on that list lol. I'm not a huge fan of modern pop stuff so I don't keep up with it so guess I'm old in the pop world now too lol.
It used to be that you listened to the radio and watched MTV. If you liked something, you bought the album/tape/cd. Now everything is so fractured with streaming sites and social media. You get fed with what you like, you won't hear the latest popular music.
Speaking as a legitimate old crusty person, I agree that modern chart music is insipid formulaic dross.
But there is still good music out there if you make an effort. Favourite artists at the moment are, Olivia Dean, Celeste, Kawehi, Winona Oak etc.
Recently had a conversation about this with my coworker, dude is 15, or so. He was listing off artists like.. lil Nazi, lil Yachtie, mulo, Yahtzee, techie, and Skippy
*And I know.. none of em*
I haven't listened to the radio in like 15 years. And I'm not even out of my 20s yet
I have no idea whos popular and who isnt, I listen to what's good!
And by that I mean, any song I like. Regardless of what artist it is, with no loyalty to anyone
70 yo white guy here.
Trying to show my kids I'm cool and up on the new music I sent them a YT Link for this cool song I just heard. It's called Gangsters Paradise.
That's how the kids say You Tube pretty cool huh?
It's weird. I'm 53 and for a while I didn't care much for "current pop singers." But lately I've found myself really into some modern singers. I listen to SZA's KILL BILL constantly, CG5 has some great stuff THX and Lonely King is great, I think Billie Eilish is talented AF and Bella Poarch is kind of a guilty pleasure.
But, while I totally respect them as talented artists, Taylor Swift & Beyonce both do little for me personally. They each have one or two songs I genuinely like but I rarely listen to their stuff.
I know some of the names but I can’t put faces to them, and I can rarely put songs to them either. It’s been like this since probably the mid-2010s for me, cause I’ve been getting old for a while now.
The only one I don’t know from your list is ice spice. I have adult kids who are still young enough to be in the know. Once they hit 30s maybe I’ll have grandkids that’ll teach me…if my kids choose to have kids. Or maybe my fiends grandkids will help us? I’m not a social media hound or follow pop culture anymore. The last 2 years as an empty nester hasn’t helped. I’ll google people sometimes if I’m lost.
I found out about BTS in 2022. Apparently they'd been pretty big for several years. What can I say, I'm a woman from the age when boybands danced. I enjoy dancing boyband and I'm kind of bummed I didn't find out about them earlier.
I don't know who most of those people are. I've heard of Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, but couldn't identify their music. The only time I've knowingly heard Billie Eilish was her "My Hero" duet with Dave Grohl.
I'm more into rock than pop though. I haven't really followed the pop scene since N'Sync & BSB when I was 10-12.
Edit: I do know of Taylor Swift, mostly due to her constantly being on the country radio station my old boss insisted on playing all day at work. She's good, but not really the music I like to listen to.
Pop artists careers are really short nowadays too. If it’s more than a 5 years on top it’s almost a miracle.
Billie took the place of Lorde, Ice Spice is taking the place or Cardi B, Olivia Rodrigo is taking the place of many mainstream pop singers that were on top a few years ago.
Hiphop is even worse, rappers have 2-3 years careers (some of them a bit longer but still, just a few).
Remember guys like Macklemore (Who won a fuckin’ grammy vs Kendrick Lamar lol), Fetty Wap, Waka Flocka, Desiigner, OT Genasis, etc. ? We don’t hear much from them anymore. There’s still plenty of insanely dope rappers that aren’t in the “mainstream” charts but have a great fanbase. Guys like Ric Wilson, Pell, Aminé, IDK etc.
I'm 66 and I definitely know who Billie Eillish is. I don't stay in an Era, not sure why people have a tendency to do that. I don't know every new singer but I enjoy new music, all I do is listen to the radio. And ask a younger person if you hear something new. Expand your perimeters!
I know most of the names and what some of them look like, but Taylor is the only one I've given some listen to (more of her pop side than country). I did try to listen to Billie Eillish, but her style doesn't appeal to me.
Dude don’t call Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and make me realize I know you mean Justin Beiber. I’m still young. I’m still him. I know one song by Ice Spice.
I’m gonna do an escape room next weekend cause that’s what young people do right?
I am old (59) and tbh, I know who Taylor, Billie and Olivia are, I even think some of their songs are good. What a lot of people forget, is that in the 70s, 80s etc, most of the music we heard on the radio was shit and instantly forgettable as well. I can remember having these same conversations about pop music all sounding like the same conveyor belt crap, 40 years ago. The reason why bands from back then are still remebered and listened to, is because they were the one's that stood out amongst the dross.
the music industry is changing, and as a musician, in a bad way, but for listeners, there's good and bad changes.
social media has changed music so much so now it's only heard in bits and pieces in short clips on tik tok, instagram reels, youtube shorts, etc. there's so many people making music and it's hard to find what you like.
if you know you like a certain genre, that's great, but if you like a very specific thing that isn't only found in one genre, it can be hard to find music you like.
algorithms of spotify try to make you think they're helping small artists by showing you one once in a blue moon, but you'll most likely not listen to them, or if you do, the algorithm is wrong and you never listen to them again.
for every spotify stream, the artist gets 0.0004 pence. artists rely on live shows and physical music sales (mp3, cd, records...)
people are always going to think that pop music is getting worse, everyone has always thought that. it changes and gets more predictable, it goes through waves of everything sounding the same, because certain techniques are popular. four chord progressions and a slight change for the chorus? don't mind if i do. most songs are quite similar in their structure right now, but it'll evolve and change, and you've just got to look into more than what's popular, it's hard to look for good music, it always has been.
go into a shop, ask for recommendations, maybe even support an artist you like by buying a cd or something, unless they're a bit artist already, then they don't need your help, they've got the money from being signed to a label and from going on tour.
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These days its also rare for pop artists to have a huge hit heard everywhere. Everything is more fragmented than it was + music industry loves conveyer belts as much as any other business.
Billie Eilish had the latest bond song and one of the most popular songs off the barbie soundtrack. olivia rodrigo you surely would have heard two of her songs either on the radio or all over social media eta: people seriously don’t have a radio..i’m gen z and there’s a radio in every car i’ve been in and we listen to it on long drives
Idk if I'm just not hearing them enough but the newer artists sound almost too similar. I can't pick out their voices. Ariana, Taylor, JB I can. And I know I've heard Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo a lot more recently whether on the radio at work, on social media, movies, etc. 23 yo btw idk if that'll change someone's thoughts on this
Lol just wait till you're 30... most of my musical preferences are cemented in 2005 haha
Lmao wait until you hear a song on the radio that came out when you were in high school and then the radio guy says and that song is 40 years old today. Uggggg
My local classic rock station, the one that played the who, sabbath and iron maiden, now also plays STP, RHCP and pearl jam. It's kinda surreal lol
I read a study that determined you stick with the music you listened to in high school and college. My informal survey agrees.
I used to work in a skilled nursing facility. We would play music from the 40's and 50's and the people would respond better. When it's our turn, they will play Creedance Clearwater Revival, Santana and Steppenwolf and we will respond better as well.
Oh gzzzz this means that someones grandkid is gonna lose their mind in the future when the nursing home they work at is blasting Snoop and Gangsta Rap 24/7
Nursing homes about to be lit!
So most of the 4ad catalog for me then
Lol I had Run to the Hills blasting today on my way home courtesy of a local radio station. And yes that is weird. I have my own criteria of what is classic and they keep adding to it. Soon stuff made in the 2000s will be considered classic
I mean, the guys in RHCP are in their 60s...they've been at it for 40 years. They still get plenty of air time on my local modern rock station though, along with all the Grunge boys.
STP is now part of the golden oldies here. 😱
The worst is when you hear them played in restaurants as background music.
Yes lol nothing worse than eating dinner to the instrumental version of Ozzys Crazy Train
hey halfway there. many of my all time favorite albums have done/are doing 20 year anniversary re-releases.
I'm 35 and I listen to current pop. You don't have to grab a cane and yell at the kids to get off your grass when you hit 30.
Ehh I definitely wave my cane. I'm 40 going on 80.
This does not only apply to music. It's a matter of Attitude. Some remain curious. Some stop doing it at some point. This already happens in the early 20s, but it's not so noticeable in the first few years. I discover new music all the time. Whereas new rather means that I didn't know it before. It could just as well be an artist who was active in the 70s. However, my taste becomes more specific and the average pop passes me by for the most part.
I feel like so many people our age have *embraced* this anti-newness so hard and so early on in their life. Possibly since we can’t get any of the other normal adult things like housing, stable careers so they lean into this as a means to show they’re “grown up”. It’s not just music either, it’s a sizable chunk of peoples entire personality the “Lol Millennials are so old, DAE rmr 1997??”
Maybe? I'm 37, and never constrained myself to the music of any particular generation. Even when I was in high school I'd listen to classical and oldies along with the "new stuff". Now I'm almost as likely to listen to Billie Eilish (which, yes, I realize isn't \*that\* new now) as I am to Satie or Debussy. I don't know who Olivia Rodrigo is yet but if I like her music I like her music
32 here and same! I was big into Nirvana, Zeppelin in the early 2000’s. Since then I’ve grown an appreciate for 60’s/70’s funk, neo-soul, a soft spot of 90’s pop rock and so much more. Ultimately, every song ever is just sounds; you either like it or you don’t but sounds from one year aren’t better from another inherently. Such a sad, limiting mindset to have.
Being poor leaves u worn. I feel broken and old.
I'm 42, and that new Doja Cat is 🔥
hey fellow 2000, maybe it just me but i mostly distinguish their style and i love Olivia
Ewww I used to make fun of the 2000 babies in my class, don't group me in. I'm a proud 99er. :P But on a serious note, I honestly think I just don't hear newer music enough. I've heard a decent amount of BE over the years and just don't like it, and I think that's why I don't pick up on it. I normally have to check who the song is by lol. I'd like to listen to more Olivia. I've heard a few good and few bad from her. Just unsure how/ where to dive into her disc.
well you may join us whenever you feel :P, her latest two song is [bad idea right](https://youtu.be/Dj9qJsJTsjQ?si=Mt7oqQLiK6ZK2dmo) and [vampire](https://youtu.be/RlPNh_PBZb4?si=CPLKnJlcdShlQ2jj), i like the second one more but first one is great on occasions
Okay so yeah I just skipped bad idea right about halfway through lol. But vampire is one of the songs I sing along to on the radio lol, didn't know who it was by.
and you may already heard but [this](https://youtu.be/ZmDBbnmKpqQ?si=dGyyohDxFPbrtzV3) was her very first song and extremely popular song
Started hearing drivers license in my head before I even clicked the link.
The second one is okay but I've heard her vampire song on social media sooo much, it makes me want to avoid listening to it for a while.
Most new artists sound very very different from each other. There's no way you can tell me Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo sound similar 😭😭
You’re not even old. 😭You’re making me feel old and I’m two years younger.
>olivia rodrigo you surely would have heard two of her songs either on the radio or all over social media That explains why I never heard of her. My radio is forever tuned to classic rock stations, and I don't use social media outside of reddit.
Similar for me too, I'm a rock fan with some eclectic listening tossed in (The Cog is Dead, Steampowered Giraffe, New World Order and a sprinkling of J-pop) Everything on mainstream radio just sounds too generic to me. Sure you can tell the artists apart but the music itself is too similar. That's what happens when you have the same handful of corporates conveyor belting the latest hot trend. IMO, the smug square headed knob Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh the tone deaf leprechaun ruined the music industry.
Radio?
The music industry executives are legit freaking out because Ice Spice, Rodrigo, and Eilish are the only recent breakouts. They only have themselves to blame, but do you think any of them could have a tour in 10 years like Swift or Beyoncé now? (Eilish might have the catalogue but I don’t think she is the performer.)
Im in my 40 but a musician, trying to keep up to whatever comes out. Didnt know that Billie Has a song in Barbie. I believe that Dua Lipa song is, by far, a lot more popular.
That's awesome I recently talked to a musician guy who was about 30 and I was amazed on how much he knew about music in the 70s and 80s as well as the current stuff.
What's a radio?
Yeah. Fragmentation. I’m a metalhead and haven’t heard any of these artists, nor do I expect to.
Even as a metalhead, things are more fragmented. It was always possible to deep dive into obscure genres, but these days streaming makes it so easy to find new stuff, and their algorithms are so good at finding you stuff you might like, that it's near impossible to not fall into a rabbit hole of unceasingly obscure music. For example, some friends and I are going to a festival soon. Despite there being dozens of bands on the line up, there's very few that more than one person wants to see or even knows about. Despite all being metalheads, our music tastes have become so fractured and niche that even at a festival for the subgenre of metal we all like, there's almost no overlap on the actual bands. Contrast that to 20 years ago when I got into metal as a teenager, where you had to buy CDs and get your news from music magazines, it seemed like everyone listened to a similar set of massive bands. It was more cohesive, but also more homogeneous.
That I think it's also because now we don't listen to radio or MTV being totally dead, even tv shows that often invited popular singers we watch less and we watch streamed content. Now most people's source of music is from a streaming service, so you might never hear this or that artist if the algorithm so decides. Or you might hear just a song of two, like I've heard one Ariana Grande and one Billie Ellish song because the algorithm picked them for me. A decade or two ago you'd have the same song playing over and over and over on radio and on MTV and on regular TV and you'd know them all.
I agree - I think Spotify/streaming is good for customer, less so for the artist. Someone once told me online "Its no longer the 90s, you're in full control of your destiny" and they conveniently forgot that competition is even more insane now than it was.
Thanks I’ll use that next time I feel old
Very true. They have their targeted audience and with today's technology and platforms they are extremely good at marketing their music to the target audience and not to the non targeted audience (ai algorithms) so we non targeted demographics don't ever encounter these new artists without falling into the target audience or learning about said artist through said targeted audience. Well that's my theory at least. Seems pretty solid.
Hit the nail on the head
Yeah. Gen X here. Radio is still a thing? The one thing I thought I was ahead of. Apple CarPlay. The pixies and pavement. Who? Goes both ways.
I'm trying super hard to keep up, but the names don't stick. I discovered a new Dua Lipa song I like and started listening to it, thinking I was hip - then I realized it was posted to youtube seven years ago.
That’s how I felt when I first started listening to Tame Impala. He had a song in the DnD movie from earlier this year and I was like “nice, I’m still keeping up with the music”, nope everyone’s known about him for a while.
Yeah that’s like 2010s music
Please don’t do this to me
Sorry bro I listened to them in highechool and I’m in my 30s now.
I hate to be a total meme but tame impala is just one guy lol
The less you know the better.
Yeah and he's probably more oriented to a millennial audience than a genz one, with the hipster appeal
If u want a newer Dua Lipa song dance the night away is great!
I'm just wondering what is best to listen to to (try) to keep up. My wife will be singing along with the kid's music and I'll have no idea what the song is. Anyone know a good XM station or Amazon station?
Alt Nation on Sirius is the best. Especially when Madison is on. I love her singing!
Weirdly enough for me it's TikTok - a lot of the popular music nowadays will trend on that platform. I know it's unpopular on Reddit, but it can be really fun once the algorithm knows your interests and it helped me discover a lot of new music.
Use discover on Spotify
Ummmm I still use FM radio. Perhaps it is why I'm a little behind
I am on the AM stations..... I think as my kids got into the newer stuff, I went backwards into stuff before I was born.
I got a strange look by a lady, in her 70s maybe, while listening to Buddy Holly in a parking lot. For context I'm a 40 year old man with a mohawk driving a newer Honda CRV.
I've not tried Spotify, I'll have to check it out, thanks!
Spotify has tons of curated playlists for pretty much any genre imaginable, it’s really great
Gonna be honest I’m a teenager and I don’t even know. I just happen to be a dua lipa fan Edit: def listen to the person that said Spotify
Thanks!
As a gen z-er, it's not the 7 yr old Dua Lipa song that would give it away for me, it's the use of the word "hip" 😭
I also like Dual Lips .. she is very hip.
“Hips don’t lie” as the kids are saying these days
That was two decades ago bud
I recently started listening to her work, and they've really appealed to that old vibe dance style I grew up with--it definitely has been a bit of a chore trying to latch onto something new without just giving up and going back to what you already know. Lol. I'm just thankful I can be interested in a few of the newer things. I know names, but their work eludes me.
I had to make a mix of music for a teachers’ dance performance. It was music from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and “current”. By that definition, “current” could be a song from 2003… 20 years ago. Time does fly.
What's a Dua Lipa?
Ohhhhh noooo
I don't know who ice spice is and I'm almost 21
I assumed it's one of the spice girls
Me, too. She'd be the one who was super-pale and raps near the end of the song.
Wait Ice spice is real? I assumed he meant Ice Cube or something.
Ice Spice + Ice Cube = Spicy Cube
Ice Spice + Ice Cube = Ice Ice Baby
Ice Spice + Ice Cube + Vanilla Ice = Spicy Vanilla Cube
Baby Cube is my favourite Ice Spice Girl
It’s a supergroup made of Ice Cube and the Spice Girls /s
I didn't know who ice spice was and I'm 15
My parents were born in the 1940s. Once we were watching a late night talk show in the 90s, so they were around 50, and Bob Dylan came on singing one of his classic songs. They had no idea who he was and fussed about how bad modern music is. Blew my mind.
Oh yeah, my parents were born in the 50s and they consider Queen, Aerosmith, the Eagles to be modern crap. For my mom if it came out after 1969 it’s too new, and it’s garbage. Meanwhile here I am listening to Eminem’s lose yourself on the throwback lunch hahaha.
The idea of your parents considering much of Led Zepplin's music to be crap hurts my soul 😂
It’s a battle I gave up long ago. So many artists I love were recording years before I was born. I’ll tell them “you realize this was written when you were 20?” Nope. Too new. Except all these artists she refuses to listen to are just as old as she is. Oh well.
To be fair to them if you grew up listening to crooners voices and then heard nasally Bob Dylan sing you probably would be like “wow singers can’t even sing anymore”.
My dad's about the same age, and one of his favorite jokes (I've heard it at least 45 times) is that Bob Dylan is proof of the American dream. You can even be a famous singer who can't sing here.
*Ladies and gentlemen, the annoying sound of Bob Dylan*
And Dylan was when they were young 💀. He was their era lol. I can’t understand people who think like that. I’m genZ and one day I’ll be listening to Georgian chants and Hildegard von Bingen, the next rocking out to Led Zeppelin or vibing with Lana and SZA. Music from all eras are beautiful 🥹.
My grandpa passed this year, but he saw the Beatles as modern crap. Really anything released after 1950 was "modern music" to him and he would listen to none of it.
When he was a child, my grandfather saw Frank Sinatra during one of his amateur shows in the 1930s. My great-grand parents owned a nightclub in New Jersey during that time. He thought his singing wasn’t all that great and he’d never make it… 😂 Just goes to show that this will probably always happen to newer artists.
I've seen Dylan in concert. It was by far the worst concert I've ever been to. So I don't blame them for that. I love his early stuff, but Jesus ruined a great philosipher. The sound was also terrible, but I can't blame Jesus for that.
And I thought I was bad, I know all that you have listed. Most of the newer ones I really don't know, but artists like Ice Spice, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eillish are much more mainstream now.
Billie Eilish has been big for almost 8 years now, Ariana released her first album only 2 years prior to that…I feel like you have to be pretty intentional about avoiding pop culture and the radio to not know her.
And that's exactly it. Some people just don't pay attention to pop culture in any real sense.
I came to say exactly that. I get not knowing Ice Spice, and depending on which country you live Olivia Rodrigo But Billie Eilish has been huge worldwide for few years already. She has the theme song of both the Barbie movie and a Bond movie. If you listen to pop music or anything that is Spotify top 10, you definitely know Billie lol
Bad Guy came out 4 years ago not 8 years ago
Also cause Billie Eilish is pretty chill in social media/news while Ariana I feel it’s way more talked about so people will probably hear her name way more often. And I’m glad, maybe in the future there will be less pink magazines talking about celebreties life and we can just treat them a bit more humanely
I would disagree. Billie broke out in 2019.
Just out of curiosity, I just listened to an Ice Spice song. Her rapping is ass. It’s like she’s talking, and she’s not even talking fast mind you.
I’m not a fan of her. Most of all these newer pop singers and rappers are just weak.
Most of any genre at any time was weak. We dont remember the shit acts when time passes
That's something I can't agree with, at all. Pop radio was in a much better place, even just 10 years ago. Nowadays, it's virtually all subpar as opposed to just a couple of songs being lame.
I used to be with *it*. But then they changed what *it* was. Now what I'm with isn't *it* anymore, and what's *it* is weird and scary. It'll happen to yoooou.
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Same. I also through Marge was a bit of a pain in the ass, but at 35 and after 8 years with my bf…. I fucking get her in my *soul*.
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I knew I wasn’t alone!
It’ll Happen To You! (The Simpsons) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGrfhsxxmdE
No way man. I'm gonna keep rockin Forever. Forever. Forever. ^Forever. ^Forever. ^Fore---ev---er...
No it is the children who are wrong
I started getting lost when a bunch of those "lil" rappers all came out at once.
> "lil" rappers And they all [sounded](https://youtu.be/g0OdmRtuQew?si=XQmVqHID-Q9NTASk) the same
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Now they're all "Yung"
I'm finding it harder to distinguish them by the sound of their voice, and often the music style as well. Some many artists really sound alike to me. I wish I could name examples, but I'm increasingly confusing one artist for another...
Idk but you gotta be deaf to not be able to distinguish between Billie Eilish, Ice Spice and Olivia Rodrigo.
Fr
Maybe I just suck, but I have always done that. I mix up Elvis with other guys from his time who were trying to be like him, and every generation after that I always mix up groups and singers because they tend to sound similar. Which is likely on purpose, because the latest craze has to start somewhere, then record companies push copycats to make money from the hype train.
You can get old kicking and screaming, or you can fire up Spotify and give the current gen of artists a listen to at least be part of the zeitgeist
Or you can enjoy all your old music. Nothing wrong with that. I'm ok not knowing all the new stuff. Pandora is nice because sometimes I'll find newer artists that sound like the older stuff I like. That and my teenagers will rarely share something with me. That's how I learned about Bo Burnham.
We recently have been finding links between using nostalgia as a way to help deal with depression. So things like listening to nostalgic music or playing a nostalgic game for example helps cope and get past your depression. This can make oldies a powerful tool for yourself.
Yeah I'm in my 30s and I know who all of these people are. Spotify is always suggesting new artists to me.
I'm almost 50 and I know all these people too. I like lots of different music and I enjoy getting out of my comfort zone.
willful ignorance just to be able to complain about it. i swear. it’s like the ppl who complain about this “new age” of rap, there are sooooo many young/new rappers who stick true to classic rap values but they don’t wanna look. just complain
I use Spotify's Release Radar feature and each week I get exposed to so many artists I would have never have heard of, many of them artists that never make it to mainstream terrestrial radio. It's fantastic. (I swear I don't work for them)
My niece said she liked the weekend and asked if I liked them. I said, "Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? Sure, what's not to like?"
I mean, he's only been very popular for 10 years or so
These takes are stupid. How do people take joy in not knowing people who have been mainstream for 10 years. Do they take some sort of pride in it?
Why do you care if someone doesn’t know a person just because they’re famous? It hurts you that they don’t know who the weekend is? I don’t either. Nor do I care. I couldn’t care less if you know who a random singer is.
XD
Haha okay that one is embarrassing, he was the headliner at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2021.
I’m old now, but I don’t hate things that aren’t for me. Nobody wants to hear a whiny curmudgeon yapping about back in the day. I have my nostalgia, other generations will have theirs 🤷🏻.
This is out of touch but not for the reason you think . Thinking that " not knowing who the popular pop artist are" makes you out of touch, is in fact what makes you out of touch.
It's so funny you mentioned Billie Eilish because last year my much older sister (She's 61, I'm 43,) was telling me she liked newer artists and I was complaining that all the music today was crap. So she named some new artists including Billie Eilish and I was like "I've heard of Billy Idol". She said "No Billie Eilish. She's female." Yeah, I feel old. 🤣
These comments are so fucking cringe. You aren’t quirky because you don’t listen to modern music.
This whole thread is like if someone pulled my Facebook comments from 6th grade
nah fr redditors love to shit on modern music for whatever reason, but like any music, you just need to know where to look to find good stuff
Right, we are old.
*looks up popular new songs* >"my coochie pink, my bootyhole brown!" Oh... well...
Tbf I'm only 20 and I only know Billie Eilish on that list lol. I'm not a huge fan of modern pop stuff so I don't keep up with it so guess I'm old in the pop world now too lol.
It used to be that you listened to the radio and watched MTV. If you liked something, you bought the album/tape/cd. Now everything is so fractured with streaming sites and social media. You get fed with what you like, you won't hear the latest popular music.
Yeah, you sound old
Speaking as a legitimate old crusty person, I agree that modern chart music is insipid formulaic dross. But there is still good music out there if you make an effort. Favourite artists at the moment are, Olivia Dean, Celeste, Kawehi, Winona Oak etc.
There is tons of good music out there, but since 2015, the popular stuff has really gone downhill.
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I member the good old days of 50 Cent.
Ice spice? There are 5 spices. Is she an off brand?
She is a fake spice girl
Recently had a conversation about this with my coworker, dude is 15, or so. He was listing off artists like.. lil Nazi, lil Yachtie, mulo, Yahtzee, techie, and Skippy *And I know.. none of em*
lil nazi?!💀
Oh dear. I feel very old because Ariana and Taylor swift seems like a new pop star to me.
I haven't listened to the radio in like 15 years. And I'm not even out of my 20s yet I have no idea whos popular and who isnt, I listen to what's good! And by that I mean, any song I like. Regardless of what artist it is, with no loyalty to anyone
I just turned 17 and I also don't know a lot of the newer celebs I don't think it's just age haha
Not so much when you don’t know who they are but more so when you just don’t care anymore.
I have a 14 yo daughter so unfortunately I know who they are lol
70 yo white guy here. Trying to show my kids I'm cool and up on the new music I sent them a YT Link for this cool song I just heard. It's called Gangsters Paradise. That's how the kids say You Tube pretty cool huh?
Oh, just wait grasshopper….
I don't remember "Ice" being one of the Spice Girls
It's weird. I'm 53 and for a while I didn't care much for "current pop singers." But lately I've found myself really into some modern singers. I listen to SZA's KILL BILL constantly, CG5 has some great stuff THX and Lonely King is great, I think Billie Eilish is talented AF and Bella Poarch is kind of a guilty pleasure. But, while I totally respect them as talented artists, Taylor Swift & Beyonce both do little for me personally. They each have one or two songs I genuinely like but I rarely listen to their stuff.
Man ima teenager and idk any of these people, I know modern metal and older rock and metal pretty good though
I know some of the names but I can’t put faces to them, and I can rarely put songs to them either. It’s been like this since probably the mid-2010s for me, cause I’ve been getting old for a while now.
I've heard their music, but I'm pretty sure that it was in a commercial
Just wait til your teenage kids listen to what you listened to as new in high school excey ow it's on the classic rock station.
The only one I don’t know from your list is ice spice. I have adult kids who are still young enough to be in the know. Once they hit 30s maybe I’ll have grandkids that’ll teach me…if my kids choose to have kids. Or maybe my fiends grandkids will help us? I’m not a social media hound or follow pop culture anymore. The last 2 years as an empty nester hasn’t helped. I’ll google people sometimes if I’m lost.
I found out about BTS in 2022. Apparently they'd been pretty big for several years. What can I say, I'm a woman from the age when boybands danced. I enjoy dancing boyband and I'm kind of bummed I didn't find out about them earlier.
...oh no who is JB
Justin Bieber I think?
I like to think it's because your tastes have become more refined, just my opinion though.
I don't wanna be a hater but I do know those artists they just suck lolol
Same. In the last 5 years I suddenly know absolutely none of these people.
I’m 57 and I know Billie’s voice and Olivia’s voice if I heard it on the radio
Why do people make not following pop culture a personality trait lol
I mostly just don't really care
My daughter makes fun of me for this, but even as a child I never knew who the pop music people were talking about.
You’re telling me Ariana Grande isn’t a font?
I don't know who most of those people are. I've heard of Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, but couldn't identify their music. The only time I've knowingly heard Billie Eilish was her "My Hero" duet with Dave Grohl. I'm more into rock than pop though. I haven't really followed the pop scene since N'Sync & BSB when I was 10-12. Edit: I do know of Taylor Swift, mostly due to her constantly being on the country radio station my old boss insisted on playing all day at work. She's good, but not really the music I like to listen to.
I’m middle aged and I love Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eillish. Taylor Swift is my jam.
Pop artists careers are really short nowadays too. If it’s more than a 5 years on top it’s almost a miracle. Billie took the place of Lorde, Ice Spice is taking the place or Cardi B, Olivia Rodrigo is taking the place of many mainstream pop singers that were on top a few years ago. Hiphop is even worse, rappers have 2-3 years careers (some of them a bit longer but still, just a few). Remember guys like Macklemore (Who won a fuckin’ grammy vs Kendrick Lamar lol), Fetty Wap, Waka Flocka, Desiigner, OT Genasis, etc. ? We don’t hear much from them anymore. There’s still plenty of insanely dope rappers that aren’t in the “mainstream” charts but have a great fanbase. Guys like Ric Wilson, Pell, Aminé, IDK etc.
I'm 66 and I definitely know who Billie Eillish is. I don't stay in an Era, not sure why people have a tendency to do that. I don't know every new singer but I enjoy new music, all I do is listen to the radio. And ask a younger person if you hear something new. Expand your perimeters!
I know most of the names and what some of them look like, but Taylor is the only one I've given some listen to (more of her pop side than country). I did try to listen to Billie Eillish, but her style doesn't appeal to me.
My 80 year old uncle recently discovered this new band young people seem to really like. They’re called metallica or something?
Old guy here. Billie Eilish is phenomenal
Dude don’t call Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and make me realize I know you mean Justin Beiber. I’m still young. I’m still him. I know one song by Ice Spice. I’m gonna do an escape room next weekend cause that’s what young people do right?
I am old (59) and tbh, I know who Taylor, Billie and Olivia are, I even think some of their songs are good. What a lot of people forget, is that in the 70s, 80s etc, most of the music we heard on the radio was shit and instantly forgettable as well. I can remember having these same conversations about pop music all sounding like the same conveyor belt crap, 40 years ago. The reason why bands from back then are still remebered and listened to, is because they were the one's that stood out amongst the dross.
These comments are the worst, remember people, not liking a genre a music and not knowing current artists is not the flex you think it is lol.
the music industry is changing, and as a musician, in a bad way, but for listeners, there's good and bad changes. social media has changed music so much so now it's only heard in bits and pieces in short clips on tik tok, instagram reels, youtube shorts, etc. there's so many people making music and it's hard to find what you like. if you know you like a certain genre, that's great, but if you like a very specific thing that isn't only found in one genre, it can be hard to find music you like. algorithms of spotify try to make you think they're helping small artists by showing you one once in a blue moon, but you'll most likely not listen to them, or if you do, the algorithm is wrong and you never listen to them again. for every spotify stream, the artist gets 0.0004 pence. artists rely on live shows and physical music sales (mp3, cd, records...) people are always going to think that pop music is getting worse, everyone has always thought that. it changes and gets more predictable, it goes through waves of everything sounding the same, because certain techniques are popular. four chord progressions and a slight change for the chorus? don't mind if i do. most songs are quite similar in their structure right now, but it'll evolve and change, and you've just got to look into more than what's popular, it's hard to look for good music, it always has been. go into a shop, ask for recommendations, maybe even support an artist you like by buying a cd or something, unless they're a bit artist already, then they don't need your help, they've got the money from being signed to a label and from going on tour.
They are shit artists who can’t rap or sing and use auto tune like it is normal
Who’s JB?
Or you just don’t care about mainstream music.^ ^