Popular music tends to be a very generational thing. The parent’s favorite groups often sound old fashioned to the child—and the parent can’t understand what the child sees in their favorite music, which in the parent’s mind is nowhere near the quality of what he listened to as a child. It is the rare piece of popular music that has the staying power to still be relevant decades after its release, something that’s especially true now when there are so many different styles of popular music in the world. But while this may mean that there’s more competition for listener ears than ever before, the greater variety of music styles currently being played makes it more likely that some of that music will endure past the constraints of our current generation.
Last year, Time analyzed which styles of artist are tweeted about the most across the world in preparation for the Grammys. While this isn’t necessarily an indication of what these people are listening to, it does give a sense of what music is popular in different areas of the country. The results show a landscape where rap dominates the urban centers on both U.S. coasts, with country and pop sharing domination of the suburban and rural markets (Feeney, 2015). Recent Billboard Hot 100 charts show a similar overall trend. Rap artist Drake has held the #1 spot for several weeks, and hip-hop artists like Rihanna, Kent Jones, Flo Rida, and Lil Wayne are prominent; pop artists (like Justin Timberlake, Sia, and Adele) hold many of the remaining spots, with country represented by artists like Florida Georgia Line (The Hot 100, 2016). Based on this information, it’s safe to say that hip-hop is today’s dominant style of popular music.
Whether any of these artists will remain relevant in the coming decades is impossible to predict accurately, but there are some who seem to have staying power—namely, the currently popular artists who seem to have the most versatility. When it comes to Justin Timberlake, for example, few people thought he would remain relevant after the break-up of the boy band N’Sync, but his ability to play a wide variety of styles with a lot of different other artists has kept his name consistently near the top of the Billboard charts some 20 years after the boy band heyday (Grigoriadis, 2011). Based on the continued popularity of his music—and the attention he pays to the individual songs rather than simply performance and personality—he is an artist who will likely remain relevant well into the future. Sia is another artist whose longevity at this point seems almost assured simply based on how many hits she’s been involved with over so many years. Her rise to fame was not as direct as Timberlake’s, taking a background role as songwriter for much of her career, but the release of her sixth album, 1000 Forms of Fear, in 2014 made her a household name and brought new recognition to her past work (Mossman, 2016). Interestingly, musical talent and versatility are not the only thing these two artists have in common. Both Timberlake and Sia shy away from the spotlight, preferring to keep the focus on their work rather than their personalities. This is striking in an era of social media, but perhaps a key to the longevity of their careers. At the end of the day, it is the quality of the music more than the allure of showmanship that draws future generations to the songs of the past.
There are also some artists performing today who will likely enjoy artistic longevity if for no other reason than the impressive scope of their influence on current music trends. Beyoncé, for example, could in some ways be called the Michael Jackson of our generation, the reigning queen of popular music who has been called “the most important and compelling popular musician of the twenty-first century” (Rosen, 2013). Because she has been at the top of the industry for so long, Beyoncé has in a way guaranteed her continued relevance by influencing the music of artists who have since entered the industry. She has shown an ability to anticipate and create new trends in popular music, evolving over the course of her career without losing the vocal power and musicality that made her popular in the first place there’s no reason to think she won’t continue to do so for many years to come.
Finding music today is easier than it was before the internet. There are so many different ways and places to find out about new music. I often listen to Pandora when I’m doing work on my computer, and it will often play songs from artists I’m less familiar with because they’re similar to the artists I like. If I really like the song, I’ll go to YouTube and look up the artist to see if I like the other things they’ve done. While I do hear about music in other ways—like from my friends or on the radio—I’m much more likely to find artists that I then want to hear more of from Pandora, simply because it’s guaranteed to be in some way similar to music I already like.
It is difficult to say whether or not I will continue to enjoy the same music in the future as I do now. Looking at the listening habits of my older relatives, it seems likely. My father, for example, continues to listen to groups like Pink Floyd and Kansas that he listened to when he was growing up. That style of music was what he grew up with; in a way, his metric for how to judge whether or not he likes music was shaped around the things he liked in those bands. Because of that, it would be difficult for an artist to supplant those artists in his mind. The new group would essentially have to be more Pink Floyd than Pink Floyd to take over his favorite spot. The same thing is true of my grandpa, who prefers the country-western music of the 1950s and 1960s even over the country music that has come out since. I suppose as I get older the same thing will happen to me. It’s not very likely someone will release an album in 2030 that sounds more like Beyoncé than Beyoncé. While I do enjoy discovering new music, the best songs that I’m listening to now will likely stay with me, and I anticipate I will continue to listen to my favorite artists now in 10, 20, or even 40 years. Music is constantly changing, evolving, and going in new directions; the more time passes, the less familiar popular music will seem to me, and probably the more I will fall back on today’s music to find what I’m looking for.
In my eyes, the state of popular music today is a good one. Because people can more easily look up a variety of songs and musical styles, there is more variety available in terms of style and genre than there has been in the past. While popularity measured by record sales still largely determines what gets played on radio stations or TV, it’s possible for a completely unknown artist to rise to popularity on the strength of their music thanks to social media and internet outlets like YouTube. My father and grandfather might not agree with this assessment, however, and that’s one of the things that makes comparing eras of music so difficult—the aesthetic standards of evaluation change right along with the music, and there’s no objective standard by which to make comparisons. By today’s aesthetic standards, this is an exciting time in popular music. How history will remember this era remains to be determined.
References
Feeney, Nolan (2015, Feb 5). This Map Shows Which Music Genres Are Most Popular Around the World. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/3697123/music-genres-around-the-world-grammy-awards/
The Hot 100 (2016, July 16). Billboard. Retrieved from http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/2016-07-16
Grigoriadis, Vanessa (2011, July 1). A Free Man in L.A. Vanity Fair. Retrieved from http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2011/07/justin-timberlake-201107
Mossman, Kate (2016, Jan 31). Sia Furler. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/31/sia-everyone-in-entertainment-is-insecure-observer-music-interview
Rosen, Jody (2013, Feb 20). Her Highness. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/her-highness
