As I get older, I lose touch with younger people just like anyone else my age or older. I realize that I grew up in a different era when it came to music than it is now, with streaming only becoming popular in my late teens, videos and radio still there but less important than previous decades and lots of downloading of digital files, both legally and illegally. The way I consume music is with a mix on different platforms, digital files on my phone combined with streaming and physically on vinyl or CD at home when I have the time, which doesn’t seem to be the norm. I had a chat with a teacher, Alanna Fong about kids and younger people are interested in and we both find ourselves still confused.
“There’s definitely a lot of Swifties”, she said. “She (Taylor Swift) is definitely the most popular popstar, but the younger kids also seem to like the old boy bands from their parent’s generation. They seem to be liking whatever their mom likes”. Her teenage sons, unsurprisingly, have very different tastes from the younger children she works with, listening to older bands that myself and people older than me would like. “Weezer is Brandon’s favourite band, while Caleb loves The Strokes”. She doesn’t know how either of her sons got into those bands, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was similar to how I got into older bands as a teen in the late 00s and early 10s, being exposed to them through online discussions, movies, tv or videogames. Even if there isn’t quite a “monoculture” like generations before theirs or even before mine, they can still be exposed to music in the same ways. There doesn’t seem to be as many large sources telling them what is cool or not like there was in the past and that can explain why their tastes can vary so much. No Much or MTV, more niche places like Pitchfork lost their power and YouTubers like Anthony Fantano still aren’t quite big enough to sway a large group like the past.
Pop appears to be the one thing that at the top that consistently makes sense. Perhaps that’s because of how fractured the popularity of other genres is or it could be related to “poptimism” becoming the norm. Where pop is viewed better critically than it was in the past and it’s far more acceptable for the slight music snobs to like. That is a greater and more complex discussion than what the kids are into, though.