As someone who is aging. Late thirties. How can I keep my finger on the pulse of current trends, particularly in music?
As someone who is aging. Late thirties. How can I keep my finger on the pulse of current trends, particularly in music?
As an example. I grew up in hip-hop but at a certain point I stopped listening to new people and realised recently that I’d slept on some bangers. Like Kendrick particularly, but even people like Juice WRLD and Xxxtentacion.
The same for the Kendrick and Drake (the nonce) beef which has given some rabbit holes to go down.
So I’m wondering what I can do to keep in the loop with my younger brothers and sisters?
Is it something as simple as watching trending videos on YouTube (somtheing I’ve never done) or are there people to follow etc. I don’t like Twitter though so hopefully it’s not that.
Edit: Man I got so many replies. You guys are awesome. I am going to work my way through them all today, but I’m hella tired and off to work so may take a while. I will reply to you all.
Edit part deux: God damn I think I got all the replies.
You can only sort of ever keep up.
The main issue preventing you an Old, from finding more about people who are Young, is that the Young don't exactly love the old filling up their spaces, trying to remain hip.
This is exemplified by the slow death of social networks as they grow in popularity. A new social network pops up, its quickly populated by the youth. Slowly, as it becomes more popular, Olds start creeping in, until there are so many Olds that the youth want to go somewhere else because they no longer have privacy.
When Mom and Uncle Jim are in the conversation, everything is suddenly less cool.
Happened to MySpace first, and it's happening to Facebook right now. It's basically ghost towns of people who will be dead soon.
We are limited because the youth will always want their own private spaces where they can truly be themselves without their weird expectations of the older generations. If you're older with zero expecations for the youth, congratulations: you're unusual, so don't hold it against the youth that they assume you're just another boring old person who is going to judge them for something. Most adults are out here judging them, so give them a break on assumptions they might make about you.
I used to keep up with music through YouTube channels, but even the ones I used to follow are aging up and soon enough those people I was listening to are Old now too, and they're doing the same thing as me, trying to keep up with what's hip and good.
I understand the desire to do so. New music is often so good, and I really get sick of people who act like the music they grew up with is the best in history. It's not, and it never will be. Music is always growing and making music is more accessible than ever, which means its really exploding and evolving. There's never been a better time to love music.
However, as Olds, we're just going to miss a lot of what's cool with the kids simply because we're Olds. So much is just going to naturally be hidden from us.
Early 30's here. I was at a small gathering my best mate put together about a year ago, and his 19 year old nephew was there. He expressed his interest in anime and we got chatting. While showing me some newer anime-related TikTok stuff (I have no social media myself and haven't really kept up with modern anime), I heard some fucking awesome 'aggressive trap' stuff and asked him who the artist was. It was Lil' Darkie and I was immediately hooked. I went down a rabbit hole searching his best stuff as well as other similar artists, and now have a huge playlist of great music I'd have never discovered on my own.
imo music discovery is a pretty organic process for most people. It's cultural and spreads via word of mouth. Chatting with younger people may be the best way to go, but understand that the youth rightfully don't want us in their spaces lmao
Bandcamp is nice, they have a curated genre section that updates frequently. College radio stations as someone mentioned, then just Shazam or whatever or look at their playlist online. I hate Spotify because it just gives you pop shit and doesn’t do anything niche or indie. There’s also SoundCloud, they make curated playlists of new stuff frequently. Sound cloud also has labels on there which curate some of their newest bands. It’s super easy to find niche indie labels I think. Lastly, look at lineups of local music spots. I used to listen to Deezer for finding non-US artists, but haven’t used it in a while since Bandcamp is kinda great about covering everywhere.
As someone else said, bandcamp is pretty good. Their articles are, so far as I can tell, written by actual people and thus have more soul to them. I'm sure some asshole is plotting to replace them with LLM, but until then!
Also, go to shows. Go see live music. Usually folks have opening acts. Sometimes you can even make friends.
College/independent radio
44 year old, lifelong metalhead here. I refuse to listen to a bands current album if it isn't my favorite of theirs. Too many bands phone it in after only a few years. So, I definitely need to find the latest music available. Metal Injection has a ballot every year of about 200 albums. Of course it isn't a definitive list, but it's enough for me to keep up with everything.
Just my opinion, but I feel like you're far to concerned with being "current". No offence.
I'm 48 and when I was younger I swore up and down that "I wasn't going to be like my parents, stuck in my ways musically, blah blah blah." But you know what, it doesn't actually matter. Literally at all. It's vapid pop culture stuff that in adult world, no one actually cares about. Your friends aren't going to be your friends simply because you like the same music as them. You're social circle isn't going to rise and fall based on how "current" you are because outside of highschool, literally no one gives a damn.
Like what you like. Listen to what you want. and don't worry about staying "hip" because the entire concept is subjective and meaningless in the actual day-to-day world. No one is going to shun you for not knowing what's happening between Kendrick whats-his-face and The dude from Degrassi. And if they do, they're not really the kind of vapid social media obsessed people you should be associating with at your age anyway.
Again...just my opinion.
I think the difference is that as a kid music is forced on you from all kinds of sources: parents, friends, radio, etc. So you don't realize how much time you actually spent just listening to new music.
As an Old, you probably don't have nearly as much random exposure, i.e. you control when you listen to music now. Which means the answer to your question is that you have to consciously set aside time simply to listen to music. It may feel like a "waste of time" for each track you think is shit, but that's just part of the process.
Good luck, and thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
Honestly, just follow some Instagram meme pages or browse SoundCloud's rap playlists. As a young person™️, this is how I've always found stuff, including xxxtentacion and lil peep when I was younger and they were both still around. If you're worried about "invading" our spaces like the other comment says, I think that sentiment is changing. I've befriended some older peeps online just for having anime pfps and stuff lmao.
Dude. Dude. You're still a kid ;)
Age jokes from an old fart aside, it's about your willingness to go looking.
It does mean you'll end up using some otherwise shitty services unless you are active in a local music related scene (like clubbing). But YouTube, Pandora, spotify, and most of the other music streaming services have some degree of recommendations. They aren't all that great usually, but in the absence of being immersed with real life music explorers, it's the best option.
You can check out the Billboard top 200 and go the route of hoping your preferred music genres chart in the first place, but also being fairly reliable that other fans have vetted tracks for it to get there.
And radio still exists. You can pick a station that's genre specific or a top 40 station and find stuff that's already a little popular that way. It isn't as reliable as it used to be, but you can find newer raising acts that way.
There's forums. I haunt the typical lemmy based music C/s, plus the ones for my favorite genres, which keeps me fairly up to date on new releases as well as some new acts.
And, always participate in your local scene when possible. It's harder with hip-hop since finding local acts outside of cities is damn near impossible, but if you're into other stuff too, it can be a great way to catch acts before they get going, if your local scene is active enough. I'm fairly lucky in that bluegrass is one of the genres I'm into, and I'm not too far away from one of the better known cities for country and bluegrass music. So it's easy to find new bands and solo acts performing at a bar or local festival that end up getting popular eventually. That's an example of what i mean, making use of what's already there locally.
https://everynoise.com/engenremap.html
I'm in my mid-40s and I love searching for new (and old) music. It makes me happy. Maybe I start with an artists I like and just go thru the rest of the label. You just have to break the habit of listening to the same thing and challenge yourself.
You can't, it's over, let go.
I don't know how to help you, but I'll tell you that I have the opposite perspective. The two artists I'd most like to avoid are the ones you mentioned, so if there was a way I could eliminate suggestions from anyone who was like "fuck yeah Kendrick and Drake" I would absolutely do that.
Taste over time is totally divergent and you've probably got your work cut out for you to find your exact niche :).
Small shout out to !askmenover30@lemm.ee
YouTube music made discovery worse compared to Google music, but it is still OK.
When I hear a good song on a show or movie, I ID it with my phone and explore others by the artist or genre. I also thumbs up it to get more recommendations from YTM
Same when friends recommended music. So yeah, talk to friends about music. And then do the above two steps with their suggestions and likes.
I feel you. I think I'm experiencing the same.
I'd say it's almost summer now, go out and visit some music festivals. That's a place where I found some inspiration and new (to me) artists.
Also having friends with a similar taste in music helps.
I have a Spotify subscription and that helps me listen to a broad range of music on a whim. But I think the Spotify algorithm isn't helping me in discovering new artists. I rarely find anything interesting and new that way.
And online radio station that has no songs older than 36 months helps me.
Best thing is its free. No ads. And you dont need to make an account.
(They are changing to modernrock.ca) https://www.whatwasthatradio.com/
I get all the inside info from my teenage kids 😅
Here’s some in no particular order;
https://open.spotify.com/track/6nWjnyGiPqb5bmkhsyYvLZ?si=lp-B5Ur9TtOEXMIXn5ZLfA
https://open.spotify.com/track/6uU1QhxwtrnOdALd4K1nBs?si=SQiYCxaKRkygirNkBTqq1g
https://open.spotify.com/track/3qX1dqmDdmMvvfMVfsx4Bh?si=nWMONtu_T1Sn_8lHdWKmyw
And a bunch of music from the 00s and 10s which is now old school and cool 😅
Not music specific but you could join probably a bigger Discord community around a topic which interests a bunch of young lads. For example, I'm in a VRC community, where I usually chat sometimes (I'm 23, not that old) and DC communities usually offer music channels where you could maybe check what they share.
Apart from usuals like spotify or bandcamp, I'd also like to introduce gnod here: https://www.gnod.com/
I do not use it very often, but it's quite nice to browse the recommendations based on what you were recently listening once in a while.
You got to ride the youtube algo musical rabbit hole down to the bottom, otherwise it just feeds you the same 10 playlist. Find a song/band outside your norm that is tolerable, then you can choose a direction based off recommended. You can upvote what you like/the right direction to tune the algo. You should get mostly top songs from that artist or similar bubbles, although if your adventurous check smaller artist and explore. There's hidden diamonds.
Eventually you find some random anon artist with a weird cult following and what seems to be a sub-sub-sub-sub genera with artist with the same vibe. There will be bubbles of artist remixing each-other, working together, starting fights and drama, and making good shit. Follow what catches your attention and youtube will eventually lead you to the good shit of a niche. I assume most services would do the same.
There is the Eurovision Song Contest, buuuuuuuut, this year's season has been such an incredible shitshow that I can't recommend it anymore. Seriously, I wish it never got this way.
So... spend some time listening to the entries from 2013 to 2022. Those are the ones that I liked the most, especially from 2021 (spoiler: Måneskin is in there somewhere, and so is Duncan Lawrence, and Rosa Linn, and the Sunstroke Project... the ones with the Epic Sax Guy, you might have heard of all of these guys before, oh, and Flo Rida too)
2012 and earlier (down to 1997 I guess) do have some cool stuff, but most of it is kinda kitschy and unserious. There are some strong entries, but it's being overshadowed by what is basically garbage and political voting. But at least we got a taste of Loreen out of that. You've heard of that Nightcore remix of a song called Rockefeller Street? Yep, that's from Eurovision.
As for 2023 specifically... well, there's a certain green Finnish guy that you might love, and has almost won if it wasn't for- oh God, Loreen again? And there's some other cool stuff I guess.
The 90s, 80s, and 70s all have some fantastic entries, some of then are even from super famous people such as ABBA, Celine Dion, Olivia Newton John, Johnny Logan, Julio Iglesias, Samira Bensaid, in addition to lots of incredibly interesting folks. There's a live orchestra in there too, so you know things are authentic.
And then there's the 60s and 50s. I can't remember anything about them.
So, enjoy my recommendation of the songs, and please for God's sake, avoid watching the contest live at all costs, and especially stay away from its political influence. There's a particular country in there that everybody wants out, and I'm pretty sure you know who it is. They've basically ruined 2024.
I'm from the 90s and I've been catching some trends thanks to TikTok and YouTube. Exactly what you said, new videos and keep jumping to suggested videos. Also, read the comments, people often have recommendations (you can even ask and you'll get some new musicians).