Young People and music

[PlayListHelpNeeded]

I need to collate some playlists of different genres and eras for a project, more of that in another thread. But it got me thinking, what do young people listen to know? People of 15-early 20s. If you have teens what do they listen to?

When I was their age there were always loads of ground breaking bands most teens were into. There was punk, then New Wave, Ska and Two Tone, then New Romantics, Electronica, the whole Madchester and Rave thing where there was quite a crossover between dance music and guitar bands. Goth, then Grunge, Emo, Brit Pop. Heavy metal and all its sub genres. Regardless of what your favourite genre was as a teenage or young adult, there were bands or singer songwriters doing it.

What is there now, apart from endless fairly generic dance music? Calvin Harris or David Guetta 'feat.' some singer or other? Apart from the 'urban' categories of stuff like Grime and Drill, I am hard pushed to think of much that isn't pretty mainstream.

There seems to be lots of 'Latino' artists and lots of young girl singers all doing that very contrived, generic sounding, breathy, husky, twee, girly thing with their voice. I can't explain it but you'd know what I mean if you heard it. They all sound identical to my ear. (I realise how old this makes me sound 😂

There's K Pop, and the very mainstream boy bands / Harry Styles, but where are the 2024 rock and pop trailblazers creating new genres? The equivalents of Pulp? The Smiths? James? Belle and Sebastian? The Cranberries? Depeche Mode? Stone Roses? Proper bands with proper songwriters?

Don't kids listen to bands any more, or am I just too old to know who they are?

DD12 likes Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Benson Boone, Iñigo Quintero, and the Arranca song by Becky G, and some French pop (we are French). She loved the Lady Gaga song from Wednesday. She is over K pop and Harry Styles since a year or two.

She does the typical Tiktok generation thing (she's not allowed Tiktok) of just listening to 15 to 20 seconds of each song on her free Shazam account.

My 16yo DS likes rock/metal but he listens to old bands like Slipknot. I can't think of many modern bands.

Maneskin have been pretty popular since Eurovision.

Young female singers are popular nowadays, Billie Eilish. Dua Lipa. Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter and Tate McRae.

Mine listen to such OLD music - DH is a massive record collector and they are constantly asking for mix tapes. I find it very odd!

DS1 is into what sounds like garage/rap and sometimes goes to gigs with live DJs none of whom I've heard of. DD13 is currently bizarrely into The Smiths who she's likely heard on TikTok. She asked me if I'd heard of them 🤣

But yes, I agree with your post particularly the bit about the breathy, girly singers. Awful, most of them.

I think music was a massive part of our lives as teenagers that I feel bizarrely sorry for today's youth as they are bereft of their own music.

DD loves Lana del Ray and Olivia Rodrigo and currently in Taylor Swift era cos we are going next week. She also loves The 1975 and Sam Fender

She is off to Leeds Festival and is excited to see Liam Gallagher and Blink 182 as she been made to listen to them since she was born

Is there a fashion element attached to the the style of music teens are into? As in days gone by the clothing worn identified what music, fashion cult you were into.

My 16 yo is a huge twenty one pilots fan. They've got a new album out so that's what we're currently listening to non stop.

Inhaler, Dodie, Olivia rodrigo, Sammy Rae and the Friends are all massive hits here.

DD18 listens to all sorts, she'll sing along to all the contemporary female artists but mainly listens to rock, from 70s onwards. I am amazed at how many old classics she is word perfect to. She doesn't really have favourite bands in the way I did in the 80s, but thanks to Spotify she can listen to anything and a lot of what she listens to is because it has suggested them to her.

I have 4 in that agegroup and they listen to old new and inbetween:

but up to date for this year:

Stephen Sanchez
Henry Moodie
Maddison Beer
Sadie Jean
Tate McRae
JVKE
Isabel Larosa
Fausia

however if you stick in some Nirvana, Beatles, George Ezra, BTS, Maroon 5, Radiohead etc etc likely there will be poeple who love that!!

They have access to al the eras and all the artists and like it

Mine likes a mixture of the current bands/singers mentioned above and ‘old’ stuff like Oasis.

Mine (15) likes older stuff she's heard on TikTok and then discovers it's my era 😂

She's very into Oasis and Coldplay at the moment.

Oh yeah! Oasis! I'm a Scout leader and we have a bunch of them that are big into Oasis, and The Beatles.

Dd (22) likes things like

Blind Channel
Ashnikko
Nightwish
RAYE

Ds & his friends age 19/20 like

The 1975
Arctic Monkeys
The Beatles
Paramore
Bruce Springsteen
The Last Shadow Puppets

& lots lots more

What old music do they like specifically please? I need to know for a project.

This is all brilliantly helpful thanks, keep 'em coming.

The Cranberries seem to be bizarrely popular with ds (15) and his mates.

At the moment, my 17 yr old mostly listens to David Bowie, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Gorillaz, and a less well known band from the 90s (The Mountain Goats).

14yr old is into Melanie Martinez.

My DS15 likes the Beatles, Arctic Monkeys, Car Seat Headrest and Frank Ocean. He also likes musical theatre stuff.

As much as I am delighted that these kids seem to have such sophisticated old school tastes, it does seem a bit of a sad indictment that they aren't listening to the Oasis or the Bob Dylan or the Arctic Monkeys of their own era, doesn't it?

I think this is what music streaming has done, and the fact that they rarely listen to a whole new album of anything, just odd tracks taken out of context.

I always loved a lot of older music when I was in my teens that most kids my age would not have even heard of, let alone listened to, so I suppose it's not new, but there was a lot of brilliant contemporary stuff too, whereas in terms of bands, I am not sure there is any more.

Someone upthread asked about the clothes. Up until around the early noughties I'd say you could identify the music a teen was into by the fashion tribe they belonged to. These days I honestly haven't got a clue. There seem to be a lot of kids who favour an eighties look of very baggy, stonewashed jeans, baggy t shirts, blouson jackets/shell suit type things, with tatty plimsolls or skate shoes or tennis shoes rather than expensive designer brand trainers. They are also the ones who tend to have multi coloured hair, daft comedy socks pulled up to half mast, japanese anime characters or Marvel characters on their clothes, etc.

They look a bit like Rod, Freddie and Jane from Rainbow, or Timmy Mallett. It's quite a scruffy, studenty, 80's grungey, charity shop vibe but with a definite childlike, novelty quality to it.

I literally have no idea what music they would be into.

Then there are the girls who are scarily orange, with poker straight long hair and a teeny-tiny crop top or something approximating a bra, worn with some baggy tracksuit bottoms. I'm going to guess they are not really into music, or if they are, it's very mainstream club/dance stuff.

Ds is a rock guitarist and musician (18)and loves Van Halen, Dokken, Maiden, Whitesnake, Judas Priest, Acdc... many more and he also enjoys newer and emerging rock bands.

DD18 - Wolf Alice, Loyle Carner, Travis Scott, Knucks, Green Tea Peng and Oasis.

DC and friends, all 17-18: rock/metal/alternative from the 80’s to present day.

DS16 prefers older bands, he's not into current music. Hitting up his playlists are Oasis, Blur, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Muse, Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys, The Fratellis, Rush, Stone Roses, to name but a few. He likes indie rock mostly.

Its a little ecclectic, mostly finding songs that seem to fit a mood, most of her playlists are 15hrs long and every song is by a different band. Most are found from spotify, suggested songs, discover weekly, moods etc. She finds songs she likes and if bands turn up in her playlists multiple times she will go and look for their other songs.
At the moment there is a fair bit of
Frank Turner
Seb Lowe
Noah Kahan
Hozier
The Wrecks
The backseat lovers
The vaccines
Tame Impala
Bears in Trees
Highly Suspect
AJR
Gorrilaz
Twentyonepilots