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.

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

dependencyinjection OP ,

Thanks you’ve provided many avenues I can go down here and it seems inescapable that it takes work and effort to keep ahead of these things.

I do live in a city but sadly it’s Manchester in the UK, so hip-hop is lacking. I do like UK Drill too but those kids are just a bit too wild for me to go seeking those, I’m not keen on getting stabbed up haha.

walter_wiggles ,

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.

dependencyinjection OP ,

That makes sense and I think you’re right about the exposure as you listen to a lot of the current trends when out in bars and clubs and I’m not cut out for the day after those nights anymore.

Toneswirly ,

Never take a break from culture. As soon as you take a year off you will be irrelevant. If that sound exhausting (it is) then congratulations; you have discovered why older people are never on top of pop culture.

protist ,

"You will be irrelevant" to who? People whose identities are so wrapped up in popular culture they can't conceive of someone liking something from 30, 50, 80 years ago? Lmao

whoreticulture ,

Nah, tired advice. I was literally on a remote island for most of a year, and missed out on Harambe and clowns and whatever else happened that year. But if you have a real interest in pop culture you stay in tune. Most older people don't stay on top of it because they don't care to, which is fine it's not for everyone.

dependencyinjection OP ,

Thanks. I’m not sure about being irrelevant but I do see that you have to put effort in to stay on top of the current culture or zeitgeist.

nifty ,
@nifty@lemmy.world avatar

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.

dependencyinjection OP ,

Thanks. I’ve not heard of bandcamp so I’ll have a look at that. +1 for the soundcloud shout out too.

jjjalljs ,

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.

dependencyinjection OP ,

Thanks for pointing out bandcamp, I’ve not hit the other comment that mentioned it yet.

cyberpunk007 ,

My dude, I'm the same as you and I just keep radioing shit on Spotify and shazaming shit I hear and doing the same for TV shows and movies and tapping into the Spotify premade playlists from time to time. Works aight enough.

dependencyinjection OP ,

Some good one here. Thanks.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

That's one of the reasons I spend a lot of time in forums like this. To keep up with the latest stuff.

But then the latest stuff started being hella weird and I still couldn't follow it even knowing the origins and context of popular trends and now I'm grumpy about kids on my lawn. 😬

dependencyinjection OP ,

Yeah some of the latest trends will whoooosh me.

gapedanus ,

https://snifferip.com/2My11

Custodian1623 ,

This is an IP grabber

dependencyinjection OP ,

📽️

guyrocket ,
@guyrocket@kbin.social avatar

I would start reading Rolling Stone and similar stuff. The radio should also help.

Or are you looking specifically for only hip-hop?

dependencyinjection OP ,

Rolling stone is a good shout for general music, but I am more interested in Hip-Hop.

Hikermick ,

College/independent radio

FeelzGoodMan420 ,

I just take older bands/artists that I like, and look up "artists similar to...." On Google, and start from there. Easy enough.

Screemu ,
@Screemu@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

music-map.com works great too.

FeelzGoodMan420 ,

Yes I've seen this before but never saved the link. Thank you.

SnotFlickerman , (edited )
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

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.

dependencyinjection OP ,

Thanks for this throughout and measured response it really does make sense now you bring these points to my attention I was the same when I was younger.

I guess I don’t want to invade their space as much as understand what they like and what they care about, not in a creepy way, more because I think the older generation should do this.

The part where you mentioned you would be unusual to have no expectations of young people. Well I am unusual as I think the youth are alright and a part of my thinking in this post is that we should celebrate the future of the world as they’ve got longer here than me and so they should have a larger part in shaping it.

It’s sad that we have this divide now where it’s us (not literally) against them when really they can learn from our mistakes and we can learn from their new perspectives.

I imagine it goes without saying that I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t know everything and even that we can learn from younger people and I don’t really blame them for thinking all older people are against them or whatever as I am self aware that I would have this mentality towards boomers when there are some great boomers out here that would be with me at pro-Palestine marches and stuff.

Apologies for this being all over the place. I literally just rambled on, and now too lazy to go back and format it better.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It's fine, no worries on your thoughts being all over, it's the internet. Who cares? You got your points across fine.

I don't think trying to know what the youth are into is creepy at all! I think the real issue comes from the youth being used to adults being shitty and judgy to them. Like I said, it's great if we're not shitty and judgy, but we have to be patient with the youth and their expectations of older people because they're absolutely colored by the fact that most older folks are weirdly judgy. So it's more that we have our work cut out for us because most older folks could give a flying fuck about being interested in the art of the youth, and the youth know that and feel it viscerally. It takes time for them to feel "safe" and open up. Like you said, how we grew up with Boomers and most of them are just dogshit and judgy people when it came to the youth. We like to think our generation is better... but it's not, sadly.

Anyway, it's not impossible to make inroads with the youth, but you have to be okay with them ribbing you and smile and laugh when they joke about how out of touch you are. They're going to assume we're just like any other jerk of an Old, so it just takes more effort on our parts to prove we're not just some judgy jerk.

I am thankful for every old person who has genuine interest in what the youth are doing and what kind of art they are creating. You're right, it IS a good thing to be interested, and it's a good thing to pursue, because it helps break down the very generational barriers we dislike so much.

dependencyinjection OP ,

Thanks again. You’re a good person SnotFlickerMan. You’ve given me plenty of food for thought and I appreciate you taking the time again.

Enjoy what’s left of the weekend and keep being a stellar bro.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

https://i.giphy.com/1woRElLgvpuJ70l3l1.gif

BearOfaTime ,

And since we're not Youngs, how the music appeals (or doesn't) is really not part of our experiences.

Pop music is a thing of the moment. Not to criticize, just an observation. Because of this, I don't really get why an Old would want to try to stay hip with music. You're not young during that time, not part of what the coming of age experience is like at the time. It's not your time.

Plus pop music, by definition, appeals to the broadest group possible by being less complex - this is true of anything. I always use Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" (a massive avant-garde jazz hit in the 60's), compared to something by the Beach Boys, Elvis, The Beatles, etc.

Everyone can grok what Elvis is singing, but even as someone who studied music theory, I find Kind of Blue challenging to grasp. And I hear/learn something new every time I hear it.

frickineh ,

Even if you're not personally experiencing the things pop music is currently about, there's still plenty of really great stuff coming out all the time that you'll miss out on if you stop listening to new things. For example, NPR popped up recently with a Tiny Desk Concert (which feels like a very Old way to find new music in itself) from Chappell Roan, and I would've been missing out big time if I'd skipped it just because she's 15ish years younger than me and in a different phase of her life. A lot of it feels more nostalgic (fucking Casual, man, so many of us have been there) than current to my life, but it's good music. And as a queer woman, gosh it's great to see these queer artists who are able to write their feelings and experiences without having to keep plausible deniability in the lyrics.

BearOfaTime ,

I'd say what you're (possibly) describing is something that's less specific to it's writer's time/age/moment, giving it broader appeal. If someone is 17 and writing classical style music, I'd expect most who appreciates classical to take an interest. That's just looking for new music, not a focus on staying "hip", which, again, isn't really an effective approach.

This fits with the reasons media/arts appeal the way they do - the more "base" it's appeal, the broader that appeal will be, because more/most people understand it.

These aren't my ideas - ask a professor of music (especially music history) the difference between the different classifications of music, and why they're defined the way they are.

One great example: today most people would consider Opera to be "high-falutin classical stuff that us regular folks can't grok cause we don't know Italian", when the reality is it was the popular music of it's day, with Opera performances being a rough equivalent to TV shows today. Some Opera composers knocked out 200 operas, per year.

Check out any lectures by Prof Robert Greenburg, especially "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" or "Music as a Mirror of History", he explains these ideas very well.

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

I don't think MySpace died because The Olds invaded in the same way as Facebook. I think Facebook genuinely out-competed MySpace in features, especially having its own messenger. Facebook absolutely died when The Olds joined, what's remarkable to me is that Facebook...still exists?

protist ,

And Facebook succumbed to the olds many years ago. I remember in the mid then late 00s when it expanded from just college students to include high school students, and then suddenly my Aunt Joyce was on it too. Seriously, we're talking 15 years ago now

200ok ,

Reddit had too many Youths so all us Olds came to Lemmy 💪

1984 ,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Late thirties is aging? That's like peak life. You have money and family (at least a chance of that) and purpose in your life. You have confidence and you know who you are.

You are still a bit dumb, but less dumb than twenty somethings. I liked my late thirties.

dependencyinjection OP ,

I meant relative to teens really, sadly I’ve got another 40 years to go before my forever nap.

I should have money, but I was very irresponsible and only the last 5 years have I started to progress at life. No family ever, I like being single and I couldn’t look after children I am too selfish with my time.

You’ve made me think now what period of my life I enjoyed and I honestly couldn’t choose. I guess now as I’m on a better trajectory.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

I have money and a family?

sturlabragason , (edited )

I get all the inside info from my teenage kids 😅

Here’s some in no particular order;

https://open.spotify.com/track/42VsgItocQwOQC3XWZ8JNA?si=HegVMDH4ROCGcS2WX6KEMA&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A18NOKLkZETa4sWwLMIm0UZ

https://open.spotify.com/track/7ooMMJ57DvXJ9QrdA2IKzb?si=VFPuFA_hQBqklPztdMXG5Q&context=spotify%3Aplaylist%3A1sQAM3faF7b8Y775Suf8T3

https://open.spotify.com/track/3wGXyJGsCf1myH5MooQIqE?si=muI8FD-DQPKx-Tk8bkUaKQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A1S7KWH0szrqutOvzsqxiBv

https://open.spotify.com/track/48PNPySDWhDzPYKd0VHzRZ?si=TSynKlYARUmzcwHNU5MjnQ&context=spotify%3Asearch%3Awhat%2B

https://open.spotify.com/track/3rKHEHCqPnYOzSMEt5DJKq?si=0WDxPKXCQU-9JJ8Ht1ZODA&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A17ff3780kXxf0aNwyVSn0n

https://open.spotify.com/track/2mdNOsotHkz5POLtu0qCJm?si=EoJKClvYSkyB8Omq1krSVQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A4R0KYGz7o9PvWcef6xtl8v

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 😅

dependencyinjection OP ,

Dude you cheated, maybe I shoulda had kids but im too selfish 😂

PrivateNoob ,
@PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz avatar

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.

dependencyinjection OP ,

I’ve tried Discord before but I never knew where to find channels I might like.

I will give it another go as it seems like a good idea. Thanks dude.

PrivateNoob ,
@PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz avatar

You could perhaps check out this: https://disboard.org/

dependencyinjection OP ,

Awesome.

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