Do you feel in touch with contemporary pop music?

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How in or out of touch do you feel with contemporary pop music?

I was talking to my boyf about this - in the last half decade plus I've lost all connection and knowledge of pop music. I don't know when it shifted, but I mentioned that Never Really Over by Katy Perry was a recent pop song only to be reminded that it was four years ago.

Billie Eilish still feels very recent but she's been around for ages now. Ariana Grande is over a decade in.

I think it's me being older combined with switch-over to podcasts and audiobooks when casually listening to things, as well as the way in which people consume music and connect to artists nowadays meaning that even the big names feel a lot more niche. I feel like in 2008-10 most people of any age would at least be able to name Gaga, Rihanna and Katy Perry, whereas I think nowadays they'd struggle with the bigger newer artists.
 
Definitely in between with a giant caveat - I loathe the direction of contemporary music generally, what it's done to the industry and the charts etc, and miss the days of a more eclectic and inclusive mix of music on radio and in the charts, including genres I don't really care for but at least were creating a healthy competition of different sounds and interests.

Moreso now music is created with a sound in mind, wether it's the choice of instrumentation or the vocal techniques that all blend into one. With some exceptions, there is a lack of freedom and originality with most pop artists. They don't all need to create a hot new sound (there's not much left to be 'new' with) they just need to resonate with some individuality. All the big icons took from other people but they were singular in their delivery of it.

The big caveat is that there is still as much good music, if not more than ever before, below the surface for those willing to find it. Pop music and dance music is in many ways better than ever, if you choose to ignore success as a criteria. Spotify might have amalgamated passive listening into one big bubble of sameness and repitition, but for music lovers, it has had the opposite effect and opened up a whole new world of discovery.

So it's good and bad. It depends where you land on the spectrum of music consumption. If you're an obsessive, it's a fabulous time to be in it.
 
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I’d say I’m in between. I generally know a lot of the new up and comers BUT I don’t routinely listen to a lot of it like I was doing 10 to 20 years ago.

I hate these TikTok trend of songs being 2 minutes long and honestly to my ears a lot of these newer singers seem like they just want to ape the last generation vocally.
 
I have my eye on what is big, and obviously follow the charts so am usually aware of the big hitters at any one point. But I’m not all that interested in listening to all that much of it (though to be fair, a solid amount). So I’d say I’m reasonably in touch as I could probably discuss Sabrina Carpenter or whoever significantly more than most others around my age.
 
In between to somewhere out of touch. And I'm only not totally out of touch thanks to this place.
 
Probably somewhat out of touch. I listen to New Music Friday ( usually the artists I have heard of) on Spotify and other than that Moopy kind of keeps me in the loop. I did still listen to the music channels up until recently when I realised a lot of them are now GONE so they mainly play older music.
 
ZenGiraffe said:
If it's gay interest I'm fine, but HINGED POP is alien to me now
Click to expand...

Yes, this is me. I actually listen to loads of new music but it's in a relatively narrow niche and I couldn't hum a tune by actual chart-topping superstars Post Malone or SZA.
 
The 2010s were a genuine low point for pop. Things went so fucking insipid. The 2020s have seen a lift with some top end female pop stars dominating.
 
Very much so as of recently. As Ag mentioned, the 2010s were a vapid shitshow but I like the turn back towards camp and also I'm seeing an improvement on the lyrics. Give me Billie, Sabrina, Olivia over Britney, Katy, Nicki any day.
 
I follow the Australian charts, give each new UK Now album a few listens when it comes out, make notes, then endeavour to transcribe them on my pad, photocopy them, and file them for future reference
 
Relatively out of touch bar the odd hit for acts I actually remember plus a few that pique my interest.

But I’m at peace with it. I’m 38, youth-oriented mainstream pop culture isn’t for me. I’d hate to become a bitter old man moaning about the good old days when tunes were tunes - although I do have my moments I’m sure.
 
I usually hear the names of the big new artists about a year after they’ve supposedly hit it big. Naming their songs is another matter as the way things are consumed are just totally different.

So yes, as I’ve got old(er), my main focus of popular culture has been in films, TV and podcasts rather than music, but 25+ years ago, a lot of the current big hits tended to tie in to films and TV and they’d benefit eachother.

Nowadays film and TV seems to be more responsible for reviving old hits or introducing them to a younger generation. Not that that didn’t happen before, but truly what was the last great, well known contemporary song associated with a film, advert or TV show? In the 70s-00s there were probably a few every month. When my parents were my age now, they were certainly well aware of those songs by Bryan Adams, Whitney, Will Smith, Roxette etc. just through them being ubiquitous with the crossover marketing.
 
If Moopy had never existed, I think I would be completely out of touch. Such as it is, I have a half-decent handle although I still look at the top 10 sometimes and think "who?". I know nothing of the UK grime scene that puts Dave and Central Cee at #1 and I've never been in touch with the club culture.

So, yeah, I do alright. I do as well as I'd like to, put it that way. I couldn't put any more time to it than I do, otherwise there would be no time for the music loves I've built up over the years.
 
I'm totally happy being in between. I'll happily take the effort to keep up with new music/artists from the genres I like, while occasionally dipping into others I'm not familiar with. I'd have to drop everything and consume nothing but contemporary music to be properly "in touch".

FUCK THAT.
 
I definitely don't want to become closed-off and only listen to what I listened to 20 years ago. Music is a great way to keep the dust of life from burying us. It's a futile fight, but you need something.
 
Pop music is no longer the source of communal enjoyment that it once was and so I really don't feel bad about it.
 
I would like Charli to stop trying to make Addison Rae happen. I know a bit of charity work is de riguer for today's pop stars but come on...
 
I feel a bit more in touch right now compared to a couple of years ago, thanks to knowing the hits of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, plus Brat. Plus if I notice something is sticking around at the top of the charts for ages, I might get a bit curious (such as "Stick Season" earlier this year, which I found a really pleasant surprise). But looking at the current top 40, just over half is still made up of songs that I've not knowingly heard.
 
I feel more in touch now than I was 5 years ago, mainly because I've started listening to the UK Top 40 on Radio 1 again, having avoided so for a decade.
 
In seriousness though, I like to keep a foot in both camps. I'll give the top 40 a listen on Fridays every few weeks or so (the switch to streaming has made things stagnant enough that it isn't especially rewarding doing it more often than that), I try to keep abreast of what's generally going on in pop and who's coming up/having a resurgence, but I also really treasure things like listening to Pick of the Pops and watching the TOTP repeats to keep a sense of discovery and educating myself through the archives.

I never want to be the old man that just thinks everything these days is shit or all the same - I want to be the old man who can say exactly what is good about what's new these days...so I can read to filth exactly what is bad.
 
I always considered myself HIP and YOUTHFUL even as I was getting increasingly removed from popular music's latest developments, but then I returned to my hometown a few years back and was coerced into interacting with some 13 y/o morose cousin of mine whom I'd never met prior. Now I mostly abhor children but I generally know how to connect with moody teens, and I figured I'd find some common ground with music. He told me that he liked hip hop and I was all like, "awesome, I love hip hop too! Who are you into?" to which the kid responded with a series of indecipherable sounds, much to my bemusement. Cue a long, awkward silence.

Turns out that he was trying to tell me about XXXTENTACION and LIL UZI VERT. :vomit: Neither of whom I'd heard of at that point (and so much for the convo that I thought I'd be having about early Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest! :(). I think that's the point at which all my delusions of considering myself down with the youth swiftly died! BLEURGH.

Anyway, I listen to the UK Top 50 on Spotify every so often in order to avoid being completely out of touch, and I think I'm more clued up on what's relevant than most of my peers, but I enjoy a mere fraction of the chart music I hear nowadays. And I'm VERY comfortable in my 'heritage act' era of being that guy who muscles his way onto every bar's playlist by midnight and forces everyone to enjoy a euphoric cocktail of strictly-20thC classics cos frankly, life is better that way!
 
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