Backlash after Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" removed from Billboard Hot Country chart

It's difficult to engage with popular culture in a way that doesn't unconsciously elevate certain contingent contextual parameters into some sort of universal and permanent set of rules of engagement. More than "nostalgia" for particular cultural artefacts, it's this which makes talking about the past versus today such a fraught exercise.

Specifically in this case, I don't understand why we would even talk about "top 40 radio" in a 2024 context - how many people engage with it today? It's not how most people are exposed to or consume new music. It's difficult for me to even think about whether "the kids" today have a better or worse deal because the rules of engagement have transformed so radically.

Maybe there was some benefit to me, as a teenager, in being forced to engage with the radio and with music video shows, and then more attentively with specific music on an album by album basis premised on how much pocket money I could save, but there were a lot of false starts along the way, e.g. being inundated with the video clip for K's Choice "Not An Addict" until I convinced myself that I liked it and bought the album, which I then listened to until I convinced myself that I liked that, only to realise that in truth nothing about it did anything for me. These are the kinds of experiences that my mid-90s nostalgia skips over, just as I struggle now to remember the stresses and boredoms and minor irritations of whatever was going on 10 years. I'm sure kids today have equivalent underwhelming experiences in engaging with popular culture, but trying to reach some overarching view as to whether the sum total of experiences is worse now seems to me like a thankless task.

Xxp DJP speaks wisdom. That song rocks nonstop

LOOKS LIKE AN APPLE CORE

Looking at the Billboard Hot 100 for 1995 vs 2022, the main thing that sticks out is the ‘95 lineup seeming more adult-oriented. We were getting Montell Jordan at school dances but my parents would also put him on at parties. I don’t know if parents of junior high kids today are living the Jack Harlow/Morgan Wallen life.

Taylor Swift, who still dominates the charts, is as much or more parent music than teen music

Many xps but: Also I didn't have cable, and therefore didn't have MTV, and therefore didn't see music videos until most of their heyday had passed.

There was a network show called "Friday Night Videos," but if you weren't poised in front if the TV when it aired, you would not be able to see moonwalking Michael Jackson or Cyndi's checkerboard hairdo or Van Halen's thing with words about right now or REM's thing with the wings or the thing about how everybody hurts.

You just simply didn't. Until later, when you somehow managed to see them and you figured out what people had been talking about for the previous several years.

I have lost track of why we are discussing this in a Lil Nas X thread

Point of order, “Not An Addict” is great (but not the type of song that would ever entice me into buying a band’s album)

"Rock Me Amadeus" was catchy as hell, but it was no "Der Komissar."

“Der Kommisar“ > “Vienna Calling” > “Rock Me Amadeus”

I would put “Jeanny” in there but I don’t remember how it goes

Many xps but: Also I didn't have cable, and therefore didn't have MTV, and therefore didn't see music videos until most of their heyday had passed.

There was a network show called "Friday Night Videos," but if you weren't poised in front if the TV when it aired, you would not be able to see moonwalking Michael Jackson or Cyndi's checkerboard hairdo or Van Halen's thing with words about right now or REM's thing with the wings or the thing about how everybody hurts.

You just simply didn't. Until later, when you somehow managed to see them and you figured out what people had been talking about for the previous several years.

I have lost track of why we are discussing this in a Lil Nas X thread

― CthulhuLululemon (Ye Mad Puffin),

Same. I watched the Friday Night Videos re-runs on Saturday mornings; I've vivid memories of watching the videos for "The Reflex," "We Belong," "I Feel For You," many others. We got a VCR that same year. When pop music obsessed me I recorded FNV in 1989-1990. Until I did that, though, I relied on those monitors that big department stores like Burdines/Macy's installed in the kids departments. That's where I learned about Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper, Pet Shop Boys, Wham!, Madonna, Bruce, etc.

We had a small PBS station, broadcasting out of Broomfield, Colorado, whose most popular show by some distance was "Teletunes." They played the stuff that MTV didn't, and without any of the extraneous material. Here's an interesting 2020 piece from the local free paper:

https://www.westword.com/music/sounds-on-29th-season-looks-at-music-videos-and-revisits-teletunes-archive-11826452

One of my favorite bits was their signoff every night, which was "Goodbye to You" by Scandal.

“Der Kommisar“ > “Vienna Calling” > “Rock Me Amadeus”

correct ranking of Mitteleuropean 80s rock songs that are not as good as "99 Red Balloons"

Until I did that, though, I relied on those monitors that big department stores like Burdines/Macy's installed in the kids departments. That's where I learned about Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper, Pet Shop Boys, Wham!, Madonna, Bruce, etc.

Looking at the Billboard Hot 100 for 1995 vs 2022, the main thing that sticks out is the ‘95 lineup seeming more adult-oriented. We were getting Montell Jordan at school dances but my parents would also put him on at parties. I don’t know if parents of junior high kids today are living the Jack Harlow/Morgan Wallen life.

I noticed this a lot with 80's and 90's totp reruns, not just stuff that adults could enjoy but also tons of older artists still hitting the top4 on the regular, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Phil Collins ofc. I do see a lot of headlines about veteran artist x topping the album charts these days but I think they're safely siloed off from the hot100.

Anyway, re: nostlagia, I've been playing a lot of those Sporcle music clip quizzes Limmy plays on his streams and I'll tell you I'm a fucking beasy when it comes to identifying two second excerpts of hit songs from the 50's to about 2005 and utterly useless after that. This would break the heart of 18 year old me who envisioned my future as a fearless chronicler of pop history, keeping my ears to the ground and my mind in the trenches for as long as I breathed.

but think how embarrassing it would be to know the difference between some awful dubstep pop monstrosity and the Chainsmokers, or the difference between any of the “stomp clap hey” bands of the early teens

Lol re:older acts hitting the top 100

Taylor Swift and Drake debuted around 18 years ago. It’s the equivalent of Grace Slick on the charts in 1986.

Chris Stapleton, Miley, and Nicki were all around two decades ago as well.

hell we all were

weren't there a bunch of old 60s farts in the 80s charts too?

grace slick for example

Take a look at the 1986 rundown I linked to.

The whole “we are at the end of history” shit is tedious post-leftist reactionary podcast runoff imho, no offense to anyone who got bamboozled

Cf https://t.co/IFFIFDFBW5

I mean specifically when used to address present pop culture conditions, obv, although the parallels with a now-30 year old Fukuyama argument are intentional

but think how embarrassing it would be to know the difference between some awful dubstep pop monstrosity and the Chainsmokers, or the difference between any of the “stomp clap hey” bands of the early teens

Knowledge is never embarassing and I assure you my database for 1950-2005 holds plenty that is equally terrible.

My instinct is that most ppl in our age range are simply not aware of what kids are listening to - that kids no longer consume the most popular pop music from a charting pov primarily, that they, much adults, have favorite artists from a wide range of tiers of success, underground favs, poptimist favs, “mid” etc

Big trends in popular streaming music include regional Mexican music, country music, r&b, amapiano, rap as always, super fast dance music most kids associate with video games rather than Frankie knuckles or Kevin Saunderson, etc

*much like adults

Oh yea they also listen to lots of phonk (Eastern European teens making 90s Memphis rap into dance music) and increasingly Brazilian variants of such

Well I don’t know how much kids are listening to amapiano specifically but afropop still streams. It does feel more adult oriented

Replace with kpop or whatever

weren't there a bunch of old 60s farts in the 80s charts too?

― Left, Tuesday, January 16, 2024 9:39 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know. I was responding to this:

I noticed this a lot with 80's and 90's totp reruns, not just stuff that adults could enjoy but also tons of older artists still hitting the top4 on the regular, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, Phil Collins ofc. I do see a lot of headlines about veteran artist x topping the album charts these days but I think they're safely siloed off from the hot100.

not to speak for dyl, but I didn’t take dyl’s comment (or this convo) to involve “what kids are listening to” on the dl, as much as “pop music” on the most mainstream level (Top 40 and such)…

(I mean I wish I were cool enough that when I said the narrow slice of pop music that I love is better than ever, I was referring to something marginal or obscure… but I ain’t)

can we talk about Falco some more in here

this is frogbs calling

not to speak for dyl, but I didn’t take dyl’s comment (or this convo) to involve “what kids are listening to” on the dl, as much as “pop music” on the most mainstream level (Top 40 and such)…

― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Tuesday, January 16, 2024 9:01 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yea but per Tim’s comment, plus my own, I don’t think top 40 measures what top 40 measured before

I’m not sure teens were listening to all those Diane Warren chart toppers in the 90s either.

The Aerosmith and Toni Braxton ones for sure.

Yeah I didn't take it to be about "measuring" as much as the quality of what is right there in front of us, where it's always been (also, I mean, Duo Lipa is actually v popular)

(not popular enough that I know how to spell her name apparently.. lol)

fwiw, the "the good shit is over here now" line doesn't conflict w/dyl's argument, either

That whole “algorithms are taking over pop” thing felt true to me, at least to a certain extent, in the 2010s, but not now. Plus *smug benevolent father figure face* I have loads of conversations with actual young people about music (bcz DJing) and no two people are the same in terms of what they’re into and why; their knowledge and range, particularly with lyrics, regularly staggers me. I’ve also noticed more awareness from 30+ people about new/current pop. But I’m UK, so maybe it’s different elsewhere.

I sometimes think you folks sometime just make up genres to fuck with me.

Like, are y'all into Blompcore? Smoosh-rap? Flomp-hop? Trip-trap?

In the 90s my friends and I used to invent indie acts and nonexistent labels, because there was no central source of truth. Haven't you heard of The Baby Wipes? They started out on the Rectal Snot label, in Portland. But then they totally sold out when they signed with Megascope.

related, my friends in freshman year of college had a fake band called The Storm Petrels. we even made trucker hats with their name

i recall years ago on here when some of us pretended that Denny Lethargy made an album with Sonny Sharrock (the two never actually collaborated.)

I really dug the Storm Petrels' first EP, Promising Debut.

But I was not into their second release, Disappointing Followup.

did adult contemporary just kinda disappear?

I feel like nowadays there's less room for the David Foster-esque pop

Taylor Swift is effectively adult-contemporary now

We've got an A/C station here -- the cross-campus shuttle blasts it. I'll hear the softer '80s and '90s, stuff like Taylor Swift and Sam Smith and the Fray.

ours really leaned into the Elton John/Dua Lipa mashup

did adult contemporary just kinda disappear?

That's Tycho now