Out of the loop/in the bubble

Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I am listening to POLLEN, a Spotify-curated list of music, and I've never heard of 95% of these artists, who have tens and sometimes HUNDREDS of millions of plays on Spotify. (Anyone more than vaguely aware of Daniel Caesar, for example? Khruangbin?)

Weird, isn't it? My "idea" of popular music these days begins and ends with Ed Sheeran. Also I've got no idea how Stormzy became a national treasure.

It occurs to me that perhaps something similar to the infamous "social media bubble" phenomenon also holds true for music these days. Of course, people have always been into their own styles and artists, but was it just because I was younger or was there more of a shared consciousness of popular music pre Internet?

The other purpose of the thread would be to identify extremely popular artists we've never heard of who are actually some cop. Most of this playlist is pleasant but doesn't rise above pleasant.
 
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Dusty

Dusty

Tone deaf
As someone who doesn't use streaming sites I'm even more out of touch. I have zero idea what kids are listening to beyond what I hear coming from my neighbours teenage sons room. Which appears to be either Eminem or heavily auto-tuned... something... trap? Basic beats, Fruityloops synths.

The whole K-pop thing. I had no idea, no concept of its existence until Limmy tried trolling the followers on Twitter and got tens of thousands of hate tweets back.

I recall reading a paper/article a few years ago on the increasing fragmentation and siloing of subculture, and it definitely seems to be playing out.

I would definitely agree that pre-internet, there were only a handful of sources of information for the mainstream. You either sat down and watched Top of the Pops with your parents. You listened to Radio 1, either the daytime popular crew, or the evening John Peel brigade. You read NME or Melody Maker. You browsed the shelves of your local record store. A shared musical consciousness. Even if you didn't follow some of those paths, you at least knew where they were, where to tap into it.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Listening to some 70s punk music, wondering if there will be a 2020's punk

There's no unified mainstream now to react against - meaning there couldn't be something like punk again
 
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