A lot is made about generational differences in music, but I believe the divide may often be exaggerated. When I was young, I thought that people grew old when they stopped listening to music — maybe that’s part of why I’ve never stopped. And I see my point, there’s a vibrance to music that sparks us in a way like youth. I do have a bias for my playlists, which are rooted largely in the last millennium. But I love learning new music and my playlists increasingly grow with contemporary artists. And there are some great songs in Gen Z’s catalog.
Young people access music differently than was done “back in my day.” I learned most of my music from friends or at my underage dance club, but a good bit from the radio as well. My 16 year old, Quinn, tells me that most music they find is from video shorts. Although they also like The Beatles, Metallica, Queen, The Doors, Aerosmith… lots of older music. Coley (21) finds music mostly through animatics, which are short animations like storyboards set to music. My niece (23) understands the algorithms that feed music to listeners on streaming sites and how poorly represented newer artists often are on those sites. I think that might be similar to radio play in the 80’s — most music I liked wasn’t represented there. But that’s a whole other investigation that I may delve into another time. For now, I just want to share some songs I like that have been shared with me by these three vibrant souls. I’m not sure that these songs fully represent Gen Z, but at least they do a cool portion of them.
I start my list with “Rule #46” from Fish in A Birdcage, “Poet”, naturally. This song is not on any of my playlists; I just found it doing a deep dive of Fish in a Birdcage, a fascinating band with great use of instruments and range of sounds. It is a band that often shows up on Quinn’s playlists and everytime I ask, “Who is this?” Another band that always piques my interest is The Crane Wives, who are often featured on both Quinn’s and Coley’s playlists. It was hard to narrow down which of their songs to share, with their great lyrics, swing, and harmonies. I believe my kid might’ve actually outgrown their appreciation of Cavetown, but I still love them and have a few of their songs on my "Soundtrack for Life" Spotify mix. “Boys Will Be Bugs” is one of those songs I never skip and always sing with. I’ve spent a lot of time with both Penelope Scott (not included in songs below) and Sushi Soucy tonight, trying to find songs that weren’t too edgy for me to share here. Coley suggested, “Rock in God’s Shoe” by Sushi Soucy. You can look it up if interested; instead I went with “The Hard Way.” I think both Penelope Scott and Sushi Soucy are great in that genre of women who have important things to say with meaningful lyrics, rich with profanity, and well-played, although sometimes ironically pretty guitar. These songs represent a range of styles from rockin’ ("Funkle Phil" by Ghost Bear and "Greener" by Tally Hall) to slow to country ("Sadness as a Gift" by Adrianne Lenker). Give a listen and feel free to let me know what you like or share other new tunes I may be missing.
Image from PCMag.com (2021)
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