What's good these days?

one way I know the lemmy population is old is how frequently we complain about the youths these days. we’ve become our parents, and their parents before them, moaning about how no one has good taste anymore

I went to a TOOL concert last weekend and it really put into perspective how old my taste in music is lol. It seemed like 90% of the people there were like 30-40.
For context, I’m 19.
I'm one of those youths and I hate most of the music my peers listen to.
What's weird is that I don't even know how people know what the "kids these days" are into. Like where are they getting that information? Maybe I'm just divorced from the zeitgeist, but I dunno how people ever think to look at "oh this song has 4 billion listens" or whatever. I guess what I'm saying is, is the perception of "the kids" a real thing, or is it just kind of this weird fake thing people make up so they can get mad at their own hallucinations?
The kids suck, but the olds suck even harder. Moral of the story, "I don't like people".
- Years of experience, thank you very much.
Idk, man. I started feeling this way when I was ~14, at least about the music I heard on the radio. I rarely got any say over what we listened to in my parent's cars so I'd constantly be praying that the next song wouldn't be something that had come out recently
- it’s one thing to not like new music, i think that’s normal, people discover the music they like fairly early on and usually get kinda stuck in it. but all the people saying new music is objectively garbage and people just have garbage taste now? yea they got that boomer mentality where the stuff they like from their youth is the golden age, everything else is inferior, and their opinions are facts

Every generation: "I know all the generations before me have whined about the new music the kids are listening to, and I always correctly identified their whining as pathetic old-person behavior. But MY generation is actually right. The new music objectively sucks."

It'll happen to the current batch of kids, too.

Nobody will ever rise above it. It's just a basic part of human nature. You might as well ask people to stop breathing.

Selection bias is huge too. You could argue that the current hits suck, and that the current hits have always sucked in every era. Lots of them do, they're disposable trash music.
The difference is that we don't remember half the garbage that hit the charts when we were young, only the good stuff survives. When I play classic bangers for my daughter, she thinks they're awesome. Some of those tracks are older than me, but with streaming services and huge libraries "hits" don't really matter that much when we can now listen to the best tracks picked out of a century of recorded music.
I'm nearly 40 and I like to blast some of the current hits, I like stuff from the 90s and I like classic rock, funk and some of the really old jazz and blues stuff. There's no reason to act like your age has to determine your musical taste.
I have no time for some of the modern rappers with no skill though, that stuff is objectively trash when we grew up with legends like Outkast, Eminem etc lol
- Does Canada have music? I thought it was just moose calls and beaver drumming?
- Blah, blah, blah, just a bunch of music snob nonsense, spewing from your keyboard.
  Just stop being a music snob. It's better and easier. You're NEVER going to convince people to start hating the music that they like. And if you do, that's just fucking sad for everyone involved.
Nobody will ever rise above it.
Actually I rose above it! Everything I like is great and everything I don't like is shit. Simple.
That's kinda missing the point. I am aware my taste in music is not the same as the new generation, still I hear and discover new music that's actually interesting.
On the other hand, Spotify misses the opportunity to actually offer you discovering new genres, artists, songs that you may like. That's OPs point, and I agree.
The last time a streaming service actually made me discover new music was 2015 Deezer.
- Idk, I think Spotify's Discover Weekly is pretty good at finding music from less popular bands but YMMV.
- I mean, the OP was looking just at the top 50 global, not their discovery.
I think people will still remember a few dozen songs, while most of the rest will simply fall into obscurity.
Also real, longlasting appeal is found in the alternative and more original parts of the music industry more often than in the popular corporate top-10 drivel.
Meh, I always hated my generations music. But that is just me cause the others of course love it.
- Ahh, so you became a hipster snob EARLY. Lots of people do. It's fine. I mean, it's not curable, but neither is most of life.
Nah, music of my generation also sucks too.
I AM THE ONLY ONE WITH GOOD TASTE!! Muuuu hahahahaha!
Academically, they proved music peaked in the 60s.

I miss the old Pandora, just a single page website, limited skips (it was free so it was a small tradeoff), and it actually would recommend music that you've never heard before that actually sounded similar to stuff you told its algo you liked.

Pandora was great. Discovered loads of cool, obscure shit.
- The only downside is that their algorithm never changed, the same station had the same songs on repeat for 7+ years, not a single new song added per-query for some reason. Keeping it fresh would have gone a much longer way.
- It still is if you have a decent ad blocker
I discovered so much music in those days. I’ve never found anything that’s close to equivalent. It’s one of the big reasons I’m still listening to the music I listened to through my teens and twenties.
Wait, what? Pandora isn't free anymore?
TBF, I haven't used it in years. These days I stick with YouTube Music ReVanced so I can skip all the music I want for free and without ads. Not a fan of the sound quality, though. I wonder if there is something similar for Spotify...

Top 50 Tracks From Recent Netflix Tween TV Shows.

It isn’t radio though because hardly anyone listens to the radio anymore. It’s probably because there is a practically small amount of radio listening that people have started grabbing onto anything that sounds basic and easily digestible. The less they’re challenged, the better they feel about it.
Yeah, it's not that music has gotten worse, it's that radio has gone squarely down the shitter since basically every station is owned by like 2 companies now.

Check out King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Something different.

Open the door 🐍
Oh man, great recommendation. The Bug Club is another good one. Their newest album is awesome.
- Is this your band or something? Because I just listened to a bunch of songs and while it's... fine? Lo fi garage rock, it is really nothing similar or on the same level as king gizzard? Just an all around strange recommendation.
Going to see them in may. Can confirm.
Hoping to see them at red rocks

Let me recommend some excellent Chinese/Taiwanese band I found this year (most of them are instrumental rock, so there are no language barriers)

IZ band, a Kazakhs band specialize in industrial rock (https://oldheavenbooks.bandcamp.com/album/jangqerek and https://oldheavenbooks.bandcamp.com/album/kolengke )
8 Immortals Restaurant (https://8immortalsrestaurant.bandcamp.com/album/inauguration-of-the-pleasure-dome )
Little Wizard (https://littlewizardchina.bandcamp.com/album/little-wizard-iii )
Tation, a post rock band from Tibetan Plateau (https://tation.bandcamp.com/album/illusions-of-the-new-era )
Cold Dew, a Taiwanese dream rock band (https://colddew1.bandcamp.com/album/yuyu and https://wvsorcerer.bandcamp.com/album/yuyu )

Deca Joins is another good Taiwanese band. I recommend the Audiotree live session.
- Yeap, there are many good, famous, and long-standing Chinese/Taiwanese bands:
  deca joins
  snapline https://maybemars.bandcamp.com/album/shou-hua
  orange ocean
  elephant gym https://elephant-gym.bandcamp.com/album/world
  Backspace (in mandarin) https://maybemars.bandcamp.com/album/human-nature-architecture
  Hipperson (in mandarin) https://maybemars.bandcamp.com/album/bildungsroman
  re-tros https://re-tros.bandcamp.com/album/rrasfc
  mimik banka https://mimikbanka.bandcamp.com/album/black-island
  sunset rollercoaster https://sunset-rollercoaster.bandcamp.com/track/levia
  no party for cao dong (in mandarin) https://nopartyforcaodong.bandcamp.com/album/the-clod
  I recommended the five above because I only found them this year, and several of them are from minority Chinese race.
Oi thanks m8!

Tell them to get off your lawn

Try out the Radio Garden app. It lets you pick almost any radio station worldwide and lets you pick through them on a globe. I found a ton of my current favorite artists through it. A few of my coworkers from Venezuela were thrilled to be able to hear stations from their hometowns.

I stopped caring about online music charts once I found out how people bot their favorite artists to trending cuz they're insecure in their own music tastes

I realized a long time ago that music “sucked” because I would never open myself up to it and genuinely allow myself to find value in it.

It’s like my dad who has just decided that all rap sucks even though he has basically zero experience with it. I said the same thing until I was around 21 and almost missed all the really, really good stuff. Tai Verdes’ album “TV” is incredibly musical, for example.

What do you listen to right now?

I try my hardest to find new songs, because I don't want to be some boomer bastard.
I don't know what exactly counts as 'new', but I'm enjoying these songs a lot lately
AronChupa & Little Sis Nora - Tangaman
Little Sis Nora - MDMA
These two remind me of late 90s eurobeat shit like Aqua.
Shotgun Willy - Bombs Away
bbno$ & Yung Gravy (BABY GRAVY) - Goodness Gracious
I actually just like anything by this bbno$ guy, but I'm loving the beats and flow on these styles of rap.
Pickle - Stompin'
Makes me feel like I'm on drugs in a club back in the day.
I feel like a lot of new music is probably hidden away on shit like TikTok where I'm never going to be exposed to it because I don't use it. I have noticed Drum 'n' Bass seems to be back, but I was never a fan of that but I'm sure it's someones jam.
- I try my hardest to find new songs, because I don't want to be some boomer bastard.
  I got news for you, pal. The harder you try to be young and hip for the sake of being young and hip, the worse the outcome will be. You're not getting any younger, and the sooner you accept that, the better.
  Instead of forcing yourself to listen to music that has the single attribute of "released less than 6 months ago" in some sad, vain attempt to relive your glory days, try exploring music based on what you actually enjoy. What artists inspire you? Who influenced them, and what genres influenced their sound? Where did the roots of that sound originate? If a song you love is a cover, who wrote or performed the original? What style of singing is it, or what kind of beat?
  Listen to what you want to listen to. The most interesting conversations I have with people about music always involve the history and roots of sound, not that last hip shit my aging hipster Lyft driver subjected me to.

Spellling (yes, spelled with three 'l's) is good. Very good!

Shhhhh. You're just getting old. Accept it. We're all getting old.
Remember the South Park episode where music started to sound like literal shit? That was possibly the most accurate episode of anything, ever.
All humans lack the ability to objectively analyze music that has been produced after they attain roughly 34 years of age. New music is bad, the music from your era is good.
It's just feelings. You're just associating positive nostalgia for your own youth with the sounds you were hearing, at the time. That's all it is. If you rigidly refuse to ever complain about new music, people will think you're cool. You'll still internally think new music is shitty, but you can choose to hide it.

Why does the cat have Charles' headphones? What are they planning?

Is that the headset that Charles Calvin wears?

You know, that helicopter guy who helps a prisoner take down a terrorist organization in order to free him from prison.

I can suggest my top 5 most heard artists of 2023:

100 gecs
Lola Indigo
San Holo
Fox Stevenson
Hannah Diamond

I reckon the selection is rather diverse. Depending on which you like, if any, I can recommend more stuff like it (or you can check the section for "fans of this also like those" on the artist page on Spotify, assuming you have Spotify).

Fuck yeah Fox Stevenson, I still have some of his Stan SB music saved!
- First I heard of Stevenson, was probably on the EDM subreddit. Someone posted a video mixing between Go Like (DnB mix) and Like That, under the title "There is no such thing as a perfect transit…" or similar.
  Anyways, if you like Stevenson, maybe check… idk, San Holo, Alison Wonderland, Krewella. All electronic musicians normally involved with writing, producing, and performing their songs. Not sure if those are good picks for Fox Stevenson fans, but I like them as well (Holo is in the list above, and Wonderland was my #1 most heard in 2022), and I don't know whether I'm good at recommending stuff, so… if you do check them out, or already know them, let me know! Nice to have feedback

Unroyal, The Score, OUTSKRTS, Mascot, X Ambassadors, AJR, Onerepublic, Twenty One Pilots

The video to "Car Radio" always gives me the chills (in a good way)

To name a few...

Jpegmafia

Idles

Metric

Tkay Maidza

Lustsick puppy

Love peggy, he's an incredible performer too. One man show with him DJing, no backing track, incredibly high energy performances of every song