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I enjoy listening to college radio stations. They're usually varied in music genres and tend to reflect what college students want to put on the airwaves.
I'm a fan of 88.3FM Central Carolina Community College Radio.
Start dating a 19 year old.
Bro I ain’t drake.
I am aware that at this age gap is have nothing in common with a 19 year old other than sex.
19 is about 9 years too old for Drake.
By listening to their interests you’d keep your fingers on the youth’s pulse.
True.
I also realise I have no idea why Drake is rated so highly, dudes goofy as fuck and his music is mid at best.
Never take a break from culture. As soon as you take a year off you will be irrelevant. If that sound exhausting (it is) then congratulations; you have discovered why older people are never on top of pop culture.
"You will be irrelevant" to who? People whose identities are so wrapped up in popular culture they can't conceive of someone liking something from 30, 50, 80 years ago? Lmao
Start paying attention to the top new & trending Spotify playlists in genres you're interested in.
Early 30's here. I was at a small gathering my best mate put together about a year ago, and his 19 year old nephew was there. He expressed his interest in anime and we got chatting. While showing me some newer anime-related TikTok stuff (I have no social media myself and haven't really kept up with modern anime), I heard some fucking awesome 'aggressive trap' stuff and asked him who the artist was. It was Lil' Darkie and I was immediately hooked. I went down a rabbit hole searching his best stuff as well as other similar artists, and now have a huge playlist of great music I'd have never discovered on my own.
imo music discovery is a pretty organic process for most people. It's cultural and spreads via word of mouth. Chatting with younger people may be the best way to go, but understand that the youth rightfully don't want us in their spaces lmao
Bandcamp is nice, they have a curated genre section that updates frequently. College radio stations as someone mentioned, then just Shazam or whatever or look at their playlist online. I hate Spotify because it just gives you pop shit and doesn’t do anything niche or indie. There’s also SoundCloud, they make curated playlists of new stuff frequently. Sound cloud also has labels on there which curate some of their newest bands. It’s super easy to find niche indie labels I think. Lastly, look at lineups of local music spots. I used to listen to Deezer for finding non-US artists, but haven’t used it in a while since Bandcamp is kinda great about covering everywhere.
Get a skateboard and go to your local skate park. Walk up to some kids and say how do you do fellow kids? What are we listening to today?
Just my opinion, but I feel like you're far to concerned with being "current". No offence.
I'm 48 and when I was younger I swore up and down that "I wasn't going to be like my parents, stuck in my ways musically, blah blah blah." But you know what, it doesn't actually matter. Literally at all. It's vapid pop culture stuff that in adult world, no one actually cares about. Your friends aren't going to be your friends simply because you like the same music as them. You're social circle isn't going to rise and fall based on how "current" you are because outside of highschool, literally no one gives a damn.
Like what you like. Listen to what you want. and don't worry about staying "hip" because the entire concept is subjective and meaningless in the actual day-to-day world. No one is going to shun you for not knowing what's happening between Kendrick whats-his-face and The dude from Degrassi. And if they do, they're not really the kind of vapid social media obsessed people you should be associating with at your age anyway.
Again...just my opinion.
I think you might have my motivations a little confused.
I don’t want to be current myself. I want to keep up with current art, as it’s fascinating. Should I have not gotten in Beethoven and Chopin because those were before my time?
I don’t listen to vapid pop, pop music and what’s popular in different genres are two different things. I know I’m flogging this horse in a few comments, but Kendrick is certified lyrical genius and I never would have found him hadn’t I put the work in.
It’s not to make friends, hell I’ve got too many friends and I don’t need anymore. I don’t even share the new stuff with them as they don’t care, which is cool.
I do like what I like , hence I want to find more of what I might like you know.
I know you said it’s just your opinion, but I hope this gives more perspective on my intentions here, this is for me and me alone.
College/independent radio
I just take older bands/artists that I like, and look up "artists similar to...." On Google, and start from there. Easy enough.
As someone else said, bandcamp is pretty good. Their articles are, so far as I can tell, written by actual people and thus have more soul to them. I'm sure some asshole is plotting to replace them with LLM, but until then!
Also, go to shows. Go see live music. Usually folks have opening acts. Sometimes you can even make friends.
So I’m wondering what I can do to keep in the loop with my younger brothers and sisters?
The question is completely weird to me. Why do you care? Why do you think that is important?
Sounds from the example like OP doesn't want to miss out on media they might enjoy just because they're not hanging out with young people anymore. Seems like a reasonable thing to want.
Because I wanted to keep up with changes in art, as well as understanding the younger generation more.
There is huge divide between generations from the elders and it’s usually due to ignorance or superiority and it achieves nothing.
I honestly think your view is weird. Why wouldn’t you want to understand your fellow humans more.
My dude, I'm the same as you and I just keep radioing shit on Spotify and shazaming shit I hear and doing the same for TV shows and movies and tapping into the Spotify premade playlists from time to time. Works aight enough.
44 year old, lifelong metalhead here. I refuse to listen to a bands current album if it isn't my favorite of theirs. Too many bands phone it in after only a few years. So, I definitely need to find the latest music available. Metal Injection has a ballot every year of about 200 albums. Of course it isn't a definitive list, but it's enough for me to keep up with everything.
I would start reading Rolling Stone and similar stuff. The radio should also help.
Or are you looking specifically for only hip-hop?
Find a scene you like and subscribe to the artists and their labels. As for trends and gossip, it's cooler to remain oblivious to that brain poison.
You can't, it's over, let go.
Late thirties is aging? That's like peak life. You have money and family (at least a chance of that) and purpose in your life. You have confidence and you know who you are.
You are still a bit dumb, but less dumb than twenty somethings. I liked my late thirties.
Sign up for email lists to smaller venues (<1000 capacity) and check out the bands getting booked. Also, sign up for record label mailings, indie labels tend to have bands with similar vibes. Spotify and algorithm recs are not the way to go
I don't know how to help you, but I'll tell you that I have the opposite perspective. The two artists I'd most like to avoid are the ones you mentioned, so if there was a way I could eliminate suggestions from anyone who was like "fuck yeah Kendrick and Drake" I would absolutely do that.
Taste over time is totally divergent and you've probably got your work cut out for you to find your exact niche :).
I think the difference is that as a kid music is forced on you from all kinds of sources: parents, friends, radio, etc. So you don't realize how much time you actually spent just listening to new music.
As an Old, you probably don't have nearly as much random exposure, i.e. you control when you listen to music now. Which means the answer to your question is that you have to consciously set aside time simply to listen to music. It may feel like a "waste of time" for each track you think is shit, but that's just part of the process.
Good luck, and thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
Dude. Dude. You're still a kid ;)
Age jokes from an old fart aside, it's about your willingness to go looking.
It does mean you'll end up using some otherwise shitty services unless you are active in a local music related scene (like clubbing). But YouTube, Pandora, spotify, and most of the other music streaming services have some degree of recommendations. They aren't all that great usually, but in the absence of being immersed with real life music explorers, it's the best option.
You can check out the Billboard top 200 and go the route of hoping your preferred music genres chart in the first place, but also being fairly reliable that other fans have vetted tracks for it to get there.
And radio still exists. You can pick a station that's genre specific or a top 40 station and find stuff that's already a little popular that way. It isn't as reliable as it used to be, but you can find newer raising acts that way.
There's forums. I haunt the typical lemmy based music C/s, plus the ones for my favorite genres, which keeps me fairly up to date on new releases as well as some new acts.
And, always participate in your local scene when possible. It's harder with hip-hop since finding local acts outside of cities is damn near impossible, but if you're into other stuff too, it can be a great way to catch acts before they get going, if your local scene is active enough. I'm fairly lucky in that bluegrass is one of the genres I'm into, and I'm not too far away from one of the better known cities for country and bluegrass music. So it's easy to find new bands and solo acts performing at a bar or local festival that end up getting popular eventually. That's an example of what i mean, making use of what's already there locally.
Honestly, just follow some Instagram meme pages or browse SoundCloud's rap playlists. As a young person™️, this is how I've always found stuff, including xxxtentacion and lil peep when I was younger and they were both still around. If you're worried about "invading" our spaces like the other comment says, I think that sentiment is changing. I've befriended some older peeps online just for having anime pfps and stuff lmao.