My mother grew up in the “70s and attended college in the “80s. The woman lived through a prime time in music history when considering the pop divas and wild hair bands of her day. Her recent realization that the oldies stations now play her favorite adolescent hits was a hard one, but I think she”s coping well.
Lyndsie Kiebert
Rawr
The arrival of Moms” Weekend got me thinking. What will popular music sound like when my kids are in high school and college? And also, what will I make them listen to in the car when it”s my turn to pick the tunes?
Let”s speculate and say I have a child in the year 2026, so they”d be 18 years old in 2044. While I”m sure the means of obtaining and listening to music will be incredibly advanced – look at how quickly the iPod ran it”s course, with advancements in music streaming and production every single day – I think we”ll see repeated trends in the popular music scene.
Consider the current revival of synth-pop. This airy, nostalgic sound is reminiscent of Pat Benatar”s “Love Is A Battlefield” or any pre-1990s Michael Jackson. It”s nothing new, but simply being reinvented by artists like Betty Who, Walk the Moon and The Weeknd.
There is a plethora of music trends constantly fluctuating in and out of the spotlight. Boy bands have changed a lot over the years, but the concept is the same. From The Beatles to Loverboy to N*Sync to One Direction, the demographics of followers seem to reflect one another, and I expect my own children to go through the same boy band obsession that my mom and I and my little sisters all went through.
Even though hair bands gave way to trap music and the cycle of new sound will continue, I think it”s safe to say that these trends will reappear and take the music scene by storm within my lifetime, and undoubtedly the lifetimes of my kids.
As far as what I”ll want to listen to in 2044 when it”s my turn to pick the day”s soundtrack, I imagine it will be a mixture of things. After all, my parents influenced a lot of my timeless jams – from Foreigner to Lynyrd Skynyrd, I occasionally take a trip into the “70s and “80s because I have fond memories of my mom cooking dinner while jamming to “Cold As Ice” and my dad asking me to play “Free Bird” on repeat in the car.
Plus, I tend to be receptive to what”s popular at any given time. I highly doubt I”ll dislike whatever my kids are into in 2044.
But I suppose my speculations as to what I”ll want to listen to that will remind me of my childhood and high school years would be Fall Out Boy, Avril Lavigne, Coldplay, The Killers, Paramore, some of the bigger contemporary country music artists like Florida Georgia Line, and admittedly a touch of Justin Bieber (eighth grade was a good time, OK?)
There”s no way of knowing how my music tastes will change over the next 28 years, but I”m sure many of these bands will still frequent my mom van”s speakers.
Lyndsie Kiebert can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @lyndsie_kiebert