I feel global political oppression or global wars usually produce great music but Macklemore might be the peak.
Nothing against him, some of his songs are good, but I expected real rage inducing stuff with everything going on. Or is this just the state of music as a whole?
100 Gecs maybe? Great as they are, I doubt it tbh. This gen is spoiled with choice more so than any before them (those lucky ducks). The internet-boom turned this game right on it’s side and media companies are still trying to figure out how to get back to business as usual. Sure, they’ve got their superstar acts like Swift and Lamar, but even those two huge names are vocal about rejecting that same old order in a way that just wasn’t feasible for similar acts a couple decades ago.
I think trying to find one singular act like your Nirvanas or Madonnas of the past just isn’t going to work from now on. These days, tastes and takes are just too splintered to reach a satisfying consensus on something like this.
I’ve had this conversation with one of my older friends. We used to have a lot more of a monoculture when it came to media. You could joke about last night’s popular TV shows because nearly everyone you knew was watching them.
There just wasn’t as much stuff being produced at the time. Now, you can always be listening to something new, 24/7, and you still won’t even begin to tap the potential of “what’s popular”. And once you step outside the US, that blows up to a whole new proportion.