3 ms·

I remember reading the following quote about music in the 1950s and 60s: "Prior to this era, there was no distinction between music adults and teenagers listen

I remember reading the following quote about music in the 1950s and 60s: "Prior to this era, there was no distinction between music adults and teenagers listened to. E.g. Frank Sinatra was popular with multiple age demographics. Starting in the late 1950s, being a cool teenager meant that you liked music that was different than what your parents listened to. This was first seen with rock and roll." It's interesting to see this come full circle to the point that Taylor Swift crosses multiple age brackets.

duxup 3y ago
I certainly saw the claimed fracturing of music along various demographic lines but I always wondered how true it was. It certainly felt that way and it was talked about... but people I knew always listened to a variety of music. The running joke on Youtube about something like Wilson Philips "Hold on" was that "Somewhere out there there's <insert unlikely demographic> is rocking out to this song". I don't doubt there were differences among demographics, but I also wonder how much we as humans look for those lines and exaggerate them. I honestly didn't even know who Taylor Swift was for an embarrassingly long time and I yet enjoyed her songs when I heard them. I wonder if for most of the masses it really doesn't matter, but enthusiasts and marketers are the folks who care / notice the differences that might not ever have been THAT stark.
- alexpotato 3y ago
  > I honestly didn't even know who Taylor Swift was for an embarrassingly long time and I yet enjoyed her songs when I heard them The below article (from 2014) has a great perspective on how popular TS was not just in the US but also globally and how rare this was (and still is): https://priceonomics.com/some-artists-are-big-in-america-some/ https://priceonomics.com/some-artists-are-big-in-america-som...
- giantrobot 3y ago
  > It certainly felt that way and it was talked about... but people I knew always listened to a variety of music. Before about 2000 I think you'd find most people, not all but most, tended to listen to smaller varieties of music. Top40/Pop radio stations played a very safe middle ground of music. There was never anything too avant-garde or experimental. The 70s and 80s saw a lot of radio stations cropping up targeting particular genres rather than just one late night DJ that loved that genre. This included "oldies" stations catering to previous decades' Top40 back catalogs. Big record stores were very clearly organized by genre which was copied by the big box stores when they started carrying significant music sections. It wasn't until finding single tracks online was easy that I think many people branched out with musical styles. Someone hearing a single on the radio of a genre they didn't normally listen to were unlikely to go drop $15 (in 199x dollars) on a whole CD of that artist. Relatively few artists actually released CD singles (in the US) so that $15 entry fee to a new genre wasn't trivial. Fast forward to the early 00s in the era of P2P and iTunes (the clear industry juggernaut) and singles were now readily available. If you wanted that one rap or dance track you could easily get it without dropping $15 on a whole album. YouTube and then streaming just made this sort of thing even easier and cheaper. Someone spending $10 a month on music in 1993 had access to far fewer choices than someone spending the same amount today.
giantrobot 3y ago
I think Taylor Swift is a unique case. Not unrepeatable, just currently unique. For one she is genuinely talented. Many pretty singers are in fact terrible song writers and mediocre musicians. Their hits are often written by middle aged men, occasionally middle aged women, and rarely themselves and pulled from fake books. Taylor Swift can write music, sing, dance, and even play her music so she is in rare company with those talents. It helps her a great deal she is attractive. There's plenty of talented women in music that aren't/haven't been as successful because they aren't "pretty". The second part of her uniqueness is she came up in an age of peak media saturation and peak ease of distribution. When Taylor Swift started the Internet was already big and she had a significant online following. iTunes ascension was also happening so she could easily sell to people only wanting singles rather than whole CDs which maximized her sales under the price/demand curve. P2P file trading was also prominent so she got even more space under the price/demand curve. The third part of her uniqueness is her age. She's positioned right between Millennials and Gen Z which are both pretty large demographic cohorts. Even her early work was fairly mature (considering her biological age) so it didn't just appeal to people her age. If she was ten years older I don't think she'd have her current level of impact, it would be significant but might not straddle generations so she'd have far fewer younger fans. The situation in the 50s and 60s was very different. Distribution was harder and more expensive, there were fewer radio stations, and music on TV was very limited. Not to mention just fewer radios and TVs. A household might have one of each but it wouldn't be until the later 60s you might expect a teenager to have their own record player or radio in their bedroom. By the time of Taylor Swift it would be uncommon for a middle class teenager to not have at least their own radio. A non-trivial segment had their own computers by then so could easily access Taylor Swift's online presence, fan-based or direct. So I'm not sure her appeal to multiple age brackets being the overall industry coming full circle but instead some unique factors of Taylor Swift individually.

duxup 3y ago

I certainly saw the claimed fracturing of music along various demographic lines but I always wondered how true it was. It certainly felt that way and it was talked about... but people I knew always listened to a variety of music. The running joke on Youtube about something like Wilson Philips "Hold on" was that "Somewhere out there there's <insert unlikely demographic> is rocking out to this song". I don't doubt there were differences among demographics, but I also wonder how much we as humans look for those lines and exaggerate them. I honestly didn't even know who Taylor Swift was for an embarrassingly long time and I yet enjoyed her songs when I heard them. I wonder if for most of the masses it really doesn't matter, but enthusiasts and marketers are the folks who care / notice the differences that might not ever have been THAT stark.

alexpotato 3y ago
> I honestly didn't even know who Taylor Swift was for an embarrassingly long time and I yet enjoyed her songs when I heard them The below article (from 2014) has a great perspective on how popular TS was not just in the US but also globally and how rare this was (and still is): https://priceonomics.com/some-artists-are-big-in-america-some/ https://priceonomics.com/some-artists-are-big-in-america-som...
giantrobot 3y ago
> It certainly felt that way and it was talked about... but people I knew always listened to a variety of music. Before about 2000 I think you'd find most people, not all but most, tended to listen to smaller varieties of music. Top40/Pop radio stations played a very safe middle ground of music. There was never anything too avant-garde or experimental. The 70s and 80s saw a lot of radio stations cropping up targeting particular genres rather than just one late night DJ that loved that genre. This included "oldies" stations catering to previous decades' Top40 back catalogs. Big record stores were very clearly organized by genre which was copied by the big box stores when they started carrying significant music sections. It wasn't until finding single tracks online was easy that I think many people branched out with musical styles. Someone hearing a single on the radio of a genre they didn't normally listen to were unlikely to go drop $15 (in 199x dollars) on a whole CD of that artist. Relatively few artists actually released CD singles (in the US) so that $15 entry fee to a new genre wasn't trivial. Fast forward to the early 00s in the era of P2P and iTunes (the clear industry juggernaut) and singles were now readily available. If you wanted that one rap or dance track you could easily get it without dropping $15 on a whole album. YouTube and then streaming just made this sort of thing even easier and cheaper. Someone spending $10 a month on music in 1993 had access to far fewer choices than someone spending the same amount today.

giantrobot 3y ago

I think Taylor Swift is a unique case. Not unrepeatable, just currently unique. For one she is genuinely talented. Many pretty singers are in fact terrible song writers and mediocre musicians. Their hits are often written by middle aged men, occasionally middle aged women, and rarely themselves and pulled from fake books. Taylor Swift can write music, sing, dance, and even play her music so she is in rare company with those talents. It helps her a great deal she is attractive. There's plenty of talented women in music that aren't/haven't been as successful because they aren't "pretty". The second part of her uniqueness is she came up in an age of peak media saturation and peak ease of distribution. When Taylor Swift started the Internet was already big and she had a significant online following. iTunes ascension was also happening so she could easily sell to people only wanting singles rather than whole CDs which maximized her sales under the price/demand curve. P2P file trading was also prominent so she got even more space under the price/demand curve. The third part of her uniqueness is her age. She's positioned right between Millennials and Gen Z which are both pretty large demographic cohorts. Even her early work was fairly mature (considering her biological age) so it didn't just appeal to people her age. If she was ten years older I don't think she'd have her current level of impact, it would be significant but might not straddle generations so she'd have far fewer younger fans. The situation in the 50s and 60s was very different. Distribution was harder and more expensive, there were fewer radio stations, and music on TV was very limited. Not to mention just fewer radios and TVs. A household might have one of each but it wouldn't be until the later 60s you might expect a teenager to have their own record player or radio in their bedroom. By the time of Taylor Swift it would be uncommon for a middle class teenager to not have at least their own radio. A non-trivial segment had their own computers by then so could easily access Taylor Swift's online presence, fan-based or direct. So I'm not sure her appeal to multiple age brackets being the overall industry coming full circle but instead some unique factors of Taylor Swift individually.