Billie Eilish. Tyler the Creator. Kendrick Lamar. Chappell Roan. Anderson Paak.
Seriously, all of you people asking “Where’s the next big…” ever listened to Billie Eilish?
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Yeah - tried to like her. Didn’t! But that’s a matter of taste, really.
I don’t see her as part of a movement though. And her music is just more of the same. No revolution.
Sorry, really!
Judging by how many replies you’ve gotten so quickly, I think you touched a nerve. Since your son is sandwiched between the ages of my oldest and my youngest kids, I’ll focus my two cents on the relationship stuff.
I took a less active role in helping shape the musical interests of my step-daughter (~20 years younger than me) than with other children (~40 years younger than me). The result is predictable, in my opinion my step-daughter has awful taste in music, nor has she ever attempted to play any instruments.
To put it another way, she and I have a very narrow set of music we both tolerate, let along enjoy, and as a result, we typically leave music off when in each other’s company. Her biggest musical influence was the music she was exposed to as a cheerleader from elementary school through high school, which I often referred to as a cacophany of dissonance. My step-daughter is content listening to whatever “trash” Spotify picks for her, blaring it through her tinny phone speaker; I think of the Demolition Man comments earlier in this thread and remember wishing my step-daughter’s taste in music would improve to something at least as good. I could have taken a more active role, and I didn’t, so…
For my younger children, I have made a point to expose them to a variety of music, not just songs I like or ones that are well-known. In addition, I have made certain to play music they can feel (i.e. played through decent/full-range speakers instead of crappy phone speakers, etc.). For example, I have videos of them in diapers dancing around to everything from Mardi Gras classics to Motorhead’s Ace of Spades.
Once they could speak, they started requesting songs that made them move/dance - AC/DC and Black Eyed Peas got more playtime at that point. As they got a little older, they asked for the songs they would attempt to sing with, which meant more Joan Jett, Nancy Sinatra, Queen, and Twisted Sister. As they have each started to learn to play an instrument, they ask for (easy) songs to try to play along with, so we started by adding obligatory selections from Bob Marley as well as The White Stripes. Most recently, they have started to ask for songs that their friends like, which tend to be well-beyond their current singing and playing abilities like songs from Imagine Dragons and some of the newer Disney musicals.
I expect all of my children’s music interests to continue to evolve, some of which I probably won’t prefer. However, I have already gotten more from the process than I expected. My original hope/fear was that my younger children and I would be able to enjoy music together in some form, but I have stopped worrying about that. Something unexpected has been that my youngest children’s emerging musical journey has become a bridge with my step-daughter and my wife (who also has remarkably different musical tastes than me). Just the other day I put the radio and started flipping through the stations; I stopped on a song my daughter picked, then my daughter, my son, and my wife all started singing along.
The more I learn about music, the more I see how each generation of music was inspired by something older and often follows universal human experiences. It is completely normal for adolescents to discount the advise and wisdom of the older generations as they attempt to find their own identities. Great music connects with people, so it has real staying power; it’ll be around when they are ready to hear it, which means its up to you to keep the door open, so to speak, to allow their (re)discovery of great music to be something you can share with them.
Good luck!
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I’m going to second this, Billie Eilish is very good. I don’t like all of her stuff, but some of it is fantastic. I was “introduced” to her by my daughter and one of her friend, while driving her friend home one evening.
I’ve recently done bass covers of two of her songs, Bad Guy and Lunch. The base lines are such fun to play and I’m going to shamelessly post my covers here!!
Billie Eilish - Lunch bass cover
Billie Eilish - Bad Guy bass cover
Maybe go and also check out the originals.
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Proof that I have at least one album of her:
I like your covers, nice bass lines too … but is it “Love will tear us apart”?
PS This one also has a nice bass - so?
No, Love will tear us apart is Love will tear us apart. It’s a good song, but so are many others. Music is very personal. One person’s “amazing” is another person’s 
. I think most Black Sabbath is cr@p, but many bassist seem to think Geezer Butler is fantastic. I could go on…I won’t 
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I mean, I’m going to be very charitable and call myself middle aged, and I still find new great artists all the time. If you can’t, well, it’s not the music’s fault.
And how soon we forget how absolutely dogshit most music in the '80s was. For every Joy Division/New Order or Smiths there were like 100 incarnations of L’Trimm. And since you all made me remember Bunny and Tigra, here, you get to remember them too:
And here’s the rub: in terms of '80s pop, L’Trimm were way above average, not bad at all in comparison. Let THAT sink in. In fact Tigra became an influential club DJ.
So stop shaking your fists at clouds and whining about how everything sucks and go find some good music. It’s literally everywhere, it’s just surrounded by bad music, JUST LIKE IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN.
For labels, start with Pelagic, you cannot go wrong with them. Deathwish is good too for harder stuff. FFS, there’s still lots of great bands on 4AD.
Here, I need some Oathbreaker after that '80s pop rap attack, maybe you do too. It’s getting kind of old though, 2016!
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That depends how long you live. If my math / maths is correct?
Beat 119 and you’re still in your prime!
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It’s not for you. It’s not supposed to be for you.
It’s a new generation of musicians making music for THEIR generation. We’re the old people now who the youngsters are rebelling against.
I realized that with Chappell Roan especially. I’m pretty sure her music is very carefully crafted to repel 40 year old men.
I could make a longer post analyzing Billie Eilish’s music. Is it truly “revolutionary”? I don’t think anything is. Not Miles Davis. Not Nirvana. It’s all evolutionary building on what came before and combining things in new ways.
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Someone mentioned artists with sweeping varied styles.
I don’t think any group can top King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for pure experimental variety.
DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar won the Pullitzer Prize. The first time an artist outside of classical or jazz has received that award. If you haven’t listened to it, it is one of the most incredible and daring concept albums ever.
DAMN. was written and produced so that it can be played either in standard OR REVERSE track order! You put on a playlist or a CD, program it to play tracks in reverse order, it works just as well. The song transitions work. The progression of tracks tells a story that makes just as much sense.
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No. That music has already been recorded.
This is new music. It’s its own thing.
Billie Eilish is no more Joy Division than Nirvana was Led Zeppelin.
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Yep, and let’s not forget how much Led Zeppelin sucked because they were sure no Rachmaninoff.
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The only current band I got for that is maybe Electric Six.
Exactly!! As I mentioned, it was my daughter and her friend that played it to me, or rather got me so ask Siri, while we were in the car.
Equally, there is stuff that me daughter asks for that I don’t like. But I’m old and she isn’t 
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Hmm, or actually maybe Poppy. She shifts styles album on album, and sometimes mid-album.
I am still middle aged, but I can’t rec the if you can’t bit hard enough. There’s a ton of great new music coming out all the time, the process has just become democratized and you have to put effort in to finding it. Think of it like punk and underground stuff in the 80s / 90s. You had to know the right music shop that carried the right zines and was plugged in to knowing where the right shows were going to be. It’s kind of like that now, except on the interwwebz.
One of my favorite Gen Z bands.
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Stimulating conversation here.
I think, from the original post, the point is that the songs used in the lessons/videos/course are too old to be relevant.
Is that what you were saying @40BassJack ?
Did I read that right?
I’m curious about the response to that, specifically.
In my teaching experience, it’s hard to get people to bring in new music. My young students - 12-16 - tend to bring in a majority of 60s - 90s era music to learn.
A few gems from recent times (Mac Miller’s What’s the Use, Tame Impala, some Mac DeMarco rolls through… but not much post 2000)
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Anecdote about what “kids these days” are listening to.
Was at my local rock climbing gym yesterday afternoon. Overwhelmingly a college-aged crowd. So not teens, but solidly Gen-Z. Maybe some younger millennials. Only two of us in our 40’s.
I’m fairly certain they let the staff (again, Gen-Z) pick the music - probably with language/content guidelines.
The music is incredibly broad in genre and decade. Playlist yesterday was more rock oriented, but it covered everything from The Eagles, to Talking Heads, to Greta Van Fleet, to multiple artists from this century that I couldn’t place. It was a broad mix of rock from 70’s through the modern day.
It was also clearly a rock-oriented playlist, and had modern music that did NOT sound like throwbacks (except GVF).
Some days are more hip-hop oriented. Some days are total 90’s throwback lists. Some days are more like trip hop and Flaming Lips. I’ve heard Nina Simone. I’ve heard jazz.
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Some things are just timeless and always on point
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to those with a positive mindset on the state of music
These discussions make me sad as I feel like ‘rock’ (macro term, basically trad ‘band’ instruments in a band) is basically dead
This happened around the year 2000 when rock lost its spot as the dominant popular genre
Rock was 50yrs old at that point and most the main avenues had been explored…In addition massive changes in how music is made (computers so powerful now, a pro studio in a box), how music is consumed (more fragmented and dispersed streaming system) mean the system of music has moved away from the one rock thrived in (focused around studio recording of bands)
Now so many pre 2000 rock songs are basically ‘rock standards’ and parents and children attend the same concert (likely some nostalgia rock band)
There are still cool songs coming out but much less with real bands and much more computer+hip hop and/or dance influenced
I don’t see any ‘new’ rock genres appearing anymore (last 10-15yrs), I think its harder to be original in rock and these days you can get some beats going in a DAW and record some vox in minutes, so why would you take the time to buy and learn an instrument (even to punk playing level) when you can make music on a computer near instantly?
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