Fifty years from now, Seven Nation Army will still be getting played at sports events. Like how We Will Rock You became a classic.
It is a great song.
But that song is already 22 years old. That’s like calling the Beatles contemporary to the 1980s. And, I’m pretty sure it’s already being used in soundtracks and stuff similar to sports events if not actual sports events.
EDIT: Steven Strasburg of the Washington Nationals uses it as a walk up song.
Jeez, and here I thought Alban Berg was still contemporary. He died in 1935.
My buddy and I were outside a sports bar over the weekend for another’s birthday, and that song Sail by AWOLNATION came on. It was quite the trip realizing that song is now 15 years old.
BUHM BUHM BUHM BUHM BUHM
DOO DUH DUH DUH DUH DOO DOO
I dunno about standing the test of time, but there’s a compilation of the most recognizable song each year of the past 100 years (2024 version)
Alternatively, for popular modern music, here be most popular song each month in the 2020s
People in this thread are realising they are oooold.
I’m starting to see grays in my mane, my mortality winks at me. 😭😂
Neverender by Justice and Tame Impala
that’s a sick animation video
Ram Ranch
How recent is the cutoff for contemporary?
4 years, the length of high school?
Darude - Sandstorm
Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan, released in 2023.
It’s got hooks and it speaks to an interesting form of teenage rebellion/identity. I feel like the song is a modern form of “This isn’t just a phase, it’s who I am!”
I only just heard this the first time recently and it’s got some stickiness to it! Definitely a song people will recognize a couple decades from now. Centuries, maybe not.
Probably a lot of Portishead songs like Numb, Roads and Only You.
Can you really call something 30 years ago contemporary?
Yes, I just did.
Tiktok by Ke$ha. 😉
ONE MORE TIME by blink-182, released in 2023.
That song is pretty good, has a great emotional core to it, and seems perfectly made for reunions.
For comparison, what are other songs which have previously stood the test of time?
Basically all the songs recommended on this thread lol
Few years old now but I think the first few songs on Brat are fine tbh I don’t see myself not ever listening to them again. That’s probably the closest I come to pop music tho
Something by Tame Impala? Maybe Yeezus and TLOP?
None.
Nothing that’s a ‘hit’ in the modern day will have any of the staying power of say, Beethoven.
Even now, hits are dead within a few years. The average person is being conditioned to only ‘consume’ entertainment that has been recently released.
To hopefully drive this point home, notice how Weird Al parodies have more staying power than the songs he’s parodying? Nobody thinks this will be the case when a song is new and the consumer bandwagon is being told to like it.
I’m sure people thought, say, something like SAIL would ‘stand the test of time,’ but it’s actually cringe as fuck to listen to now. That’s not going to change as time passes.
Notice how Elvis, the ‘king of rock’ has no staying power? I’m sure if you told people that he’d be irrelevant now a few decades ago, they’d look at you like you’re crazy. Meanwhile, literally nobody gives a shit about Elvis unless they’re trying to be different or for whatever reason had his music shoved down their throat.
There is contemporary music that will stand the test of time, like from Ulrich Schnauss and Felix Laband.
But have you even heard of either of those?
You seem to have a bias where the only music that matters to you is Intelligent Dance Music and maybe classical.
I listened to a bit of Ulrich Schnauss while typing this (Blumenthal which played into Clear Day) and…it was aight. I don’t usually listen to dance music, so there’s probably something I’m missing, but the way you talked it up as the only modern music that matters, I was expecting some crazy composition techniques that you’d never hear in anything even remotely pop-adjacent.
notice how Weird Al parodies have more staying power than the songs he’s parodying
I can name one song where I think this is true (Ridin’ Dirty > White and Nerdy.) Seriously I have no idea where this comes from.
Notice how Elvis, the ‘king of rock’ has no staying power?
But what about the Beatles? They have a lot more longevity and aren’t that much younger. Elvis was the king of an embryonic form of Rock and Roll, and in general I don’t think the earliest versions of genres age well. The earliest forms of hip hop are generally seen as being cheesy and having extremely simple flows, and if you try to throw back to them today, you’re seen as making a shallow parody of hip hop, but when you get to the styles that came to prominence in the 90s, the songs are still widely listened to and beloved. Anecdotally I have trouble seeing pre-bebop jazz as jazz. Bebop is what brought in so much of the complexity that we associate with jazz today.
Notice how Elvis, the ‘king of rock’ has no staying power? I’m sure if you told people that he’d be irrelevant now a few decades ago, they’d look at you like you’re crazy. Meanwhile, literally nobody gives a shit about Elvis unless they’re trying to be different or for whatever reason had his music shoved down their throat.
