I’ve discovered a lot of new music by watching The Voice. I’ll hear a new song and listen to the original artist. I’ve found quite a few that I liked.
I’m 49 and also like the Black Keys. It’s funny that my wife and I are only a couple of years apart in age but she’s Gen X and I’m at the tail end of the baby boom. She can tolerate eighties music that I can’t stand.
From a very quick and dirty perusal of the links, I was floored at the number of artists that I either:
a) knew the names of but could never hum even a single song they ever did; or
b) had never heard of at all.
This from a guy (62) who used to know just about everything back in the day.
Again, I haven’t looked at all this close enough, so I may have missed something but I saw:
“You Don’t Know What It’s Like” – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
“Till I Hear It From You” – Gin Blossoms
“Closer to Free” – The BoDeans
Each is from the mid-1990s, and are among the last massively popular songs from the linked pages that I can really say I liked a lot. (The last two I actually perform in my acoustic duo.)
There have been artists and songs since then I’ve liked, but they tend to be more niche acts than wildly popular ones. There’s probably lots of stuff out there that might reach me in some way if I could be bothered to seek it out. But I tend to go backwards rather than forwards, discovering garage/psychedelic stuff from the 60s I’ve missed, or older Top 40 or country songs. That’s more of my wheelhouse.
My daughter gives me music she likes from time to time, and often I’ll listen and think “Yeah, that’s pretty good.” But it’s rare that I’m so knocked out by it that I want to listen again and again.
The one artist that actually “stuck” with me that she turned me on to was Sun Kil Moon. Amazing stuff, but hardly mainstream.
Passenger. All the Little Lights and Let Her Go
Shayna Zaid and the Catch. Morning Sun
Susan Enan. Bring on the Wonder
I’m an acoustic girl. 
She’s not in the Top 20 (yet) but I’d really like it if Kina Grannis hit it big.
I’m bearing down on 50 in a few years, so I hope it’s okay for me to participate. 
The most recent example I can think of is Lady Gaga’s “Applause.” Beyond that, I don’t really listen to much new music, although I’ve heard that super popular Robin Thicke song and "Wrecking Ball. Not sure in which order came which.
I’m 66 years old. I like Lady Gaga and Pink quite a bit. Would love to see Gaga in concert. I saw Pink a couple years ago, and she was amazing. I felt like somebody’s ancient granny when I looked around at the other folks in the crowd, but that will be the case in most crowds.
I think those 4 lads from England are going to be* REALLY BIG!!*
Very few top 100 songs ever appealed to me. I do like contemporary groups like the White Stripes and Reverent Peyton’s Big Damn Band, but I’ve never cared for singles.
I’m 43, I might be pushing the floor of the “older crowd”.
Luckily, that was a short search. I love Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop”. Before that, the most recent song to make their list that I liked was Cee Lo’s “Fuck You” (#7 in 2011).
Links spoiler-ed because I can’t stand the radio edit of either. I’m probably of low enough tastes that I only like the current hits when they curse.
[SPOILER] Thrift Shop
Fuck You [/SPOILER]
Yeah, radio is now pretty much useless for learning about new music, or even old music. It exists to play music that is inoffensive enough to a large enough audience that listeners don’t bother to change the channel when the commercials come on. They don’t back announce, because, the vast majority of the time, there is no DJ at the station playing music. It’s all automated.
If you want to ID music from the radio, download an app like Shazam to your smart phone or tablet. It will record a tiny bit and identify it. I’ve used it to ID pop songs playing in the background in restaurants.
Get a streaming app like Spotify and select a bunch of artists you know you already like, and it will suggest other artists you might also like.
It’s more work, but this is the way music is discovered these days. Radio is dead, but the corpse is still twitching.
ETA: Forgot to mention my age. I’m 53. I’m constantly discovering new music because I work in music, shooting concerts.
OK, it’s not on the list, but it’s from 2013: Koi Suru Fortune Cookie is one of my favourite songs, especially because of the video that goes with it. (The group that sings and dances it is the largest pop group in the world, and the music video involved the use of 3,800 extras, according to the Wiki article.)
ETA: I just turned 69, but my younger grandson, aged 19 months, likes the video a lot too, so it appeals to all tastes.
“Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye. I first heard it when he was on SNL and then watched the video. I’ve read that it was a hit but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it on the radio other than when All Things Considered profiled him. Come to think of it, that may have preceded the SNL appearance.
I’m a big fan of Grace Potter And The Nocturnals.
I’m almost 58 and my favorite artist is Pink. I adore her voice and have always been able to relate to her music.
I like Kings of Leon a lot too. The lead singer has the sexiest fucking voice.
I have no nostalgia for music from other eras. It just makes me feel old, mostly.
I turn 51 next week, and I’m still finding new music all the time, though it may not be this-year new. According to iTunes, lately I’ve been listening a lot to Sun Kil Moon, Nick Cave, Kathleen Edwards, Boards of Canada, and Guided by Voices. A couple of months ago it would have been a lot of The National.
Individual songs I’m less sure of…I listen to very little music on the radio.
Emphasis added. Are you kidding??? It should be nominated for most overplayed song of the year whenever it was released.
I’m 65. Newest pop song that I give a damn about is Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know. I have the advantage of not only liking the song, but getting to be a Dirty Old Man and lust after Kimbra.
I’m 64.
The first time I ever heard of “Somebody that I Used To Know” was when a comedy channel I subscribe to on YouTube parodiedthe Walk Off the Earth version, so although I like the song, WOTE’s version is my favorite.
My latest fave song is Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me”.
Yeah…serious. I listen to NPR almost exclusively with the occasional exception of the hard rock station or very rarely, classic rock.
Oh, one more. “She Keeps Me Warm” by Mary Lambert. She sings this in the background of Macklemore’s “Same Love”.