That’s a fair point. I guess I’m more a part of the super fan “crate digging” sort of hip-hop community, where we’ve probably all tried to “produce” or rap ourselves at one point and have at least dipped our toes into the art of sampling and such. And i’m generally fascinated by music creation process, though I’m not a musician myself. Sometimes I have to remind myself that most fans of pop culture and entertainment just listen to the sounds and probably don’t even think about what they are consuming.
I’m going to agree that it’s entirely plausible for an American to escape mainstream pop culture from before they were born. I know that when I was young, there were huge gaps in my exposure to popular music.
One difference is that nowadays, thanks to the internet, it’s a lot easier to find out what a particular artist or song sounds like if you seek it out. But that probably means it’s even less likely that you’ll hear things that you don’t seek out or specifically choose to put on your playlist.
My 30-year old Swiss co-worker knows who Tina Turner is, and knows some of her songs.
My 34-year co-worker from India had never heard of her and is still (2 years later) unfamiliar with any of her songs.
Part of it is interest. The 30-year old goes to 3-4 major concerts every year (Enimen in London, Adele, etc.). The other one just listens to music casually and couldn’t even name a favorite band or singer.
I would expect that somebody who is really interested in music would know about Phil Collins. Even if they can’t stand some of his greatest hits.
Perhaps not so surprising, given that Tina Turner has been living in Switzerland for years.
Heck. Tina is a naturalized Swiss citizen.
Coincidentally, I started watching Infinity Train this week and Word Up is featured in a season 1 episode. It is also briefly alluded to in episode 3 of season 2 of The Boys.
I 100% believe it is possible, and it has nothing to do with them being minorities.
Becuase I just had a listen to the song, and I do not at all recognize it. I’m just not a pop music listener. I grew up in a different genre: the oft maligned Christian rock/contemporary/worship. I know the ApologetiX versions of some popular songs more than the real thing. (e.g. Story of a Squirrel, JC’s Mom).
If I can miss it, then I fully believe these people can miss it, being younger and into a genre. Sure, maybe they’ve heard it sampled, or casually heard the song. I may have, too. But I do not in any way remember it.
Now, of course, reactors always play up their reactions. They have to–most normal reactions aren’t visible, so you have to play it up to have content. In my opinion, some do it right, just being more open, while others do it wrong and go overboard.
But I can definitely believe that at least some of these people have actually never heard this song or whatever other song they bring up, and are capitalizing on their lack of experience. They’ll just leave out songs they have heard.
I seriously doubt either of my 20-something offspring would recognize that song, unless it was featured on Glee.
I don’t think they really compare. Media and media consumption are far different now. You have older popular songs in films, TV shows, video games, etc. As mentioned, you have sampling and reuse of music. The whole music genre of video games (Rock Band/Guitar Hero/Let’s Dance/etc) have seemingly stripmined every popular song since the birth of Rock 'n Roll leaving people born in 1999 to be inexplicably familiar with Kansas and REO Speedwagon. Popular media like Stranger Things, Captain Marvel, Glow, The Americans, Wonder Woman 1984, etc have nostalgia-ridden settings. The only thing really comparable in the 80s would be stuff set in the Vietnam era and full of 60s music but you didn’t have that sort of 80s media set in the 40s and using period appropriate music. None of this proves that any one individual did or didn’t hear a specific song before but I’d say the odds of a person today knowing a song from 1980 is far greater than the 1980 person knowing a song from 1940.
As for the video, I assume that 95% of reaction videos are bullshit designed to get clicks by appealing to a sense of “Different Person likes popular thing that I like!”. Even at their most sincere, they have people who know they need to react “well” to get people to watch. No one is going to watch someone consistently say “Yeah, that’s fine, I guess.”
Not long ago, I was playing an online game with some friends and one guy in his 30s said he’d never heard Queen (this was when the biopic came out). He’s into music and used to DJ, although he’s Hispanic and mainly listens to hip-hop and rap stuff. So he went off and listened to Bohemian Rhapsody while we were playing and… “Yeah, it’s okay. Sorta weird but whatever.” Listened to a few other songs that he liked more. Never started bugging his eyes out and saying “Wow!” and otherwise having some video-ready reaction. Go figure.
My young nephew though that “I’m a Believer” was a Smash Mouth song do to them covering it for Shrek. (For the record, it was written by Neil Diamond and recorded by the Monkees in 1966.)
I had the reverse issue. About 5 years ago, I was on a business trip was a younger staff member. We had dinner after arriving at hour destination and “I’m a Believer” played on the restaurant’s sound system. After a little while I said “Wait a second - that’s not the Monkees singing” (and my coworker said it was from Shrek (never saw Shrek - I think it came out when I had a newborn and wasn’t seeing movies)).
As of May 2020, a guy who goes by the name Future had 110 US billboard Hot 100 hits, one more than Elvis Presley. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never heard any of Future’s offerings.
Absolutely correct. It’s gotten to the point that I’ll look up (what I thought was) some obscure 70s or 80s song on YouTube and there will inevitably be comments of “[some show] brought me here” or “who’s still listening in 20[whatever year it is]”.
Oh, my stars. I had no idea this was a thing. Those are so terrible they’re great.
But the fact that nowadays for any obscure song there are some twenty-somethings who know it, you can’t deduce that most twenty-somethings will be familiar with it. That a lot of 70-80 songs have been used in Cuitar Hero etc. is meaningless: that’s already an old game and not something every young person has played. Young person’s exposure to older cultural expressions will necessarily be spotty, dependent on chance, which makes it hard to say off hand what is generally known.
The reality is simply that popular culture is fragmented: there is very little output that mostly everyone knows. That’s not new: I’m quite sure my parents didn’t know Phil Collins when In the AIr Tonight came out.
Young people serve as reference for what popular culture is. As you get older you lose that privilege. The memories of aging persons are not the best indicator of what society at large is familiar with (said as someone who does remember the seventies).
As I said, I won’t speak for every specific person knowing every specific song but comparing someone from 2020 knowing a song from the 80s to someone from 1980 knowing a song from the 40s is a flawed comparison. Current popular culture today is far different. Young people may still serve as a reference but it’s in a diminished capacity to how it was in the 80s. These days, media producers realize that older (Gen X or Boomer) generations have money and nostalgia and are willing to part with the former for the sake of the latter and this drives more media than anyone cared about in 1980 and trying to get those Silent Generation dollars.
As a side note, music games are very much still a thing. Just Dance, Fuser, Let’s Sing, etc have all had 2019 or 2020 releases.
I see, I agree on that point, which indeed limits the usefulness of direct comparison.
I’ve talked about this in the past
One thing I’ve noticed about these, “First-time listener” videos: I never saw a single one that DIDN’T love a song they just heard for the first time. Some of them go on and on about how good the song is, the rest go over-the-top nuts over the song - but they’re all differing degrees of LOVE.
I’ve never seen one that said, “Man, that song was just weird!” - and when the list of songs they are supposedly hearing for the first time include, “Bohemian Rhapsody” and, “Hocus Pocus” by Focus, that’s strange to me. They love EVERY song instantly? Hell, it even took me a few listens to grow into some of them, and I grew up listening to them debut on the radio.
I find the number of classic, culturally-relevant songs they don’t know to be suspicious at the least, and their instant, “cuckoo-for Coco-Puffs” love for all of them to be unbelievable. I think someone discovered that people liked watching people enjoy the things they themselves like, so they went with it to get views/money, and then others copied it.
They’re mostly bullshit, calculated to please people so they’ll watch their video, and then watch their other videos. People who watch one of their videos probably watch many of them. Clever, really. Never would have thought of that.
Do they simply listen to songs and say, “I enjoyed that song. Next up… that one was good too…”, or is there any actual content, like describing the song’s unconventional use of the Phrygian mode and modulating deceptive cadences, or whatever? Surely at some point you can tell if the person knows what he or she is talking about.
I speculate that it is cheaper and more convenient than ever for anyone motivated to gain an encyclopedic knowledge of any genre of music. Not limited to popular music, you can find even really obscure stuff. But if you don’t love music, why would you listen to it in the first place, or learn the artists’ names no matter how popular they are?
I have. He’s a real guy who actually exists.
Yes, this is exactly it. Whether they ever heard the song before is completely irrelevant to the purpose of the video (although I know the OP asked about that).