I was listening to Justin Beiber’s “Baby” and I realized that this song actually came out in 2010 - 11 years ago, give or take. This song was one of the songs that established Justin as a musician we should listen to. My mind then trailed to Rihanna. The song that introduced her to me was “Umbrella” and that one was in 2008. I remember that I was listening to Drake’s find your love before I got into the university in 2011.
These thoughts made me look back at the music industry in general (primarily the content I have been consuming) and I can say that consistency is a trait you can attribute to the entertainers in the US. What also struck me is how fast music eras are. You’d expect that a particular vibe of music would last as long as 4-6 years but it turns out that the best you can get is 3 years (in fact, 3 years is actually a stretch). I don’t even want to talk about Nigerian music - our own has eras as short as 9 months and they will be doing so well, you’d actually be able to bet that they would last long but they fissile out so fast.
Eras change and these artists try to be trailblazers in each one. Take Rihanna for example; she made sure that before she untimely quit the music industry - leaving us high and dry - she put out a song or collaboration that served as an exclamation mark to that particular era. From her very first major big song “Umbrella” which in collaboration with its album served as an entire era of music in that time period, to all the other big hits she served in her (pardon me for repeating) very short-lived but overly illustrious career.
This applies to even rappers; Kanye west’s music has been serving our eardrums for as long as I can properly remember. Jay Z and Eminem have been dropping hits since the early 90s. It is safe and next to unarguable to say that if guys Biggie and Tupac were to be alive, they too would have evolved and will still be giving us hits to this very day.
With the level of consistency these people give, it may be hard to notice the rate at which mainstream music is growing. It is not necessarily changing but it is like an onion that has increasing layers. With every era of music that comes, it does not try to replace what was in the past, it just grows on it seamlessly such that every new era of music is like a continuation of was - which is why if you make a playlist of hits from 2014-2021, they will all blend in seamlessly like they were songs made in the same week. The progression of music makes it look like music can be broadly divided into 3 eras - the oldies, the 90s, and early 2000s and from 2010 till now.
What is your perspective on music’s progression?