Does music still have the ability affect mainstream culture in the way it once did?

Does music still have the ability affect mainstream culture in the way it once did?
I could never see an album like Nevermind getting released today: I just don't see an album affecting a generation of people in the same way that it did.

Other urls found in this thread:

twitter.com/Spotify/status/752942814959370240
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

No, the Internet has created so many sub divisions of culture that the radio and mtv can't push the new big thing anymore
The last genre that had an effect on mainstream culture was Emo in the mid 2000s

The modern equivalent of this is vaporwave honestly, as sad as it is.

Normies don't buy albums anymore because of youtube, so no.

Pretty much what I think. Stuff like Minecraft has had a WAY bigger impact on the current generation then any musician

But they not did it, the whole voice of the generation x bullshit begin when kurt commited suicide

...

Yeah
Ever heard of a guy called Kanye West?

In what way? Vaporwave just feels more like a passing fad than something impactful that effects an entire generation.

Getting a lot of media coverage doesn't mean you actually impact culture in any meaningful way
No one wants to be like Kanye West.

No one wants to be like Kurt either, what's your point?

This album completely changed hip-hop/pop and made it what it is today.
Without it Drake, Cudi, Travis Scott, and a whole bunch of new core rappers/artists would not exist today. Kanye made sad, melancholic, and existentialism popular in hip hop culture.
There is literally a whole generation of artists who only started making music the way they do because of this album.

Yeah they did
It changed hip hop, sure. But actual culture, outside of music? Less so

Pitchfork drones and a niche of normies don't encapsulate an entire generation. I honestly think if it wasn't for that pitchfork review of mbdtf that it would have passed over as just another good hip hop album of the 2010s and that would have been it. But because it did get a high rating it drew out droves of hipsters that ballooned the album, and Kanye, into a bigger view of importance. Kanye is a fine rapper, but nothing in his output rings as anthemic and pivotal or even relevant to this generation or its attributes. Honestly, I don't think it's possible to have a handful of artists to define a generation anymore in the Internet age. There's too much going on and too much of everything cobbled together to pick and choose substantial artists.

And don't forget his innovative use of auto tune which has influenced Atlanta trap artists like Future and Young Thug, who are huge now.

Kurt was considered cool. He may have been a depressed heroin addict, but people idolized him so much. He was handsome, talented and sincere which made a lot of people gravitate towards him and romanticize him.

It's "ironic", heavily steeped in the internet and its culture, and filled with nostalgia for the past. Not a perfect example but its growing popularity even now should give it some significance.

>Honestly, I don't think it's possible to have a handful of artists to define a generation anymore in the Internet age.
That's what people who spend a lot of time listening to and thinking about music say. Most people? They listen to the same shit as everyone else and they're culture is influenced by that music. The defining artists of our era are people like Beyonce, Kanye West, and Drake, whether you like them or not.
And people overstate the "cultural influence" of Nirvana. Basically what happened was a shitty brand of hard rock was replaced in the mainstream by a different and slightly less shitty brand of hard rock.

Kanye has a huge fanbase too.

Any music that effects the mainstream culture would be considered shit because it had a cultural impact.

Anything that mainstream would be rejected on basis of being too accessible and widespread.

Autotune went from that gay whack shit to being something all the coming up rappers wanted to use.
Hip hop (and pop in general) before 808s was still influenced really heavily by that late 90s early 00s RnB and gangsta rap shit. Kanye flipped the paradigm on all that shit.
Hate it or love it, hip hop is the culture now

>Hate it or love it, hip hop is the culture now
This. Rap is today's rock and roll.

Yep. I completely agree, and I'm a massive fan of Kanye West.
C'mon T-Pain was doing autotune years before Kanye.
You forgot T Swift, but yeah.
Yeah it's the most significant genre right now, but music as a whole isn't as important as it used to be.

I wouldn't say any album would change a generation today, rather a genre. Rap and trap pretty much define this era as much as rock has defined past eras.
Pop: 2000-2012
Rap: 2013-????

>C'mon T-Pain was doing autotune years before Kanye.
Tru

2013-2021 or so
People will get tired of it eventually

>music as a whole isn't as important as it used to be.
Why do you think that? Maybe you just got old and your taste fell out of what youth listen to, but music seems as important as ever now. Even more so because hip hop is a more social and collaborative genre than rock.

>hip hop is the culture now
This I agree with. Hip hop is the most relevant and popular genre in the mainstream right now that isn't pop music. However, I'm still not convinced that Kanye is THE hip hop figure of a generation. His voice isn't resonating through the entirety of millennials, which is why I say that the Internet age can not have and never will have a single voice. He's been influential to artists, but on a grander scale he's just one of many that help to define a generation, but he isn't THE sole artist for the title.

T-pain used autotune as a gimmick. He sounded more like a clown act doing it tongue in cheek.
When kanye dropped 808s he used autotune to depict how cold and lonely he was feeling at the time. Using autotune as just another instrument so that his voice wouldn't clash with the 808s samples and all the digital distortion he purposefully used.

Nirvana wasn't resonating through each and every Gen Xer either.
Kurt as a "voice of a generation" is a romanticised, exaggerated fiction spreads by people who remember the 90s with rose-colored glasses. Not everyone was a Nirvana fan, and teen angst wasn-'t really a new idea either.

vaporwave isnt mainstream

This. People were still about Metallica and guns n roses.
Even pearl jam was blowing up too. It's just that Kurt's death amplified everything ten fold.

twitter.com/Spotify/status/752942814959370240

It's getting there

Rap has been huge for a longer time than people seem to realize. This guy was the best selling artist of the 00s.
I mean as important to mainstream culture. Don't get me wrong, it's still important, I just think it packs less of a punch than it did before. Culture now seems more self-centered, it's more about YOUR snapchats, YOUR Pokemon, and whatnot, rather than looking to someone else's work of art for inspiration

>chopped and screwed smooth jazz and beeps
>ever being mainstream
Go outside

True it is romanticized, but think about it like this: If you were to ask a generation X'er who the most important artist was of the nineties or even if you mention "voice of a generation", the chances of nirvana or Kurt Cobain coming up are really high, because yeah, it was romanticized as fuck and with MTV pushing it all it was perfect for that time period. Now, say, hypothetically in the future you ask millennials "who was the most important artist of the 2010's" or who was their voice of a generation? You're more likely to get mixed results because no artist is as glorified or has a center stage. It's all jumbled. You can't have a voice for this generation once again.

forgot pic

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that Kurt Cobain was only a "voice of a generation" in retrospect. If you asked random kids what the defining artist of their generation is in 1992 you'd get mixed results too.

That's what I'm saying. There won't be any retrospective defining artists now. Kanye will be in hip hop history, but he won't have the title of being the voice of a generation or any of his songs being an anthem for a generation. The time for that has passed, now it's all niche.

But mainstream media and music still does exist. Just because anyone can go online and look for some obscure music doesn't mean that everyone does. Most people don't have time for that shit and just listen to whatever's popular. The Internet doesn't mean that everyone has a super special unique taste now.
Kurt was only that "voice of a generation" because the big media companies shoved that narrative down everyone's throats. His suicide also sealed his reputation, he'd just be a pathetic old man making shit albums like Billy Corgan and Courtney Love if he were alive now.

Yes, you're just stuck in the past.

Not everyone's looking for obscure artists, but the Internet has allowed for unlimited access to countless music to the point where most of what's "popular" is just point of view. But that's not even the point, Kanye can not be the voice of a generation because of the circumstances. He may be one of the biggest artists right now, but he's not being "shoved down people's throats" as you say.

...

Yeah, and?
Another Nirvana could happen again, it just hasn't. It's not the internet or selfies or whatever, it just hasn't happened.

> SAVE US JESUS COBAIN CHRIST KURT

tfw people on this thread right now are mocking the last great rockstar for the pitiful sake of being contrarian

>rappers
>artists

everyone knows deep inside he was the goat

Maybe. But I doubt it. Honestly, I think I prefer to not have generation defining artists. Just let the music be itself and enjoy it, there's no need to glorify it or put it on a pedestal.

>Another Nirvana could happen again
No, it couldn't.

he was also patrician af

tell that to alice in chains fans

>one direction
>justin bieber
>death grips
>taylor swift

I think you're all dead wrong. I think a new revolutionary musical "icon" or style is just around the corner.

And the internet will make it huge overnight. I don't know exactly what it will be, but It will be both sincere and ironic, timid and passionate, without hipster throwaway shallowness.

It will be a mix of the spirit of the old, and the hubris and accessibility of the new. We don't need MTV to push anything on us anymore, this is democratic art rising to change how we all view the world as we know it.

It only takes a small spark. I think its inevitable.

good luck

all the mainstream musicians you're thinking of that "defined a generation" are all sold out mainstream puppets

Literally none of them had the impact that Nirvana did, kiddo.

>You're more likely to get mixed results because no artist is as glorified or has a center stage. It's all jumbled. You can't have a voice for this generation once again.
That's a good thing.
This "voice of a generation" meme is the dumbest thing ever.

haha, nirvana Never had the fame of justin Bieber, TS or 1d

>I just don't see an album affecting a generation of people in the same way that it did.

After this album was released, every pop singer was disco making, leotard wearing, gay pandering sluts. Every record label was desperately looking for the next gaga, irrelevant old fags like Christina Aguilera and Rihanna were trying to jump on the 'kooky outfit' meme. Her look and style was being jacked by everyone, she changed the musical landscape forever.
When was the last time a pop singer wore pants? Not since 2009.
Too bad she committed suicide in 2012, she could have created something really spectacular I heard her next album was going to be acoustic.

>kiddo

Funny how all the people who grew up with nirvana would call you kiddo

>le born in le wrong generation 12 yr old detected

39 years old Fag here :P

>kiddo

Funny how all the people who grew up with nirvana would call you kiddo

>le born in le wrong generation 12 yr old detected

To everyone in this thread asking who "THE voice# of this generation is

It's Drake

eh id buy some but i dont have money so i just burned all my napster songs on some cds

>Macklemore
>Justin Bieber
>Jonas Brothers
>Kanye West
>Lil Wayne
>System of a down
>Godsmack
>Slipknot
>Taylor Swift
>Adele
>Beyonce
>Rihanna
>Usher
>Lil John
>LL Cool J
>Green Day
>Jarule
>Death Grips
>Lumineers
>Mumford and sons
>Fun