this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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I don't get it. Young people are listening to our music it is odd.
Because there hasn't been an alt-mainstream since the rise of the internet.
Mainstream did survive (e.g. Taylor Swift), but apart from that there hasn't been any of these huge not-quite-mainstream bands for people who don't want to listen to mainstream.
In the 70s, if you didn't want to listen to mainstream pop, you'd listen to one of the handful non-main-mainstream bands your small record store had in stock. That was e.g. AC/DC, Metallica, Deep Purple, that kind of stuff.
But since the rise of the internet, MP3, Spotify and all that, people really have choice. If you want to, you can listen to an obscure little band producing professional quality music from a bedroom somewhere in the mountains of Bolivia. That means, if you don't want mainstream, there's a lot of really-not-mainstream easily accessible, and thus there's not a lot of non-main-mainstream bands that a lot of people actually know.
That's why all the old stuff gets recycled endlessly. Because it's recognizable.
I don't agree that there isn't an alt-mainstream. Wouldn't stuff like Magdelena Bay, Japanese Breakfast, 100 gecs, Ghost, and Sleep Token qualify? Stuff that you'll find on the album charts or the genre charts, but not in the top 40?
That's the thing: Even in the 80s and 90s everyone has heard of Metallica or ACDC.
I might not be the measure of things, but I have never heard of any of the bands you referenced.
Check out Tiny Towns
I agree but disagree. Just go to any genre that isn't Pop/Country/K-Pop and look at the largest bands there.
Many people that never listen to metal have heard of parkway drive, rammstein, disturbed, Lorna shore, bring me the horizon, etc.
Last year gojira played during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. How is that not "not-main-mainstream".
Rammstein and Disturbed were founded in 1994, Gojira in 1996, way before music over internet became a big thing.
I haven't heard of the others.
i mean there's also the fact that it's been probably playing in the background for all of people's childhoods and they eventually get nostalgic and drift towards that kind of music...
even if people don't listen to it actively/all the time, it's still pleasant to people, because they're used to it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I grew up listening to my dad's music (eagles, Steve Miller, Blue oyster cult etc...) so it's not that unusual that your genetic offspring might gravitate towards certain tastes in music. That said I mostly embraced punk music and my daughter has embraced Sabrina Carpenter and the likes... Not that I want her to enjoy my music, but the stuff these days is largely trash and covering topics that are hollow and pointless. And yes I know not all modern music is that way, but the stuff being shoved in their faces through multiple media sources largely is.
I'm no pop-music apologist, but I sincerely doubt that Sabrina Carpenter's music is any more hollow and pointless than the average generic Top 40 hit from the '80s.
For instance, here are the lyrics to Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter, which is #2 on the charts right now.
And here are the lyrics to I'm Alright by Kenny Loggins, which was #10 on the charts at this point in the year in 1980.
Pop music is pretty much still pop music. There are some analyses that say it's getting simpler over time, but I don't think it was ever all that complex to begin with.