Which songs from the last decade (2014-2024) will become classics?

Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 123 points –

So far I think "Uptown Funk", "Blinding Lights", and "Old Town Road". That doesn't mean I love those songs. It means I think they answer the question. I know you may love "Irony x3" by Zigbones. But they ain't it.

Edit: I'm sorry for the poorly worded question. I think it's autism related, but I don't see possibilities or alternative understandings easily, and when I wrote "decade" I thought 10 years and that was it.

Of course anyone answering from the perspective of 2010-2020 was making a perfectly reasonable and rational answer and I was very dismissive. I'm really sorry for that.

73

Decapcito will be the ice ice baby of the 2010s.

Talking about pop:

  • Blinding lights
  • Rolling in the deep
  • Get Lucky
  • Happy

No need to write the singers, that's how famous they are.

Random Access Memories is such a good album, pretty much every song on there is timeless imo.

Daft punk will be dearly missed. At least until millenials die out.

I wouldn't count them out quite yet. Thomas Bangaltar and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo are still producing stuff each on their own. Sometimes they even collaborate on the same project. I don't think there will be another Daft Punk album or song but I suspect their hands are going to be on a lot of work.

I think by 30 we'll have a new Daft Punk album.. They'll both miss the feeling of working creatively on one big project and it will likely be on the same scale as RAM where they use it as an opportunity to collaborate with people in music that they really admire.

There's a new Tron movie being worked on. I have no idea who's doing the music, but the soundtrack for the most recent Tron was such a big reason it had any success. The movie looked cool, but it sounded amazing. The story was bland as hell, which is a shame. That's one of the few soundtracks for a movie I'll actually listen to outside of the movie, and I can't see whatever the new one does being even half as good.

Rolling and Get Lucky are too old.

your wording was a tad ambiguous. it is possible that the above commenter thought you were asking about the last decade, as in the 2010s, rather than the last decade, as in the ten years immediately preceding today (roughly 2014-2024)

I only know Blinding lights from those. Looks like I'm pretty out of touch with modern music.

I had to look up Blinding Lights, and I don't recognize it. I know the others from that list (whether they fit the criteria or not).

Anyone over 35 should just not answer this question, very little chance we’ll be right

Also, for anyone over 35, our ability to understand “last decade” means the last 10 years, decreases over time. I read this question and still thought about songs that came out 2009.

I think that is up for interpretation a little bit. "The last decade" I think grammatically it means the last 10 years. In this case 2014-2024. But I am so used to it referring to the years ending in zero that my head immediately goes to 2010-2020 not 2014-2024. Especially in the context of music. Music is historically is reference as the years ending in zero 60s, the 70s the 2000s 2010s etc..

It depends. It can mean either. Technically though, I believe each decade is 1-10, not 0-9, although this mistake is so common I don't think it matters and can mean either.

Woah, slow down there professor calculus, not all of us have 10 fingers to count on

I think I disagree. Only a very small subset of music from the decade permeated my oblivion of modern music. I expect the songs that managed to do that are the ones that will be remembered. I agree with OP's list, I know those songs.

Add to that:

  • Born this Way
  • Wake me up
  • Shake it off
  • Someone that I used to know

Taylor Swift probably has at least 5 that will be considered classics.

Just go to her top played songs and you could put any of them on that list. Which is wild

Nothing too niche or topical. Has to have some sort of timeless quality, meaningful lyrics and emotional resonance. Not a "fad" genre, a sea shantey won't do (yes its centuries of tradition but in it's old form it isn't mainstream). Cultural impact which means it will moat likely be from your mainstream artists, taylor swift, kanye west, maybe billie eilish gets there. I also think it's probably going to be more women defining an era of music than ever before.

Added advantages, either something that was early in a musical tradition or helped it peak, we've seen this with classics in the moat recent big genre, rap.

As for the tiktok songs. We don't know how internet virality affects the legacy of these songs. A lot of the earbugs are shallow short bits. I'm going to ignore those, otherwise I think some of the smarter songs will maybe be appreciated a little while later too.

So my list:

  • Royals by lorde
  • Rolling in the deep by adele
  • Runaway by Kanye
  • Sign of the times by harry styles
  • Hotline Bling by drake, i'm 50/50 on this one
  • All Too Well/ Blank Space by Taylor Swift
  • Alright by Kendrick Lamar
  • Formation by Beyonce
  • Teenage Dream by Katy Perry
  • Chandlier by Sia
  • Uptown Funk Mark Ronson 50/50
  • Let It Happen by Tame Impala
  • Nights by Frank Ocean

I think a couple of these are pre 2014 tho. But are within the last 15 for sure.

Rolling in the deep is too old for sure. I almost included Royals but it was just too old at 11 years.

Unless you consider "the last decade" being 2010-2020 with us in "the current decade" now, 2020-2030

I think it's better to use the last ten years to indicate the period. People interpreting it as the 2010-2020 period is a reasonable assumption.

I absolutely interpreted the question as songs from last decade (2010-2020). Turns out I lack a useful attention span to read a title. It is clearly outlined that OP meant 2014-2024.

Look at what Weird Al has parodied. Because it's gonna be disproportionately that.

Only 1 song is worthy:

WAP

WAP really is fucking incredible, even for people with no contemporary exposure to the genre. You can come to it fresh as a newborn child and the punchlines still land.

My first thought was indeed Blinding Lights.

I could see The Less I Know the Better having some staying power.

I think I'll die if I hear a weird music kid from my child's generation talking about Death Grips in 10 years or so.

I'm not really in tune with nowadays music, but I think Rag'n'Bone Man's Human goes in there automatically, it's in every playlist.
I guess we'll have to put Imagine Dragons in there somehow, I think both Believer and Bones are a good fit.

I remember an article that used (Spotify?) play trends to project this, and at the time they thought Pompeii by Bastille would be the one with longevity, while a few other hit songs by big names would be forgotten. I can't find it now.

IIRC the basic idea was that genuinely memorable songs peak less hard and only fade very slowly, while trendy songs crash as everyone moves on to the next shiny thing marketers put out.

If I put my old man hat on, I'd say none. I think the idea of "classics" is dead. I also think most modern mainstream music is terrible. But hey what do I know.

Any music of any genre other than reggaeton and trap. Their "hit songs" rarely manage to survive more than 5 years in the collective thought of the masses, then they become "background noise" in nightclubs, supermarkets, squares and other meeting places, overshadowed by the disposable "hit of the moment".

You must not be outside then

In the communities where this music is popular, there are definitely a lot of classic songs coming out that aren't just background noise, and they actually turn up the clubs.

To people outside of these communities it might seem like they only survive 5 years, but if you're inside you'll recognize patterns in songs that keep coming up and that people listen to the most. That's what really makes them classics, not just random people on Lemmy deeming them as such.

Bad bunny, El Alfa, Tokischa, Chucky73, RaiwAlejandro, and Daddy Yankee have all been relasing songs that the community will remember for a long time and deem classics. Reggaeton is going through a second, smaller, golden age and it will be remembered.

Your comment sounds a bit racist ngl

I'm Latin American, I grew up in this, it's part of my culture, that's why I know where all this is going (about musical genres). I'm not an "outsider".

Your comment sounds a bit racist ngl

You have no idea what you're talking about, right?

Adele's "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)." The 2010s answer to Alanis's "You Oughtta Know." Honestly, the 21st-century answer to Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."

I would have to say Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots. It's a solid song by itself and has a message that a lot of people can relate to.

Any of Gorillaz songs

As an avid Gorillaz listener, I don't think they have put out what we would define "a commercial hit" in the past decade, at least not at the same level of the singles from the first two albums.
That said, I love the collaborations they did with Thundercat and Stevie Nicks in the last record, it should deserve way more recognition than what it had

There aren't many popular songs now that are unique or distinguishable, Gorillaz still makes those unique memorable songs tho

Jesus I hope uptown funk wouldn’t be considered a classic of the era.

Radiohead, Fiona apple, lcd soundsystem, the roots…there are a lot of great jams from truly timeless bands and artists that I think will ultimately hold up better than the pop megahits.

I think the last decade has about 10-15 classic songs (e.g. rolling in the deep, get lucky etc), but that's nothing compared to the '80s, where the classic songs measure upwards to 700. There is cultural stagnation in the last 10 years, particularly after the death of the indie music as a vehicle for innovation (i.e. the Pitchfork golden era of 2008 to 2012 where indies became the next hot thing). I could say the same for movies. For me, the highest point of cultural significance, was 1984 (more precisely, the last 3 months of 1983, the whole of 1984, and the first 6 months of 1985, ending with the Live Aid). That's the most classic, highest point IMHO for both music and movies, where pretty much what was getting released, was becoming an instant classic. Basically, most of it was good, rather than bad with exceptions. There are a few articles online talking about the same thing as I did here, and there's also a couple of books, all recognizing 1984 as THE year of culture. Today, we're running on fumes.