Born between 1997 and 2012, Generation Z has been the talk of the town. Especially, when it is these young people, who are now spanning the ages of 12 and 27, who will be key in making waves from politics to music. But with older artists still dominating the music field, one can ask which of these new Gen Z artists are being taken seriously.
Here is a list of notable Gen Z artists that are worth looking at:
- Billie Eilish
- JVKE
- Olivia Rodrigo
- Benson Boone
- Lauren Spencer-Smith
- Lil Nas X
- ENHYPHEN
Although these artists have made great strides in the music industry, many would say that their music isn’t as captivating, provocative, or culturally important as other artists such as Adele, Prince, Eminem, Taylor Swift, ACDC, or Led Zepplin.
“Old songs now represent 70 percent of the US music market…The new music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming old song,” says The Atlantic.
This could be attributed to the rise of platforms such as TikTok, where anyone can post content. In this case, new music becomes so saturated that it might become overwhelming for listeners to choose and give preference to new artists. This is only one assumption, but it does bring into question why Gen Z isn’t as prevalent in the music industry as older generations.
“I’ll just add, anecdotally, wherever I go I hear old music. I go into a store and the people working in the store all half my age, but they’re listening to the songs I grew up with…I thought it was like the boss, I thought there was an octogenarian boss in the back room that was ordering this, but this is just everywhere. And now you see recently with these old songs coming back on the chars, you can’t deny it, the old music is squeezing out the new music,” says Ted Gioia, author of the viral essay, “Is Old Music Killing New Music?”