I'm kinda floored by how 2026's hit parade is popping off... SO much really good, interesting stuff, and it seems to be gaining purely organically... this new crop of hits has very little flukey viral energy about it, I think there's just a lot of trending music that's very broadly engaging atm

I'm kinda floored by how 2026's hit parade is popping off... SO much really good, interesting stuff, and it seems to be gaining purely organically... this new crop of hits has very little flukey viral energy about it, I think there's just a lot of trending music that's very broadly engaging atm

And also let's be real, Olivia Dean abosolutely also deserves that #1 spot, this is nothing but a win-win

Makes sense... I clocked that song as a hit as soon as I heard it, but I NEVER would have guessed NUMBER ONE hit big

...which is why I think we're seeing new music failing THIS hard recently.

Granted, I still think the BIGGEST reason is that consumers are exhausted and looking for known, unchallenging comforts, but I think this protectionist media consumption trend is a not insignificant piece of thr puzzle.

...ecosystem of media consumption via "thrift shopping."

I think the film and game industries are forcing people to appreciate what they have, rather than always demanding more. This is developing a trend of more conservative media consumption habits that we're seeing spill into music as well...

...is that music is caught up in that dragnet, when it doesn't have to be.

Games are expensive, movies & shows are time consuming... but there's no big opportunity cost to finding new music.

I say new music is failing because of risk-averse capitalism, yes, but also because of this much broader...

Again, let me be perfectly clear: I'm not saying that hip hop is incapable of being dangerous or subersive, clearly it is... but people used to get scared when they heard a hip hop song because of what it represented, and THAT is the kind of energy that the world DESPERATELY needs right now.

...commercial potential.

I think that something which has the same roots as rap, but is free to redefine itself as it's own seperate concept in the public sphere, a concept which is distinct from hip hop as a cultural institution, is the likeliest outcome, and spoken-word poetry fits the bill.

...like that; just look on TikTok, people are DESPERATE for music that meaningfully addressed what's going on. This generation is more articulate, media-literate and socially conscious than any decade before, and a musical art form primarily aimed at taking advantage of that has ENORMOUS...

...and still be a force of subversion, at least not as a default. THAT'S the reason why so many people feel that hip hop is played out and exhausted right now.

The world, and America in particular, DESPERATELY needs an accessible force of musical subversion, and people clearly want something...

My logic for this? Hip hop on whole has become SUCH a defined institution that with very few exceptions, it can't pose as an institutional threat anymore the way it did in the 80s and 90s.

No hate to hip hop, it's great, but a genre can't be the default sound of mainstream music for 40 years...