Ask Lemmy

I dunno about standing the test of time, but there's a compilation of the most recognizable song each year of the past 100 years (2024 version)

Alternatively, for popular modern music, here be most popular song each month in the 2020s

Ram Ranch

Neverender by Justice and Tame Impala

Darude - Sandstorm

Fifty years from now, Seven Nation Army will still be getting played at sports events. Like how We Will Rock You became a classic.

People in this thread are realising they are oooold.

I think "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars/Mark Ronson (2014) and "Can't Stop the Feeling" by Justin Timberlake (2016) are strong contenders when it comes to contemporary dance music. They feel as fresh today as they did a decade ago, and I think they will age well because they exemplify the fundamentals of the genre. They're energetic, catchy, and have a je ne sais quoi that makes them stand out in a crowd. If I'm throwing a party, these two tracks are easily on the track list for the evening.

How recent is the cutoff for contemporary?

"Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon

None.

Nothing that's a 'hit' in the modern day will have any of the staying power of say, Beethoven.

Even now, hits are dead within a few years. The average person is being conditioned to only 'consume' entertainment that has been recently released.

To hopefully drive this point home, notice how Weird Al parodies have more staying power than the songs he's parodying? Nobody thinks this will be the case when a song is new and the consumer bandwagon is being told to like it.

I'm sure people thought, say, something like SAIL would 'stand the test of time,' but it's actually cringe as fuck to listen to now. That's not going to change as time passes.

Notice how Elvis, the 'king of rock' has no staying power? I'm sure if you told people that he'd be irrelevant now a few decades ago, they'd look at you like you're crazy. Meanwhile, literally nobody gives a shit about Elvis unless they're trying to be different or for whatever reason had his music shoved down their throat.

There is contemporary music that will stand the test of time, like from Ulrich Schnauss and Felix Laband.

But have you even heard of either of those?

Given how hypercommercialized and devoid of personal artistry the throwaway modern music industry is, if something is known as a hit then I don’t see it being something good to my tastes. Even the couple of former megastars which have returned to the scene with hits seem to have been forgotten about shortly after their release (ex. The Beatles’ “Now and Then”, Billy Joel’s “Turn the Lights Back On”). There will be some pop songs that may stick around for a while out of novelty rather than quality, whether they’re simply quirky (ex. “Gangnam Style”, “Turn Down For What”, “I Glued My Balls to My Butthole Again”), they became associated with a huge fad (ex. “Friday”, “Harlem Shake”), or they prominently featured in a musical or movie (ex. The Hamilton Soundtrack, songs from a Disney movie). “Somebody I Used to Know” is the closest thing to an exception that I can think of, but that’s also a bit quirky. Does anything by Greta van Fleet count as a hit with a chance for longevity?

Given Taylor Swift’s relatively unique situation of having a massive cult of personality and now having control over her own catalog and releases, she has potential to output exceptions to the hypercommercialized rule but I’m not familiar with her discography beyond the hits that I hear played in public spaces.

Tiktok by Ke$ha. 😉

Probably a lot of Portishead songs like Numb, Roads and Only You.

Moon River

“Good Luck, Babe!”

Something by Tame Impala? Maybe Yeezus and TLOP?

Depends what you define as a "hit" or "standing the test of time"

In a literal sense, all of it will because it's unlikely for music to just disappear in 2025

In terms of people still caring about it? Still most of it, nostalgia means what people listen to when they're young determines at least a fraction of what they listen to when older.

In terms of still coming up in conversation, it's more important to look at the artist than the individual tracks. Those who are truly talented and compose their own interesting tracks consistently over a good number of years, will still be talked about and their tracks will still be played. I think longevity is probably a big factor, if Pink Floyd only ever released dark side of the moon (I know PatGoD was their first) and then disappeared, I don't think they would be remotely as influential.

For comparison, what are other songs which have previously stood the test of time?

Few years old now but I think the first few songs on Brat are fine tbh I don't see myself not ever listening to them again. That's probably the closest I come to pop music tho