Music: What Would We Do Without It

Music is one of the most controversial topics of the 21st century. Personal tastes in music have caused people to create a stigma around ‘good’ and ‘bad’ music. So what is the best music? Who is the best artist? What’s the best genre? The simple answer to all of these questions is, there is no bad music and no best artist. Having an opinion is something that might be exclusive to just you, and that’s fine. We asked various groups of people to find out the most popular opinion on music. Please remember, this is sample data so not every voice will be represented.

Six questions were asked, with varying answers. The highly agreed-upon question was, the first question that stated,” Who in your opinion is the best artist of all time?” The most common answers were, Tupac and Michael Jackson. Both legends in their own respects, and definitely deserving of the positions as kings of the industry. 

The second question, “what artist gets too much hype?” seemed to be the quickest question for people to answer. The most popular answer was Drake. This could be due to the allegations that he doesn’t write his own music, or maybe he is just seen as a bad artist. When asked why people thought he was the worst artist they said that he had one good song, like God’s Plan, and then fell off for a year or two just to release a subpar album in the next year. The second most popular answer to this question was Da Baby. When asked why, interviewees said that he is mainly tailored toward younger female audiences, and is more made for the memes rather than good music. 

The third question for our Raiders was, “who is the best artist of this generation?” Many varying answers were given for this one and the most reoccurring answer was The Weeknd. A surprising answer to say the least. Although does he deserve this spot? He has proven that he has kept consistency with some of his best and most popular songs in recent years and in the past. The Weeknd has kept up with pop culture trends and constantly released and featured on numerous different albums.

The fourth and fifth questions we asked were “which music genres are the best and worst.” For the best genre, the answer was no surprise with Hip hop being on top, also with a mix of RnB Music. The younger demographic is known to enjoy listening to Hip Hop but RnB has had exponential growth in recent years. Country was the most popular answer for the worst genre. It didn’t surprise most when this question was asked and that might just be because of the pop culture hate around it or the general distaste for country music. 

The sixth and final question was to find out where these tastes came from. So where do people get their music taste buds from in 2022? The answer is simple… Tik Tok. With the climb of Tik Tok and the death of Vine, music had a tiny boom that helped revive aspiring artists. Tik Toks typically include music audio that can be taken from all over the internet and used to create personalized content also known as the For You Page (commonly called the FYP). Songs that have catchy lyrics, a solid beat, or just sound interesting began to climb charts all across music platforms.

For example, the popular show Stranger Things included a song by Kate Bush called Running Up That Hill. This song didn’t pick up a lot of traction on release but climbed the charts in weeks because it was included in this popular TV show. People began using it on Tik Tok constantly, causing the boom to grow even further. This one song is just one small example of how Tik Tok has a major impact on the music industry.

At the end of the day, music is music. There is no best artist or worst genre. These are just the opinions of teenagers and some staff. Listen to whatever you want! Music is flexible with genres merging and surprising collabs with artists occurring every month. Music is an art, and some people like some genres or artists while others hate them. The conclusion we can make from this is that Raider’s opinions are varied and few people truly like Drake :(.