This article was written by Anna Stoner, a student in U-32 Journalism class.
“He loves music more than anyone I’ve ever met,” said Amy Felice, a senior here at U-32, when talking about ‘Dad Music.’ Dad Music can broadly be defined as music your dad listened to that you now enjoy. Amy also said, “He’s always willing to [listen] to what I’m listening to… we shared a Spotify account for a really long time.”
The “Dad Music” phenomenon is elsewhere at school too. “I basically [grew] up on that music. My dad is a musician, he introduced me to rock music” said Joah Byers, a junior. She also reflected that both of her parents are music enthusiasts like herself. “My favorite genre is probably folk music,” said Joah, lending her dad’s influence to that choice. Echoing Joah and Amy’s sentiments, “My dad played a lot of music around me growing up,” said Baker Beauchamp, a sophomore. Baker also mentioned that his dad used to take him to bluegrass music festivals when he was younger, too.
Anna Stoner/The Chronicle
“My favorite artist is Courtney Barnett,” said Josie Haley, a junior. Regarding why she is her favorite, Josie said, “She talks a lot about growing up, she talks about mental health, [and] she talks about relationships.” Relatability is a large factor for people when it comes to music they like, and it can also draw fans together on social media. “I can relate to it more and it’s more catchy to me than other types of music,” said Kaydence Smith, a senior, talking about country music. “Country music, it’s [got] more of a sing-along vibe to music,” said Casey Byrd, a senior, alluding to the relatability of country over other genres.
Anna Stoner/The Chronicle
People can also share their favorite artists on social media. “[I] would just take stuff that my Instagram reels [shows me],” said Amy. Music can be promoted on social media too, for artists trying to grow their audiences. Elaborating on what his favorite genre is, Baker said “I listen to a lot of surf rock, [and mainly the band] Couch Dog.” Baker also said, “I saw a video online that they posted [on] Tik Tok,” on the topic of how he found the group of Californian college kids. There is a slight problem of oversaturation of popular artists of individual genres on social media though. This ‘oversaturation’ is mostly fuelled by fans raving about how good their favorite artists are, “People don’t listen to outside of the more popular artists so they think that’s all [the genre] is,” said Kaydence McCallister, a sophomore.
Anna Stoner/The Chronicle
Kaydence M. also touched upon the polarizing genre of country music as a whole. She said, “people just aren’t huge fans of country music, they think it’s only about drinking beer, having parties, and getting broken up with,” acknowledging that the subject matter of the more popular songs and artists could be what breaks the interest in country music for some people. “Well, a lot of them are about trucks, drinking, [and] girls. Also a lot of rap songs are about girls, but in a different way than country; sexualizing [girls],” said Casey and Kaydence S. Casey made the point to compare rap music to country music, and said, “Because like in rap [song], it’s, ‘I slept [with her] or I did this’ but [in], country if it’s about a girl, it’s actually about her, deeper than just sexualizing [her].”
Despite the polarizing nature of country and rap music, they are still very popular genres. But, with that in mind, both hip hop/rap and country music artists are, as of the week of Oct 21. 2023, within the top 10 artists of the Billboard 100.
