I AM WHAT I SHARE
(Music As A Social Currency)
Music doesn’t just define who we are; music defines who we want to be. Remember that European exchange student in high school who introduced everyone to Kraftwerk, Joy Division, and clove cigarettes? Back in Luxembourg, he probably fell at the bottom of the social pecking order, but here, all the guys wanted to be him, and all the girls (and probably some of the guys) wanted to be with him. Why? Because he discovered this incredible music first, and then inducted them into his post—punk world. You can’t buy that kind of social currency. This universal experience belies the relationship that every generation has had with music. But in recent years, there have been tectonic shifts in how Millennials acquire, store, listen to, talk about, and share music. For proof of how the music world has changed, look no further than the evolution of the mixtape. A$AP Rocky’s latest mixtape is a far cry from what Nick Hornby waxed poetic about in his 1995 pop novel High Fidelity. Liner notes have been replaced by band tweets; mindfully collecting records, cassettes, or CDs has given way to binging on unlimited access to compressed audio files that are just a click away. And all of this has reframed how Millennials use music to shape their identities. Or more aptly, their Brand Me. Like the Boomers and Xers before them, Millennials want to be the first to discover, the first to experience, and the first to share. But unlike prior generations, they’ve been wired since middle school; they can listen to whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want. And that allows them to keep a cycle of music discovery, engagement, and activation spinning.
discovery When it comes to the search for—and discovery of—new music, Millennial tastes often reflect the shared emotions they’re experiencing as they grow up and go through the rights of passage into adult life: graduations, first jobs, first apartments. They’re embracing new music to accompany these milestones or, conversely, to escape from their new obligations and responsibilities. Look at the string of hits from Fun.—the breakout pop superstars of 2013. There’s a consistent narrative in “We Are Young,” “Some Nights,” and “Carry On” that marries existential angst with an optimistic vision of being young and free. What’s interesting about Fun.— beyond the idea that Millennials seem to be nostalgic for a sound that recalls Queen or Electric Light Orchestra—is that it was the first band that Glee broke. The show’s tried—and—true publishing model relies on covering existing pop successes, not new and untested tracks. But producers made an exception for Fun. when they heard “We Are Young” and in turn disrupted an entrenched A&R process. After the episode aired, sales of the single increased a staggering 1,650%.18 The Glee cover was followed by a Chevy Super Bowl commercial, which catapulted the band into the mainstream and helped score a couple of Grammys (in their acceptance speech they thanked their parents “for letting us live at home for a very long period of time”). The real story here, though, is that Millennials discovered Fun. through a network television show, not radio airplay or digital, mobile, or social apps.
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