Are Today’s Pop Stars Too Friggin’ Old?
Most top 10 hitmakers these past two years over age 30. That's not normal.
America’s radio stations played Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” more times in 2023 than any other song. No longer was she feeling adolescent angst about her footwear choices, Miley and Liam Hemsworth had recently divorced. “Flowers” represented a mature outlook far removed from Hannah Montana’s world.
The thing is, Miley Cyrus, age 30 when she released “Flowers,” was actually younger than the average top 10 hitmaker in 2023.
During the past two years, the majority of the artists in the Billboard Hot 100’s Top 10 have been over 30, including, Rihanna (35), SZA (35), Drake (37), Future (39), Nicki Minaj (40), and newly minted billionaire Taylor Swift (34).
“So what’s the problem, you ageist….?”
There’s nothing wrong with the artistic refinement and mature perspective of pop stars whose youth is long behind them. Beyoncé (42) couldn’t have created Cowboy Carter in her Destiny’s Child years.
The real issue is how correspondingly few younger artists are having hits lately. In 2023, the only two artists under age 25 to have Top 10 hits were country star Bailey Zimmerman (23) and the never-ending breakup dramatist Olivia Rodrigo (20).
Compare last year with 2019, when 20-year old Lil Nas X battled with 18-year-old Billie Eilish to remix their way to #1. Lil Tecca (17), Shawn Mendes (21), Halsey (24), Post Malone (24), and BTS (average age 24) were also among 2019’s top 10 artists under age 25. 2019 certainly felt more musically adventurous than did 2023.
There is historical precedence for a lack of youthful artists equating to fallow periods of pop music.
I’m still crunching the numbers, but my initial calculations of the age of the artists in the Hot 100’s Top 10 throughout the chart’s 66-year history reveals a comparable period when hardly anyone under age 25 had a hit. Music geeks largely cite 1981-1982 as a terrible time for Top 40 radio and pop music in general. It was a time of aging rockers, urban cowboys, and soft rock. It was before MTV’s new Wave reinvigorated popular music and Z100 became New York’s #1 radio station in just 74 days playing that music.
During those dark years in the early 80s, over three-quarters of the artists in the Billboard Hot 100 were over age 30.
So what does this age distribution mean?
If you program a Top 40 radio station, these figures will hopefully reassure you that the music available for you to play these past couple of years has indeed been limiting your success.
On the other hand, if history repeats itself, brighter days are hopefully around the corner once a new crop of younger artists finally emerges and breathes new life into pop music. 2024 is already off to a strong start with younger voices such as 21-year-old Benson Boone.
Unfortunately, radio is poised to miss the next youthful wave of pop music revitalization. As teens and twenty-somethings spend less time with FM radio, many hit music stations no longer ask anyone younger than 25 about which songs they know and love, with the logic that since they’re not the age group contributing most to ratings these days, why waste money surveying them? However, it is the tastes of those teens and young adults that ultimately chart the course of pop culture. For that reason alone, I would encourage radio programmers to reengage with teens and young adults, especially if you still have music research in your budget.
Newly empowered and emotionally mature divorcees aren’t the life group that will reinvigorate pop music, no matter how awesome I hope you agree it is for Miley.
A note on methodology: For individual artists, I looked up their birth date and examined how old that artist was when each of their top 10 hits reached its peak chart rank. For groups, I calculated the age of the group based on the average age of the most relevant group members. While deciding which group members are “relevant” is admittedly arbitrary, the vast majority of pop music groups have members of similar ages.
Sources for this post:
The Billboard Hot 100: https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100
Wikipedia’s Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_top-ten_singles
Wikipedia, various artists’ pages (for birth dates): https://en.wikipedia.org
Great article, again. As I thought about this...as a 50-something music fan who works with people of all ages, I am aligned with the opinion that people are too invested in artists now rather than 'the music' or 'the song'. I'm not saying that established artists aren't delivering quality music but I would say that their fan-base will support their favorite artists now more than ever...no matter what. It's been twenty years (or close) for artists like Beyonce and Taylor Swift. It's been closer to 10 years for artists like Drake and Ariana Grande. All still debut number one. I think about my personal favorites...that I'll still buy their albums/reissues. Olivia Newton John (Top 10's 1974-1984), Janet Jackson (1986-2001), Hall&Oates (1976-1988), ABBA (1974-1981), Celine Dion (1991-1999). Most of these artists released terrific new music/duets in the past 5 years but didn't come close to the Top 10. Past successful artists seemed to have their Top 40 Hot 100 success 5, 10, 15 years...and then move on to the A/C charts. Now, people want to grow old and stay close to their favorites. If this was the case for me...my teenage favorites would still be competing for number 1: Pat Benatar, Kenny Loggins, and Heart.