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someone put on Mr. Brightside, please
The UK music charts are full of old artists right now, featuring everyone from Oasis to Michael Jackson to The Goo Goo Dolls. It seems Gen Z is consuming youth culture from the twentieth century as if it were contemporary, leaving pop music in a bizarre position.
Have you glanced at Spotify’s ‘Top 50’ song lists lately?
Any unassuming observer would expect new music, given that most chart singles throughout the history of the medium have been contemporary releases. For decades, a ‘lead’ song has been used to promote an artist or an album, with the top chart positions serving as a perfect platform for deciding which fresh act is the voice of the current moment.
These days, however, it’s an entirely different story. Older songs from last century and the early noughties have been dominating the zeitgeist in the past year, at least here in the UK. Artists like Oasis, Michael Jackson, The Goo Goo Dolls, Radiohead, and even Bon Jovi have crept back into the charts, competing with Gen Z superstars such as Olivia Rodrigo for the top spot. As a long-term music fan, it’s been bizarre (and compelling) to see traditional popularity metrics be upended, with acts from all eras suddenly thrown into a chaotic mix devoid of cultural context.
Why is this happening? Perhaps more importantly, what does it mean for Gen Z’s music habits and consumption behaviours?
It probably won’t come as much of a surprise, but experts credit TikTok as one of the largest contributors to the change in popular music charts. Thanks to short-form video and quick, accessible song snippets, virality can be found almost instantly with the right timing. We’ve seen this recently with Dominic Fike’s 2018 song ‘Babydoll,’ Eminem’s 2004 single ‘Mockingbird,’ and Mac Miller’s 2016 song ‘Cinderella,’ all of which have crept into the UK’s top 50 songs in 2026, despite being released years ago.
Similarly, if a biopic — ‘Michael,’ for example — hits it big with audiences, streaming services and social media platforms make it easy to dive deep into their discography without blowing the dust off your grandparents’ records. This creates a new dynamic where discoverability is deeply personal and individual. Instead of being force-fed artists from the 1980s by your parents, who often dictated what was ‘good’ and ‘bad’ before you had a chance to make your own opinions, Gen Z can explore albums at their own leisure, without the added pressure from outside influences that tell you what’s considered artistically ‘worthwhile.’
Remember the Kate Bush mania several years ago following a specific episode of Stranger Things? ‘Running Up That Hill’ was released in 1985, yet it reached number one in eight countries in 2022 thanks to its use in the popular Netflix series. This gave it an unprecedented second wind, where the shackles of its previously understood cultural context disappeared. Suddenly it was contemporary, relevant, and a hit with Gen Z.
This phenomenon of discovery is a unique trait of Gen Z music consumption. TikTok’s 2025 UK music report claimed that its young community found old songs for the first time through its platform last year, specifically highlighting tracks including Radiohead’s ‘Let Down’ from 1996 and Black Eyed Peas ‘Rock That Body’ from 2010. Universal Music Group’s temporary removal of its catalogue from TikTok in 2024 also saw older tracks decrease in streaming numbers on Spotify, suggesting that there is a direct correlation. Gen Z is finding ancient songs for the first time without interference — making them all their own.
Giving dusty songs from years gone by new leases of life is obviously a good thing, and it makes for an interesting, unique chart system that looks different to every era before it.
By that same token, though, online accessibility has largely eroded our idea of a ‘superstar’ that transcends any one genre and becomes a mainstay, household name, regardless of whether you’re a fan of their music. Sure, we have big artists that dominate their lane; pop music in particular is seeing a wave of major performers like Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, and Olivia Dean, but Gen Z is less likely to gravitate toward single artists as cultural juggernauts like previous generations.
Take hip-hop, for example. The biggest ‘beef’ and commercial feud of the last five years was between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, two artists who were famous fifteen years ago. Oasis in the UK is selling out stadiums for eye-watering amounts of cash, topping the charts again as if it were 1996. The current controversy in the industry is centred around Ed Sheeran and Macklemore, both of whom made it big at the start of the 2010s. Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, and Bruno Mars are the most listened-to artists in the world right now — and they all debuted over a decade ago.
Streaming and instant accessibility have brought tons of renewed interest in older artists, but it’s also largely robbed Gen Z of their own generational superstars that serve as a mainstream ‘canon’ of culture. Everyone has their own camps and niches today, which makes for an entirely new landscape from every other decade prior.
Is it possible to have another Michael Jackson or the Beatles in our digital age? The jury is out, but we know which way we’d guess.
See also:
- Gen Z’s skills seem to be on the decline…but why?
- Is Gen Z running out of friends?
- Did Meta fail to protect Gen Z?
