What songs and artists best represent American music over the past 25 years?
I am making a mega playlist for my friend immigrating to the States next month. She loves English music but it's heavily censored where she is from. What are the best songs to help her catch up to date on popular genres and show her the best songs of the last 25 years?
Bonus points for songs that cover the plight of generations or relevant sociopolitical situations at the time.
surprised nobody mentioned Josh Homme. He formed the heavy Desert Rock genre with Kyuss and has released music that equals David Bowie in depth and imaginiation in the Rock genre with QOTSA and Them Crooked Vultures as well as the Desert Sessions. There really is no other current American Rock musician that equals his brilliance, James Hetfield excepted.
How can Bruce Springsteen not yet be on this list? There’s already plenty of stuff here that’s older than 25 years, but all of Bruce’s albums since "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (1995, so 27 years ago) hit both targets: great American music, and great social and political commentary. This list includes "The RIsing" (2002, about urban decline); "Devils and Dust" (2005, about wars in the middle east); "The Seeger Sessions" (2007; self-evidently relevant); "Wrecking Ball" ("2012); "High Hopes" (2014, with important musical contributions from Tom Morello, including "American Skin," about the Diallo shooting); "Western Stars" (2019); and my favorite, "Letter to You" (2020), which I think is one of the E Street Band’s best albums ever, and certainly the best recorded. Including "The Ghost of Tom Joad", as moving a document of American struggle as the Nobel-winning novel it takes its inspiration and title from, there’s ten albums here! But if you extend the dates back to the era of many of the American artists already suggested above, Bruce’s classics from the 1970s are surely among the most important American music ever written.
By the way, my wife is from Europe, I’m a scholar of German intellectual culture, we travel to Europe every year and have many friends there. I don’t know where the OP’s friend is coming from (he doesn’t say), but I can tell you that Bruce is the most well-regarded American musician of them all in Europe.
For good measure, let me also add Kendrick Lamar's "Damn." Few on this list seem to tolerate Hip Hop (and I include myself in that group), but this album is something special, and articulates a perspective on recent American culture in a way that none of the other suggestions here do. That's why it won a Pulitzer.
Alabama Shakes, Anderson.Paak, Bruno Mars, The B-52's, Benise, Beth Hart, Billie Eilish, BJ The Chicago Kid, Black Eyed Peas, Boney James, Bria Skonberg, David Byne, Casey Abrams, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Christian McBride, Marcus Miller, D'Angelo, Dave Koz, Ed Sheeran, Eva Cassidy, Garth Brooks, Gregory Porter, Halie Loren, Hugh Laurie, Jacintha, Sade, Jill Scott, John Mayer, Joshua Redman, Joss Stone, Justin Timberlake, Kandace Spring, Keb' Mo', Keith Urban, Kelly Clarkson, Kendrick Lamar, Kygo, Lady Gaga, Leela James, Lianne La Havas, etc., etc., etc. First haft of the alphabet.
There are so many good artists and so much music that has emerged in the last 25 years that it's almost impossible to catalog. I guess favorite songs is as good a place to start as anywhere else. Take your pick.
Damn, I left out Los Lobos, Steve Earle, and Gillian Welch as well. Richard Thompson, too. Who says there’s no good music being made anymore?! A couple of guys I know who are stuck in 1966 ;-) .
@rpeluso: Your reminder of Merle Haggard compels me to admit I failed to keep up with this major American artist in his later years. And to admit that I had forgotten---but was reminded by other posters in this thread---of the last series of albums Johnny Cash recorded, perhaps the best of his life.
But how on Earth did I neglect to include Bob Dylan?! I fully understand those who can’t tolerate his current "craggy" voice, but that doesn’t in the least bother me. His 2000’s albums are amongst my favorites of his, and that’s saying a lot.
His early-2000 show at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood was one of my lifetime favorites, and I’ve attended many. I had last seen Dylan ten years earlier, and he was dreadful (so was his 3-pc. band), amongst the worst of my life. Oh that Bob! ;-)
Wow, now that is quite a question. I’ll really have to think about that. I am currently listening to Popsicle Toes by Michael Franks… definitely… oh, that is not in the last 25 years… wow, it is 46 years ago… how did that much time go by?
Bonus points for songs that cover the plight of generations or relevant sociopolitical situations at the time.
Most blues for the plight & Maybe C-Span for the sociopolitical part;. That said, why does anyone want to listen to such serious music? Geez, I thought music was an escape from all the BS. Yet I have heard some newer music which is w a y y y too serious for me. I had to turn off Austin City Limits one night when the music seemed suicidal IMO. Not trying to give you a hard time. Just don't understand. i wish you and her the best in finding good music which enhances the fun factor
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