It’s pretty hard to decipher upon what exactly makes a Millennial want to listen to music. Is it nostalgia? Is it movie tie-in songs? Is because Uncle Dave and Aunt Lucy loves those songs too? No wonder they play it all Christmas-long!
It’s perhaps all of them, and their own little unique tastes. But, just like music, tastes are subjective and are always subject to change.
A millennial today would have a whole new world to pursue, dazzling sights to see, and thousands of songs to listen to on Spotify before they found the right one. How can they ever be so sure it’s the right one?
And for those without Spotify premium, that time is going to be, unfortunately, amplified.
Don’t worry. As a connoisseur of good tastes in (Disney) music and (Disney) music in general, we’ve found a great solution.
Here are some songs that a millennial should add to their listening playlist on Apple Music, Spotify, or simply the breadcrumbs you’ve left for Hansel and Gretel.
Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles
For many people and generations long before Millennials, The Beatles were a legendary band. Of course, Gen-Z’s know them simply as just ‘band’, but for Millennials with exquisite taste in music and haven’t listened to Bohemian Rhapsody enough, this Beatle tune should get them ripe and ready for some lovely mornings.
Being a part of the legendary Abbey Road album of 1969, this George Harrison-written track still remains as one of his best-known compositions from its era. The track’s giddily-soulful led guitar defines much of its existence, with Harrison noting that the track was written as getaways from the businessmen life, basking in the wonderful nature and respite from it.
What ended up happening was a tune that captured many of its hardened supporters, and crafted new ones on a journey nearing its end. Abbey Road was the predecessor to Let It Be, the last album before The Beatles eventual break-up.
Nevertheless, Here Comes The Sun’s cheery tone, hard-to-sing-along-to tune and feet-tapping strums eclipse the wonders of this legendary band, ensuring that their legacy will continue to live on as one of the best to have ever walked the face off the earth.
For Millennials, the track’s joyous come-to-life harmony is sure to get them away from the stresses of life and say “it’s alright.”
“Sun, sun, sun, here it comes.”
The Great Escape - P!nk
P!nk’s The Truth About Love was released in 2012 received plenty of praise, spawning megahits Just Give Me a Reason with Nate Ruess (from fun.), Try and the album’s lead single: Blow Me (One Last Kiss). The last parenthesis was necessary.
P!nk’s success in the early 2000’s saw a rise and connection with many Millennials, who would fondly remember her for her earlier hits such as Get The Party Started and Just Like A Pill, launching her into her defining success of God Is A DJ, U + Ur Hand and of course, her first number one on the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo act with So What.
From a glance at this iconic pop star, it seemed that Millennials resonated with P!nk much more than how P!nk influenced her listeners with her punk pop style.
It was the pick of the litter with P!nk’s discography, but in order to achieve what we’re looking for (which is to add new songs on a Millennial’s playlist), then perhaps it’s best to look at a non-single for this approach.
And that’s why The Great Escape from The Truth About Love is my pick. And yes, Who Knew was very, very close, but we’re not getting to heartbreak just yet.
The Great Escape’s themes are inescapable to the generic Millennial listener. It’s lyrics are sharpened in life’s promises, and the piano in the back softens up for the perfect ambiance. It’s a song about blame, it’s a song about escape, and it’s a song about letting it go.
This somber ballad is rounded well with P!nk’s sweet delivery, unforgettable progression and a song that understands just what it is.
It’s a song about you, for you.
We all know about the great escape, Millennials perhaps more than others, but it’s not taking that route that makes them stronger.
I’m not gonna lose you
’Cause the passion and the pain
Are gonna keep you alive someday
Vagabond - Wolfmother
Let’s go back to upbeat, shall we?
This Wolfmother track was more fondly remembered in its appearance in the forever-loved film of 500 Days of Summer, where we see our main character (Tom Hansen), start to repair his life after what was seen as a failed relationship with the love of his life (Summer).
Played roughly near the end of the movie, Tom’s out-of-sync bouncing in an attempt to follow the song’s drum beats and eventually get back into shape perfectly speaks about the relationship of the viewer to the movie. We root for Tom, we want him to be better, and when he kickstarts the attempt to do so, we’re all aboard the Tom train.
But that’s not it. For a majority of 500 Days of Summer, Tom’s crumpled life about princely love and fairytale romance is tested to the very best. Like firing a slingshot without ammo, Tom gets it all in order with time, and understanding about himself more than anything else.
As a Millennial’s life comes and goes, the importance of living in the moment is what many cherish. The day-to-day rubbish, eventually taking a salary home just to live another day, forgetting what was useful only to have to re-learn it…
Wolfmother’s Vagabond does an impeccable job to tell the listener that it’s time to get back up, and it’s time to get. back. up.
It’s about living free, but in control. It’s about the questions, and the yearning for more. It’s sharing about it in the moment, and it’s about tragedy.
It’s about finding the one, and pulling yourself from the floor and not let them go.
Cause I’ll tell you everything about living free
Close To Me - The Cure
Yeah, I know we spoke about ‘new songs’, but let’s talk about forgotten ones too.
Many versions of Close To Me exist, with three in particular that comes to mind. The album version, the single version, and the remix. The version we’re going with here is the superior version, and it’s the single version (of course).
In the 80’s, The Cure were largely known for their new wave tendencies, dark cuts and all-around punk rock goodness. Close To Me, the second and final single from the album The Head on the Door, was also an album that saw the band turn towards refining their sound and adding a defining pop element. That defining element soon saw the band garner commercial fame with Just Like Heaven and their most prominent song: Friday I’m In Love.
However, we’re not talking about the band’s up-shift in numbers sold across the board. That’s good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not right.
Close To Me was largely inspired by a dream that singer-songwriter Robert Smith had, where he was locked in a linen closet that fell off a cliff and into the ocean. The song’s music video seemed to continue with this idea, and features the band with their instruments in little sizes, all while contained in a wardrobe. Probably too familiar for Robert.
The biggest point with Close To Me arrives immediately to a listener: in its ability to capture without needing much at all. The claustrophobic sense of the track draws the listener in, gets them ready, and does something that might seem out of order. It asks the listener to dance.
A song in which the singer sings about being in the dark and trying to make it work, and in which if he had the listener’s faith, he could perhaps make it safe and clean. Interspersed among it all are indeed big band elements that elevate the song from an ordinary single to truly a mesmerizing dance affair that entrusts the listener to take it all in.
For a Millennial, it’s important to feel safe. Any light, in any direction, and it’s the word “go”. Close To Me’s takes the dreary sense and evolves it into a song about sense and security, about fear and anxiety, and telling oneself that it’s all okay.
But if I had your faith
Then I could make it safe and clean
If only I was sure
That my head on the door was a dream
Summertime - My Chemical Romance
Put on your emo hats and your scar-filled oxygen tanks, because we’re going on a deep dive that happens to include all things associated with the above words.
My Chemical Romance’s biggest impact on the pop-punk scene was definitely its lingering impact of being simply an ‘emo act’ that outgrew its welcome.
Of course, hyperbole isn’t sentiment, and the band’s true fans who followed them to its eventual break-up in 2013 would definitely know. While I wasn’t there for the journey the entire way through, looking back at the band’s discography of angst-filled mayhem and peaceful exit, some things just fell into place.
For this piece, our pick of My Chemical Romance songs happens to be one that I believe is both underrated and underappreciated. And that is Summertime indeed.
Much of My Chemical Romance’s tag of ‘emo’ and ‘punk rock’ came into a diminishing light from the general public. After all, the success of Welcome to the Black Parade and it’s following singles may not have been great for fans who weren’t cherished listeners, and worse for the casual and misunderstood audience, but for those keeping score and wanting more, Danger Days (with an album name too long for me to write) had definitely came out of left field.
But it wasn’t the lead single Na Na Na (And More Na’s), or even its promotional singles that really lit the torch for what many thought was a new beginning, but the album’s take on a pop-punk style that went along with the state of the music at that time.
2012 was a rebellious time for many Millennials, and following up to The Black Parade was always a hard task for any band. With Danger Days, instead of capturing that same sensation, My Chemical Romance opted for a much more serene and yet vivacious approach that seemed to tell everyone what they wanted to do: to simply be free.
Summertime, possibly one of the best songs on the album, stands out as a track that relishes in every regard, deciding to kick-off a new wave approach that spared no effortless detail. Gerard Way, lead singer and songwriter of the band had made sure of that. In fact, the song was based around Gerard and his wife, Lindsey, in which the lyrics are parallel to the tattoos that each has for the other.
By having a new wave song that was both beautiful, bold, and enriching, it’s a newfound chapter in a Millennial’s book to simply have no rules when it comes to life.
Summertime is the rock ballad that seems inevitable to fall in love with.
How long until we find our way
In the dark and out of harm?
You can run away with me
Anytime you want
Give Life Back to Music - Daft Punk
For a Millennial, music is what fills the soul faster than one can say ‘Myspace’. Without a doubt one of the defining acts of the 2000’s in the electronic scene, Daft Punk was a light show that understood how to groove and dance.
In 2011, after their astounding project with the film Tron: Legacy, Daft Punk begun work on their next album with legendary musicians Nile Rodgers, Paul Williams, and the synthesizer godfather himself, Giorgio Moroder.
In 2013, the world was treated to Random Access Memories, and just like many, our world was never quite the same.
In what seemed to be a masterpiece of an album, Daft Punk’s album took the modern capabilities of music and transcended the listener back into the 80’s where groove was hot and sounds melted steel. The album’s mesh of glitz pop and lush production enabled a polish that was hardly commonplace at the time, and found its elegant sound tightly held onto by both casual and electronic listeners.
Get Lucky, Lose Yourself To Dance and Instant Crush became instant classics, but with a trend that I’ve created on this list of plays, we need to take it way back to the start, the start of the album.
The start that gave life back to music, and Daft Punk made damn sure of that.
Immediately, one can hear the exploding of goodness in drums, synths and pelts of guitar greatness, before expanding into a stream of smooth groove. It all starts right here, precisely, of why many Millennials are sure they’ve tasted the very great, and also the very worst.
Daft Punk’s sizzling opener sets the tone and mood for the rest of the album, and doesn’t quite let up with each following drum beat. It tells the listener that they’re going to stay here for as long as the listener is going to, and as long as they’re heart’s in it, they’ll be in it.
A minute till’ the end is perhaps where the song truly shines. Removed of all vocoders, we’re simply left with the utter sensation of its terrific production.
We’re left with the glitz and the utter ferociousness of our wildest imagination, and we couldn’t have done it without the help of musical geniuses that are Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo.
It’s safe. It’s warm. It’s great.
It’s music.
Let the music in tonight
(Just turn on the music)
Let the music of your life
(Give life back to music)
If you haven’t listened to any of the listed songs above and it’s respective albums, do check them out.
And if you’re intending to add these songs to your playlists regardless of being a Millennial or not, great(!)
Good songs are meant to be heard. Great songs are meant to be shared.
Click the embedded Spotify link below to get started listening to the above songs right now.
