Millennial Adult Contemporary

Listening to Drake, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga's vocal house.

The cover of Drake’s new album Honestly, Nevermind

When I was a kid I’d go with my mom to Starbucks and see CDs for sale. Then I’d go to Barnes and Noble and notice a section called “Adult Contemporary.” It had a lot of the same music as Starbucks. I was born in 1992, so this was the 2000s, and the artists behind these recordings were people like Jason Mraz, Diana Krall, and Train. 

During this era, the Adult Contemporary aesthetic was signaled primarily by inoffensive balladry, alt-adjacent in style. In previous eras, it was associated with the smooth R&B of Lionel Richie, the soft rock of Neil Diamond, and Celine Dion of Titanic OST fame. That is to say, Adult Contemporary doesn’t have a fixed sound. It simply holds a mirror to its audience as they get older and less cool. It takes the contemporaneous sound of youthful joy, isolates it, and offers less than a full dose to adults. Raw excitation – that motor behind sonic becoming and whatever social forms it might cultivate – is kept safely at bay. 

The dominant Adult Contemporary sound of the 2020s seems pretty clearly to be 90s vocal house. Lady Gaga properly inaugurated the moment with Chromatica, and Beyoncé and Drake have now followed up with their own contributions to the movement, properly solidifying it. Gaga’s record came out very soon after the beginning of the first Covid wave, which is important context. I remember thinking it was kind of a thoughtful gesture, giving her aging millennial fans something to listen to while stuck at home, cycling through memories of their fading youth.

I do not particularly like or dislike the Beyoncé or Drake songs. That’s the point: indifference is Adult Contemporary’s raison d'être. Personally, I’m not totally opposed to Adult Contemporary – the sound can be interesting for its own reasons, and besides, it seems generally misguided to scold people for enjoying popular music. What I’m trying to say is that listeners should just be honest with themselves. It’s better not to try to fight the passage of time. The music industry doesn’t have to be stuck in this holding pattern, endlessly rehashing and rehearsing old forms. It’s possible to live a life that isn’t already a memory.

Looking back on the 2010s, attempting to discern the mechanics of history’s odd stops, starts, and left-turns, it’s obvious that Drake and Future’s What a Time to Be Alive is a signpost. It creates a sort of Before Christ / After Death situation. The “time to be alive” that they refer to in the album title has clearly ended. When did it end? I’m not sure. That’s an interesting question. How do you live a life that isn’t a memory? I’m not sure. That’s an interesting question.