Is your band playing a set list of mostly current Top 40? I don't mean hits from the 1990's, which is still WAY newer that most bands setlist, but current hits.
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Is anyone playing current Top 40?
- Thread starter 51PRI
- Start date
I'd like to just to keep things interesting, but I don't know of any bands that do it. I know some guys who are in a wedding/event band that have tried to throw in some current top 40, and they said it cleared the dance floor. Seems that people still just want to hear "Don't Stop Believin'" and such.
Listening as a consumer is all over the map right now. Except for Dua Lipa, I wouldn't recognize any top 40 or the Spotify Top 50 if I heard it.
Listening as a consumer is all over the map right now. Except for Dua Lipa, I wouldn't recognize any top 40 or the Spotify Top 50 if I heard it.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Most top 40 is aimed at the under 21 crowd. I've always tried to see set lists on the wants of the paying customers.
You basically have to be over 21 to get into a place with live music and therein lies the problem with playing top 40.
I know all the current top 40 because at 58 yo I have 6 yo daughter and my beautiful wife is 36yo.
I know all the current top 40 because at 58 yo I have 6 yo daughter and my beautiful wife is 36yo.
Nope. And, honestly, I don't hate a lot of that stuff. My daughters are 9 and 12. They keep my 50 year old butt "current".
I totally agree with @buldog5151bass on this one. Most newer music is aimed at very young people. And very young people don't go to the kinds of bars that have live bands (for the most part). They're into DJs.
"Can't Stop the Feeling" is the latest pop hit we do. We do several "country" songs from recent charts. (They aren't really country songs to me, but I like the songs.)
One thing I will mention about the newer music my girls are into. There's not a lot to celebrate in the songs. They aren't "party" songs. They aren't made for dancing. They remind me of the 90s, when most music was a downer (with exceptions, of course). Olivia Rodrigo doesn't have much in the way of "party" music. Nor does Ed Sheeran, Billie Eillish, Shawn Mendez, etc. They have good breakup songs, and love songs. But nothing I would try to play live. The Weekend has a party song from time to time. Dua has some catchy stuff. But most current pop hits just aren't..... "fun". Kids are pretty melodramatic these days.
I totally agree with @buldog5151bass on this one. Most newer music is aimed at very young people. And very young people don't go to the kinds of bars that have live bands (for the most part). They're into DJs.
"Can't Stop the Feeling" is the latest pop hit we do. We do several "country" songs from recent charts. (They aren't really country songs to me, but I like the songs.)
One thing I will mention about the newer music my girls are into. There's not a lot to celebrate in the songs. They aren't "party" songs. They aren't made for dancing. They remind me of the 90s, when most music was a downer (with exceptions, of course). Olivia Rodrigo doesn't have much in the way of "party" music. Nor does Ed Sheeran, Billie Eillish, Shawn Mendez, etc. They have good breakup songs, and love songs. But nothing I would try to play live. The Weekend has a party song from time to time. Dua has some catchy stuff. But most current pop hits just aren't..... "fun". Kids are pretty melodramatic these days.
Are there instruments or musicians playing on Top 40 songs? Just kidding.
As of today, most of the Billboard Hot 100 seems to be Kanye.
The Hot 100 Chart | Billboard
My acoustic trio has recently done "Circles" by Post Malone and "Levitating" by Dua Lipa with success. But past that, i can't see attempting many of these songs.
The Hot 100 Chart | Billboard
My acoustic trio has recently done "Circles" by Post Malone and "Levitating" by Dua Lipa with success. But past that, i can't see attempting many of these songs.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
yes, and few cover bands just played new top 40. But more and more, most venues are frequented by older people. Add in the fact with the change in the way new music is consumed, fewer older people hear newer music (physical media not generally for sale, internet radio).
Maybe, I donno. I'm playing with a new trio and there's a lot of stuff I've never heard (of) before. I'm not sure how current it is.
Lotsa whiney teenage angst.
I wouldn't listen to it on purpose, but it's a paying gig so I'll learn it and play it as well as I can.
Lotsa whiney teenage angst.
I wouldn't listen to it on purpose, but it's a paying gig so I'll learn it and play it as well as I can.
I did notice a few songs in the country genre on the Billboard Hot 100, but I don't know if they're danceable. As we all know, cover band tunes need to be danceable if you want to keep people engaged. That's why I like the Dua Lipa stuff so much. It's danceable, catchy, and fun (and the great bass lines don't hurt). But I don't know how much of it the general bar-going public actually knows.
Let's be honest: there's a fairly limited selection of cover band tunes that are doable if you want to keep a party crowd engaged and happy. Current top 40 doesn't really fit that description.
Not necessarily in the Top 40 charts right now, but we strive to keep up to date and include "current" hits from the last year or so.
Recently added:
Don't Start Now - Dua Lipa
Blinding Lights - The Weekend
All I Ever Wanted - Rag'n'Bone Man
Typhoons - Royal Blood
Waiting On A War - Foo Fighters.
Recently added:
Don't Start Now - Dua Lipa
Blinding Lights - The Weekend
All I Ever Wanted - Rag'n'Bone Man
Typhoons - Royal Blood
Waiting On A War - Foo Fighters.
Mostly current top 40? No, but a significant amount of material from the past few years (wedding and corporate events band). I can say with certainty that it’s not just under 21s that are familiar with the more recent hits. I can also say that very few of these songs fill the dance floor as well as classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s.
I imagine you’d have to go back in time quite a ways before you’d find a song I’d really want to play that made the top 40.
For a few years, like around 2016-2018, I had a cover trio called Six Cowards, whose concept was to cover the top indie/alternative bands' hits from the last 20 years or so (since 2000). We played Arctic Monkeys, the Black Keys, Cage the Elephant, Death Cab for Cutie (this is my ABC list of artists...), etc.
The band was not a bar-circuit success, and I eventually shut it down a couple of years ago.
We played well, and got a lot of positive feedback. I'm not entirely sure what to attribute the lack of success to. It may have been simply that we weren't a bunch of party animals with gangs of hard-drinking friends who would follow us around. It may have been that we were "aging hipsters" (as our guitarist often dubbed himself) and older than the crowd that otherwise might have liked the set list.
Right around the time the band shut down, I was talking to a younger woman, a former student, who I would have thought of as the perfect target audience we were aiming for - 30, college educated, had a kind of alternative background life, etc. I invited her to gigs and hoped she would bring like-minded friends. She never came. When we talked music, and I asked what kind of artists she was into, her answer was - Meatloaf, Elton John, Hall and Oates, KISS...
There probably are some venues in each market where a current-pop setlist would go over great. There's always some contemporary song (All About that Bass, Exes and Ohs in the last few years) that everyone knows and women love. But I see young people on college campuses wearing AC/DC and Led Zeppelin tshirts. At my nephew's wedding a few weeks ago, my niece's boyfriend went absolutely bonkers dancing to Cottoneyed Joe. The assumption that "young people like new music, only old people like old music" is ITSELF an artifact of Boomer culture that no longer really applies.
I think that the digital revolution has made two really fundamental changes in the market.
First, it's fragmented. I like lots of contemporary artists - Samantha Fish, the Ben Miller Band, JD McPherson, Lake Street Dive, Jessica Hernandez and the Deltas. None of them are in the top 40, and I hear lots of current music yet don't even recognize anything on the top 40. I don't think it's just me; the top 40 no longer dominates the listening habits of young people (which I no longer am) the way it used to.
Second, it's leveled things. What I mean is that in the world of digital streaming and youtube, a young person exploring music can find Queen or Frank Sinatra as easily as they find Billie Eilish or the Weeknd. You no longer have this kind of "chronological hierarchy" where new music is everywhere and old music fades deeper and deeper to the back of the record store or the ends of the radio dial. A 30-year-old in a bar is as likely to be an Elton John fan as an Ed Sheeran fan.
That's not a reason to avoid playing new songs, if they fit your sound and your crowd. But it just doesn't seem like contemporary hits translate into cover-band world the same way as one might expect.
The band was not a bar-circuit success, and I eventually shut it down a couple of years ago.
We played well, and got a lot of positive feedback. I'm not entirely sure what to attribute the lack of success to. It may have been simply that we weren't a bunch of party animals with gangs of hard-drinking friends who would follow us around. It may have been that we were "aging hipsters" (as our guitarist often dubbed himself) and older than the crowd that otherwise might have liked the set list.
Right around the time the band shut down, I was talking to a younger woman, a former student, who I would have thought of as the perfect target audience we were aiming for - 30, college educated, had a kind of alternative background life, etc. I invited her to gigs and hoped she would bring like-minded friends. She never came. When we talked music, and I asked what kind of artists she was into, her answer was - Meatloaf, Elton John, Hall and Oates, KISS...
There probably are some venues in each market where a current-pop setlist would go over great. There's always some contemporary song (All About that Bass, Exes and Ohs in the last few years) that everyone knows and women love. But I see young people on college campuses wearing AC/DC and Led Zeppelin tshirts. At my nephew's wedding a few weeks ago, my niece's boyfriend went absolutely bonkers dancing to Cottoneyed Joe. The assumption that "young people like new music, only old people like old music" is ITSELF an artifact of Boomer culture that no longer really applies.
I think that the digital revolution has made two really fundamental changes in the market.
First, it's fragmented. I like lots of contemporary artists - Samantha Fish, the Ben Miller Band, JD McPherson, Lake Street Dive, Jessica Hernandez and the Deltas. None of them are in the top 40, and I hear lots of current music yet don't even recognize anything on the top 40. I don't think it's just me; the top 40 no longer dominates the listening habits of young people (which I no longer am) the way it used to.
Second, it's leveled things. What I mean is that in the world of digital streaming and youtube, a young person exploring music can find Queen or Frank Sinatra as easily as they find Billie Eilish or the Weeknd. You no longer have this kind of "chronological hierarchy" where new music is everywhere and old music fades deeper and deeper to the back of the record store or the ends of the radio dial. A 30-year-old in a bar is as likely to be an Elton John fan as an Ed Sheeran fan.
That's not a reason to avoid playing new songs, if they fit your sound and your crowd. But it just doesn't seem like contemporary hits translate into cover-band world the same way as one might expect.
So you don't know who BTS is, then?
The chorus in the number one song right now by Olivia "Good for you" is like a Descendents song sung by a teenage girl. Bruno Mars has very danceable songs. So does Dua Lipa. But the Weeknd, and the ones you mention above are lame.
Im in a similar situation with my daughter being 12 and I hear the top 40 stuff through her. We do some "newer" type stuff, but we play mostly bars, mid sized clubs and fire companies. We tried stuff that was in the last couple years and most of the time it doesnt work with the over 40 crowds that go to these places. The "newer" (within the last 10 years) songs that we do that kill are uptown funk and shut and dance though they are several years old now. We did stuff by Ed Sheeran, DNCE, etc when their stuff was just out and it really didnt go over that well.
I don't of course, but just out of curiosity, what is top 40 now? Where do you hear it? Is it the top on Spotify, radio, or what? I thought that the most popular music now, and for a long time, is hip hop. Not twoo?
I guess there are no live bands a t Teen Clubs anymore.
Here is a documentary of the 60's Teen Rock Music scene in Fort Worth, Texas. I'm sure there were parallel scenes in other US cities. THis culture doesn't exist anymore.
Here is a documentary of the 60's Teen Rock Music scene in Fort Worth, Texas. I'm sure there were parallel scenes in other US cities. THis culture doesn't exist anymore.
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Well said. This also applies to movies and TV as well. My wife had a high school/college age person recently ask her if she'd heard of The Office. Charts don't define demographics anymore.
