the american adventure has only just begun. our spirit is still young. and my fellow americans, the best is yet to come. thank you. god bless you. and god bless america. thank you very much. [music] [cnn original series theme] ♪ oppa gangnam style [gayle] the digital revolution has rocked the music business, changing the way we buy, play, and discover new music. "1989 sounds exactly like taylor swift, even when it sounds like nothing she's ever tried before." [audience cheering] beyoncé released an album last night, and the internet went insane over it.

kendrick lamar has won the pulitzer prize. now rap music's intent is to speak out in protest. -cardi b! -[trills] the one and only rihanna. i feel like i finally got my purpose back. -i like our music! -[laughs] how do you feel about breaking drake's streaming record? it's insane. [kacey] these days, with the genre lines being so blurred, the possibilities are endless. ♪ don't believe me? just watch! ♪ [theme music]

♪ i know a place ♪ where the grass is really greener ♪ [jason] the music of the early 2010s was marked by this groundswell of energy and good feeling. ♪ california gurls, we're undeniable ♪ [jason] i remember being in the club and hearing california gurls and just thinking, something has changed. ♪ so raise your glass if you are wrong ♪ [jason] there were all these turbopop songs. ♪ like a g6 [jason] marked by an aggressive high tempo. songs like party rock anthem. ♪ party rock is in the house tonight ♪ [jason] i think it had a lot to do with the end of the global economic recession, the surging sense of optimism. ♪ wake up in the morning feelin' like p. diddy ♪

[este] i was best friends with kesha, and i heard tik tok for the first time. and i was like... i'm probably never gonna see you again once this comes out. ♪ i ain't comin' back i instantly knew it was gonna be a hit. ♪ don't stop, make it pop ♪ dj, blow my speakers up [este] and the video was totally kesha. you know, fun, irreverent. ♪ tick-tock on the clock ♪ but the party don't stop, no that was kesha. that was quintessentially her. ♪ oh, whoa, whoa-oh [benny] 2010 was so insane. one time, me and kesha were like, let's write a song. and then she's like, nah, [bleep] it. we went and got fully drunk, rode the subway. everyone got tattoos. then we came back and we were like, ah, i guess we'll write a song. ♪ oh, whoa, whoa-oh ♪ dj this is when we saw pop music and edm, which is electronic dance music, kind of meet and merge in a particularly compelling way. ♪ starships were meant to fly [stephen] the collapse of genre is the big story of the 2010s.

and so the signature songs of the modern era are just kind of a mélange of different influences and styles. ♪ shine a light through an open door ♪ [emily] we found love, rihanna and calvin harris, is such a good, euphoric track with an amazing, emotional focal hook on it. ♪ we found love in a hopeless place ♪ [emily] that combo really helped djs and that style of song take off. the sounds that have been climbing up the charts, the sounds of electronic dance music, came to popularity thanks to artists like david guetta, as well as diplo and skrillex. [music] [nate] and you had dubstep, which was a subgenre of edm, with this just annihilating bass texture. you can hear it in a song like scary monsters and nice sprites. [finneas] dubstep to me was like the most recent time

that a really new element of music took over in kind of a mainstream way. it had the same feeling to me as, like, whoever was overdriving their guitar amp for the first time. [music] and i remember listening to it, riding the bus on a choir tour in 2011, just being like, wait for the drop. [music] [nate] with the bass drop, it's all about increasing the tension, making them anticipate the release of that drop. ♪ 10, 9, 8, 7 [nate] in a way, it was ripe for parodying, not only the music itself, but kind of the culture. the dj and the state of pure adrenaline that concertgoers would encounter when they reached this moment of, of the drop, it's so incredibly high octane. when skrillex won three grammys in 2012,

it was a moment when you really felt like edm had arrived. and the grammy goes to... uh, sunny moore for cinema (skrillex remix). grammy goes to... skrillex. skrillex! [cheers and applause] but for every development in popular music, there's a reaction. [music] [hanif] when house of balloons came out, the weeknd was an artist who was dabbling in darker, more downbeat pop as a counter-reaction to... the feel-good pop of the era. and the counter question and answer was, isn't there more than one way to feel good? ♪ bring your love, baby, i can bring my shame ♪ ♪ bring the drugs, baby, i can bring my pain ♪ the weeknd, particularly, some of these songs are about brief bursts of feeling... ♪ do you love me, yeah? ...that are propelled by excess in some form. ♪ and i'mma keep on smoking 'til i can't hit another note ♪

[chris] what's interesting about darker acts like the weeknd in the first half of the '10s, it's almost as if they are foreshadowing the second half the '10s, um, before that sound is taken over. lana del rey is another good example. ♪ swingin' in the backyard, pull up in your fast car ♪ ♪ whistlin' my name lana del rey was this leonard cohen meets marilyn monroe, tragic, beautiful, ethereal figure. ♪ i say, you're the bestest ♪ lean in for a big kiss ♪ put his favorite perfume on ♪ go play your video game [amanda] video games was her first single, and with her, it's about all these extra-musical things. it's about the aesthetic. it's about the vibe. it's about the look. ♪ blue jeans, white shirt [amanda] and her particular vocal style, it feels like someone's sort of sneaking up behind you and, you know, telling you a secret. and i think a lot of the artists that came to work in that mode--

you know, lorde, billie eilish, even taylor swift sometimes-- um, owe a great debt to lana del rey. ♪ gonna love you 'til the end of time ♪ [jayson] lana del rey and the weeknd are artists whose music and aesthetic are related in some dark way. and it would just take the rest of the world a little while to catch up to where they were. [lana] i had a vision of making my life a work of art, and i was looking for people who also felt that way. [shutter clicks]

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[theme music] when you wanna listen to a song today, you don't have to buy a copy or even download it anymore. increasingly you stream it, and that has led to a profound shift in the industry that is disrupting how music is made, distributed, consumed, and how artists can make a living. [stephen] at the beginning of the decade, the music industry had functionally collapsed. piracy had destroyed it. it was possible to believe that in 10 years, the music industry might not exist at all. they were scrambling, they were panicking, and they had to do something different. [woman] get set to enjoy spotify. the highly acclaimed music streaming platform from europe is launching in the us. [sean] spotify was the first service i ever saw that competed not with everything that preceded it-- the itunes of the world and the rhapsodys of the world-- but it actually competed with piracy. [stephen] spotify's value proposition to the pirates was,

we're gonna make this easier for you. it's gonna stream out of the cloud, so you won't have to mess around with these files anymore. and you're getting access to the overwhelming majority of music since the beginning of the recorded music era for $5. it was an irresistible proposition. how do you characterize spotify? is it a musical application? is it, uh, social media? what is it? we think music is the most social thing there is, so it's probably a bit of both. the thing about digital music is it turns the music economy from a top down to a bottom up model, meaning it's the ordinary fans listening and sharing off of services like spotify and youtube, and as a result, dictating what's going to catch on with radio programmers and the industry. [benny] before, the label would pound you over the head with a song. now, not only does the label not choose the song, fans pluck songs out of obscurity. ♪ friday, friday [chris] so then you have the one-offs.

you have rebecca black's friday. and gotye releases this lovelorn ballad, somebody that i used to know. ♪ now you're just somebody that i used to know ♪ [chris] you have we are young by the group fun. ♪ tonight ♪ we are young and also, call me maybe , by carly rae jepsen. ♪ hey, i just met you ♪ and this is crazy ♪ but here's my number ♪ so call me maybe [jayson] we weren't fully in itunes or cd or into spotify yet, and youtube was still a massive disseminator of culture that was like a firehose just spraying. and that's how people sort of experienced gangnam style . ♪ oppa gangnam style [david] psy breaks youtube! the record-setting gangnam style music video is so popular, youtube's view counter literally can't keep up. [amanda] i don't know anyone in that moment

who was listening to gangnam style without watching the video. what is it about this video that just has taken over the world? have you, uh, tried the dance? [laughs] that was the experience. it was to watch psy do that really funny horsey dance. and then you try to do the horsey dance yourself. it goes like this, like you're riding a horse. [puja] gangnam style blew up globally in the same fashion that the macarena did in the '90s, and also paved the way for the k-pop movement. [chris] so in 2013, largely because of gangnam style, billboard started counting music that people were watching on youtube toward the hot 100. and it's changed who's on the top. that's right. the effect is instant. and if you look at this week's chart, you can see why we did this. [charlie] two months ago, most people hadn't heard of the harlem shake . now more than 250,000 versions of the dance tune have been posted online. so this is kind of the first time we have a really good tool,

where we can track just how much video play is fueling the success of a hit. ♪ i came in like a wrecking ball ♪ ♪ i never hit so hard in love [chris] miley cyrus's timing is excellent because 2013, the year she drops wrecking ball, is the same year that youtube now counts for the charts. ♪ wr-wr-wreck me [chris] that's an excellent pop record. but the reason it goes to number one is because of that music video, where she's riding a wrecking ball in the altogether. ♪ i came in like a wrecking ball ♪ [chris] one quirk of the number one run by wrecking ball was that a fan shoots a viral video three months later. ♪ all i wanted was to break your walls ♪ [chris] and there are so many views for his video that wrecking ball goes back to number one. so miley cyrus picked the right year to be a provocateur and to use video as the means to be that provocateur. [shutters clicking] [reporters shouting "lorde!"] [este] in the 2010s,

if you bought a mac, you had garageband. you could start making music that sounded good. and then you put the song on soundcloud or on youtube, and then it gets all this traction. ♪ i've never seen a diamond in the flesh ♪ [puja] when lorde dropped royals on soundcloud, it felt like this subversive jab that paralleled the mission of the song, which is that not everything belongs in this glossy package. ♪ but every song is like gold teeth, grey goose ♪ ♪ trippin' in the bathroom ♪ blood stains, ballgowns, trashin' the hotel room ♪ ♪ we don't care ♪ we're driving cadillacs in our dreams ♪ [finneas] such a well-written song, really interesting vocal delivery, super minimalistic production. i don't know what the label thought the first time they heard that song, but if i'd been the label, i would've been like... [laughs] correct! ♪ and we'll never be royals ♪ royals [chris] by the middle of the 2010s, because of this wholesale shift in technology,

you know, streaming services like spotify and soundcloud, there are only a few artists who can still sell physical albums. taylor swift is a good example. ♪ i stay up too late ♪ got nothin' in my brain [jason] with songs like shake it off , taylor swift is searching for pop success, but doing it on her own terms. she's clearly influenced by the rise of independent artists like lorde, who are finding success with different kinds of songs. and part of the reason that she becomes so successful is because she decides to move away from the specificity of genre, specifically country. ♪ 'cause the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate ♪ [este] seeing the reaction from people when she played shake it off, everyone just kind of really latched on to it. ♪ shake it off it was almost like a dancefloor anthem. and then the next one was blank space. ♪ so it's gonna be forever ♪ or it's gonna go down in flames ♪ the music was so great, and it was fun, and the lyrics had a point of view.

♪ got a long list of ex-lovers ♪ they'll tell you i'm insane i was looking at this whole fictionalized version of my life that the media has portrayed, and i was kind of like, i could write a song from her perspective. and it ended up being one of the funniest songs on the record. ♪ but i got a blank space, baby ♪ ♪ and i'll write your name then you have bad blood with all those amazing cameos. ♪ 'cause baby, now we got bad blood ♪ ♪ you know it used to be mad love ♪ i loved that record. taylor swift! [cheers and applause] [chris] taylor swift wins the album of the year prize at the grammys three times, and even as phenomenal as taylor swift sales are, they don't hold a candle to what adele pulled off. adele scored two 10 million-selling records in the 2010s. ♪ never mind, i'll find someone like you ♪ [puja] adele's someone like you was the love anthem of the decade. ♪ sometimes it lasts in love

[puja] and you can hear the heartache in her voice. you can hear it stretching. she kind of goes from being very whispery into this, like, vocal storm. ♪ we could've had it all [chris] led by songs like rolling in the deep. ♪ rolling in the deep and hello, her massive hit from 2015. ♪ hello [chris] adele's 21 and adele's 25 are both diamond-selling records. and in the age of streaming, that's something that doesn't happen anymore. ♪ hello from the other side (♪) this electric feels different... because it's powered by the most potent source of energy there is ... you. this is the lexus variety of electrification ... inspired by, created for and powered by you.

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[theme music] at midnight last night, beyoncé dropped a surprise visual album simply titled beyoncé, and nobody saw it coming. so you can call me a hater-- wait a minute! wait, i'm sorry. i think beyoncé just released an album on itunes. what!? oh my god! there's more than 14 videos! the queen is back. bow down. [hanif] the first time i felt really overwhelmed by an album just appearing was beyoncé's beyoncé album. i go to bed, and i wake up, and there's the album. and not only album, but there's an entire film built around this album? her team was nervous about her new idea, and she talked about it in a video she posted on her facebook page. [beyoncé] i told my team, i want to shoot a video for every song and put them all out at the same time.

everyone thought i was crazy, but we're actually doing it. ♪ we be all night ♪ love [matthew] only beyoncé could tour the world first and then put out new music. but what we really want to know is what else do you have up your sleeve, beyoncé? ♪ hold up, they don't love you like i love you ♪ when beyoncé's next album, lemonade, came out, i was on a beach vacation with three of my girlfriends, and we canceled our plans to sit in our hotel room and watch it in silence. [beyoncé] what am i gonna do now? what am i gonna do, gonna do, gonna do... it was a world-stopping event. it felt like the moon landing. ♪ i ain't thinkin' 'bout you ♪ i ain't sorry ♪ i ain't sorry [salamishah] lemonade, it's this beautiful tapestry of black life in the south. and it's a really profound journey of a person finding themself again and falling in love again. ♪ we built sandcastles [puja] lemonade was about beyoncé's personal life,

but it was also a protest, largely in response to police brutality. ♪ okay ladies, now let's get in formation ♪ [salamishah] at the super bowl, she was paying tribute to the black panther activists of the 1960s and '70s. ♪ i see it, i want it ♪ i stunt, yellow-bone it [salamishah] and it was seen as such a galvanizing moment for people around the country in terms of, you know, organizing against racial injustice. -hands up! -don't shoot! -hands up! -don't shoot! the whole damn system is filthy as hell! [salamishah] when black lives matter becomes the dominant social movement of our time in 2013, you have a groundswell of activists and artists starting to find their voice. ♪ i'm weary of the ways of the world ♪ [salamishah] we have beyoncé's younger sister, solange, with weary. d'angelo releases black messiah. ♪ all we wanted was a chance to talk ♪ and you have a figure like frank ocean.

♪ we'll let you guys prophesy [jason] frank ocean's blond in 2016. it's a really interior album. ♪ we'll let you guys prophesy ♪ we gon' see the future first but it also has some very powerful political moments on there, and immediately i think of the opening track nikes , specifically referring to trayvon martin. ♪ rip trayvon ♪ that [bleep] look just like me ♪ [renée] music is always the soundtrack of movements. for me, few artists did that as well as kendrick lamar. ♪ king kunta, everybody wanna cut the legs off him ♪ ♪ kunta, black man takin' no losses ♪ [renée] he wins the pulitzer prize. that was the impact he had. it wasn't just music. it was reporting. [shouting] ♪ we gon' be alright sing it! ♪ we gon' be alright sing it! ♪ we gon' be alright when i say these lines, i'm not speaking to the community. i'm not speaking of the com-- i am the community. [crowd] ♪ we gon' be alright

♪ we gon' be alright [renée] there was a sense of uplift. with kendrick's song alright, people are singing it in the street, and it was something at that moment that, as a black person in america, i needed to hear, because i was starting to lose hope. ♪ can you hear me, do you feel me? ♪ ♪ we're gon' be alright [salamishah] the video itself is ambiguous, because there's a potential for freedom, and yet there's always this threat that that not only won't happen, but that black life can be snatched away at any moment. [gunshot] ♪ this is america ♪ don't catch you slippin' now [salamishah] with kendrick lamar's we gon' be alright, we still are in this hopeful obama-era black lives matter movement. and by the time you get to childish gambino, we have a different presidency. and to a lot of people, it seems like we were actually moving backward. ♪ yeah, this is america (woo, woo) ♪ ♪ guns in my area (my area) ♪ ♪ i got the strap (ay) ♪ ♪ i gotta carry 'em [salamishah] and so you have this real defiance in him. we see him saying that this really is america,

and he's peeling back the layers and exposing us to all of the forms of violence that black people are vulnerable to every day. [renée] this is america was talking about the moment, but also the history of this country. a lot of the poses he's making go back to the minstrel era. he's looking at the portrayal of blackness and the impact of racism over the last century. [music] [renée] the country is just... [officer on bullhorn] disperse immediately! ...kind of going off the rails. and this is america was talking about how all those things still represent this country. ♪ enjoy $0 delivery on all your favorites through may 30th with ihop 'n go. ♪ download the app and earn free food with every order.

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[theme music] ladies and gentlemen, mumford & sons, the avett brothers, and special guest, bob dylan. [cheers and applause] [intro to the cave ] ♪ it's empty in the valley of your heart ♪ mumford & sons broke largely through a performance on the 2011 grammy awards. ♪ 'cause i need freedom now

♪ and i need to know how and suddenly, their album, sigh no more, goes flying up the charts. and for a brief period, that sound kind of spread around. you had hits by the lumineers. ♪ i belong with you ♪ you belong with me ♪ you're my sweetheart [amanda] in the face of so much commercial pop music and edm, americana kind of took hold of the cultural imagination. mason jars and candlelight and fireflies. ♪ oh, home [amanda] artists like edward sharpe, you know, riding freight trains. ♪ home is whenever i'm with you ♪ you even had certain pop and edm artists who were trying to get on board with the sort of hoedown bandwagon. ♪ swing your partner round and round ♪ [chris] like timber by pitbull. ♪ it's goin' down, i'm yellin' timber ♪ or the song wake me up... ♪ wake me up when it's all over ♪ [chris] ...by the dj avicii. these records kind of sound like traditionalist pop and rock

crossed with electronic music, because mumford & sons has suddenly broken on the charts, and...i don't know. it's the moment when that's the sound of what rock is. ♪ pain, you made me a, you made me a believer ♪ [stephen] you had guys like imagine dragons. i would call them kind of pseudo-rock. twenty one pilots. maroon 5. ♪ i've got the moves like jagger ♪ [stephen] who were dressing up like rockers, but they were making tracks that sounded much closer to the production of pop. [music] country, for all intents and purposes, was a lot of people's rock in the decade. i mean, picture a guy like eric church, who has a hit with a song called springsteen. ♪ when you think about me ♪ do you think about 17? [steven] in the 2010s, genre differences seem to become negligible to the point of nonexistent. you had rappers that made rock songs. and you had country singers who sounded like rappers. ♪ you better mind your business, man, watch your mouth ♪ ♪ before i have to knock that loud mouth out ♪

♪ i'm tired of talkin', man, y'all ain't listenin' ♪ ♪ them old dirt roads is what y'all missin' ♪ ♪ yeah, i'm chilling on a dirt road ♪ [nate] dirt road anthem is a good example of bro country, which is a subgenre of music that is defined by the presence of a bro. uh, that could be sam hunt. [sam] i knew she'd find a way to get over me. but i never thought... ♪ she would get down with somebody i know ♪ that could be thomas rhett. ♪ do you hear that? (hear that?) ♪ ♪ it's where i'm at (it's where i'm at) ♪ ♪ it's the sound of teardrops fallin' down ♪ that could be florida georgia line. ♪ baby, you're a song ♪ you make me wanna roll my windows down ♪ ♪ and cruise country music had become so aggressively commercial that a lot of casual listeners felt like i can't find a way into this anymore. this doesn't feel true to me. so we saw a return to a sort of songwriting that really was, you know, what they say about country music-- three chords and the truth.

♪ you get discouraged, dontcha girl? ♪ [amanda] acts like brandi carlile. ♪ it's your brother's world and folks like sturgill simpson. ♪ i'm somewhere lookin' for the end of that long white line ♪ and singers like chris stapleton sort of offering this different way to do it. it was a little bit rougher around the edges. ♪ you're as smooth ♪ as tennessee whiskey it was soul baring. it was a little raw. ♪ 'cause mama's hooked on mary kay ♪ ♪ brother's hooked on mary jane ♪ ♪ and daddy's hooked on mary two doors down ♪ [hanif] kacey musgrave's an artist who's seen as traditionally country, but there's an air of playfulness. ♪ make lots of noise (hey!) ♪ ♪ kiss lots of boys (yup!) ♪ ♪ or kiss lots of girls ♪ if that's something you're into ♪ [amanda] kacey musgraves was a break within country music in that she was a pothead. ♪ roll up a joint [amanda] and she was pro-queer rights.

♪ follow your arrow wherever it goes ♪ she felt like this younger, funnier voice in a genre that had been pretty self-serious, i think, for a long time, and also not particularly welcoming to, to sort of nontraditional ways of living. ♪ so i bet you think you're john wayne ♪ ♪ showing up and shooting down everybody ♪ [hanif] a song like high horse just really resonates for me, because it kinds of bends towards disco, or even bends a little bit towards funk in the spirit of expansiveness, of dreaming beyond what the genre says you are. ♪ you and your high horse ♪ mm [kacey] i want to reach beyond country music and not leave country music behind. i wanna take it with me. i wanna, i wanna take my version of it to people who normally would never even consider listening to it.

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where we're going retro. ♪ this hit, that ice cold ♪ michelle pfeiffer, that white gold ♪ [chris] nostalgia is something that we all scurry back toward when we kind of don't know what's next. ♪ livin' it up in the city [nate] uptown funk mines the sound of funk and soul groups from the '60s, '70s, and '80s. ♪ too hot (hot damn!) ♪ [nate] but it also takes some of the concepts of 2010s music, like the edm drop, but in this way that's more inspired by james brown than it is by calvin harris. ♪ 'cause uptown funk gonna give it to ya ♪ ♪ saturday night and we in the spot ♪ ♪ don't believe me? just watch! aaow! ♪ [steven] by the mid 2010s, the influence of, like, mainstream pop really tamed edm. ♪ what do you mean? [jason] what do you mean? is what you'd call tropical house, which is basically genteel, caribbean-light dance music,

with, like, edm elements, influenced by reggaeton and dancehall. and so tropical house became huge in the 2010s. ♪ couldn't find you anywhere ♪ when you broke down, i didn't leave ya ♪ [hanif] where are u now? was written as a traditional justin bieber ballad. and skrillex and diplo bring it into, you know, the kind of electronic music, um, era, just going in a totally different direction. i was like, diplo, skrillex? uh, i don't really know if that's, like, where i want to go. and they, they did it. i was like, oh my gosh, this is blowing my mind. ♪ i need you the most [finneas] skrillex added tropical house textures and energy to that record that it needed to really evolve. and that was so cool, to watch somebody take all these skills that they had honed and, like, translate them into this totally different, you know, genre. [music] all of a sudden, this tropical house paradigm starts to show up in other artists,

like the chainsmokers in their song closer. ♪ we ain't ever getting older [nate] it's got this dembow rhythm, which shows up in a lot of these tracks. duh, duh, duh-duh, duh, duh-duh, duh, duh-duh, duh. ♪ i'm in love with the shape of you ♪ [nate] it sends ed sheeran's shape of you to the top of the charts, but the original djs and singers behind reggaeton and dancehall, they're like, wait, what about us? we just got left in the dust. so we would do well to think about, okay, where are these artists getting these sounds from? and try to connect to a deeper musical history. ♪ despacito ♪ quiero respirar tu cuello despacito ♪ [chris] despacito is this hybridized latin pop hit that blends together the traditional latin pop balladry of luis fonsi. ♪ quiero ver bailar tu pelo quiero ser tu ritmo ♪ ♪ que le enseñes a mi boca with the reggaeton of daddy yankee.

♪ yo sé que estás pensándolo ♪ llevo tiempo intentándolo [puja] with despacito, we really started acknowledging that there's a gigantic audience of people who make this music and listen to this music. ♪ krippy, krippy, krippy, krippy, krippy ♪ ♪ también tenemos kush, kush, kush ♪ [puja] that's when you saw the rise of bad bunny and j balvin, and a lot of latin and caribbean music got a real foothold in mainstream pop. ♪ work, work, work, work, work, work ♪ ♪ he said me haffi ♪ work, work, work, work, work, work ♪ [puja] rihanna is born and bred in this music. it is something that is second nature to her. and i think you can hear it in work. i mean, it is swaggy as hell. ♪ you took my heart on my sleeve for decoration ♪ ♪ you mistaken my love i brought for you for foundation ♪ at a time when tropical house was dominating the airwaves, rihanna kind of slid in and was like, no, i'm gonna bring an authentic version of this sound to the top of the charts. ♪ okay, you need to get done, done, done ♪ ♪ done at work, come over [chris] at the beginning of the 2010s,

drake was really jonesing for a hot 100 number one hit. and he didn't have one from 2010 all the way to 2015. only when he guested on records by rihanna could he get to number one. ♪ okay, away we go ♪ only thing we have on is the radio ♪ [chris] by the middle of the decade, you start to see a pivot towards streaming. and streaming from drake was where all of that changed. you have a number one album. you have 20 songs in the, in the billboard, uh, hot 100s, hot 100. that's unbelievable. it's been a slow week. [laughter] ♪ you used to call me on my cell phone ♪ [stephen] hotline bling was brilliant. it could be the signature song of the 2010s. it's viral. it's silly. and it's got everything you want to make it succeed on every platform simultaneously. ♪ started wearing less and going out more ♪ [steven] you watch a video like hotline bling, and it seems like that was specifically engineered to create memes. and it worked. [music]

there is a sense with him sometimes that he learned to game the system. ♪ i know when that hotline bling ♪ in the streaming era, a song has to play for a certain amount of seconds to make any money on spotify. so with artists like drake, you started hearing all these songs with shorter intros. we're getting to the chorus really quickly, 'cause you're suddenly having to consider keeping people on a song for long enough for it to count. ♪ baby ♪ i like you so so whether it's one dance or god's plan ... ♪ i wish, and i wish, and i wish, and i wish, and i wish ♪ ...drake gives you a little trailer for the song at the very beginning. so artists are really pulling out all the stops in terms of the formal structure of a song in order to keep listeners paying attention, keep them engaged. [daniel] as much as i'm excited about changing how people listen to music, the secret dream i have is to be able to impact

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[theme music] we begin with breaking news. musician, actor, and artist david bowie has died. bowie's career spanned decades, combining his theatrical mix of rock, art, sensibility, and androgyny. 2016, for me, is one of the worst years ever. breaking news about the death of an american music icon.

prince, the innovative one-of-a-kind artist who's given us so much great music over the decades, has been found dead. nothing has gone right in the world since prince died. that is my theory, and i'm sticking to it. [van] people have talked about a miracle. i'm hearing about a nightmare. [finneas] if there's any reason why it got dark, it was like, you know, turn on any screen. it was like the cultural awareness of everything's not going great. ♪ i only call you when it's ♪ half past five ♪ the only time that i'll be by your side ♪ [jayson] by 2016, with a song like the hills, the weeknd is a huge pop star, and he hasn't changed anything. we've just caught up to his despairing vision of... i mean, essentially all of life. ♪ mask on, ye, [bleep] it ♪ mask off (mask) ♪ big foreigns [jayson] and then you got artists like future who embody the idea of anhedonic pleasure-seeking.

you try to have fun, but nothing feels good. that becomes a really default pose, um, in pop. ♪ who put this shit together? ♪ i'm the glue (someone said) ♪ ♪ shorty facetimed me out the blue ♪ [jayson] and then there's travis scott with sicko mode. and the most anthemic line was drake boasting that he fell asleep on a 13-hour flight with a xanax. ♪ i did half a xan, 13 hours 'til i land ♪ ♪ had me out like a light that's the state of hip-hop-- all hangover, no party. ♪ my ap goin' psycho ♪ lil' mama bad like michael [chris] so at a moment when the men in hip-hop, such as post malone, are going dark and downbeat... ♪ run away, but we're running in circles ♪ ...along comes this traditional dropping bars, boom-bap kind of hip-hop record. and it's from a woman, and it's the best rap record of the year. ♪ oh, i'm a boss you a worker, bitch ♪ ♪ i make bloody moves ♪ now she says she gon' do what to who? ♪ ♪ let's find out and see, cardi b ♪

[renée] cardi b's making it all work. it's the in-your-faceness of it all. and i appreciate artists who don't feel the need to conform. who says that, again, this is the way you have to look or behave or speak? bodak yellow was the first number one single from a female rapper since 1998. [cheers and applause] [trills] [hanif] bodak yellow was everywhere. and cardi b had such an expansive vision about what the next generation of rap could look like. i heard that, and i was like-- [trills] [hanif] she seemed so excited to be where she was and wanted to really break down these barriers that had plagued the rap industry around women rappers. ♪ i just took a dna test ♪ ♪ turns out i'm 100% that bitch ♪ lizzo is like a full-blown comedian, but can also sing better than you and play the flute. [music] bitch! probably the one woman who's keeping up

the entire decade is nicki minaj. ♪ this one is for the boys with the booming system ♪ ♪ top down, ac with the cooler system ♪ ♪ when he come up in the club, he be blazin' up ♪ [jason] nicki minaj even went beyond a lot of the men who might be considered her competitors. she's amazing because she can rap and she can also do pop. ♪ i'm the queen of rap ♪ young ariana run pop ♪ these friends keep talkin' way too much ♪ [amanda] ariana grande is small in stature, big in ponytail, big in sound. and i think it took people by surprise. ♪ oh, oh [ariana] i wanna share my personal stories because i feel like my fans and the people who are watching me will be able to take more away from that than they would from me just like, playing it safe all the time. fans started to expect real honesty in songs as social media became more prevalent because you have access to artists that you never had before. ♪ thought i'd end up with sean ♪ but he wasn't a match [amanda] and thank u, next busted that wide open in terms of confessions. ♪ even almost got married ♪ and for pete, i'm so thankful ♪

today, fans get so much more from an artist. you know, it's like they see their whole life. -look at my meal. -[man] what did you get? [laughs] vegan. [benny] with billie, she was showing everyone every part of her. she was the anti-pop star pop star. ♪ i'm the bad guy ♪ duh with billie eilish, you feel as if she's whispering right in your ear, and that intimacy in the age when social media overtook everything, that tangibility of the voice is kind of part of the point. ♪ you really know how to make me cry ♪ ♪ when you give me those ocean eyes ♪ ♪ i'm scared [finneas] billie's voice is my favorite voice. every time billie says anything in a song, i believe it. and that's, to me, the mark of, like, a really, like, genius vocalist. ♪ i could lie, say i like it like that ♪ ♪ like it like that

[finneas] to me, the magic of billie was her ability to communicate herself. there was just this pathway of communication that felt deservedly authentic. i don't wanna be in the pop world or the hip-hop world or the r&b world or whatever [bleep] think. you know, i want it to be like, what kind of music you listen to? billie eilish kind of music. like billie eilish, i think of lil nas x as somebody who reflects that kind of post-genre sensibility of the 2010s. ♪ yeah, i'm gonna take my horse to the old town road ♪ ♪ i'm gonna ride 'til i can't no more ♪ [jason] his debut hit, old town road, is at the nexus of country and hip-hop to the extent that you can't even tell which it is. ♪ i got the horses in the back ♪ horse tack is attached ♪ hat is matte black ♪ got the boots that's black to match ♪ [steven] i came up in a world where people defined themselves in terms of the music that they listened to. you know, you'd be a punk. you'd be a metal head. you'd be a rap fan, whatever the case may be.

♪ you can't tell me nothin' [steven] once streaming platforms came into play, people really started ignoring the boundaries that used to exist between genres. [benny] social media like tiktok can really propel artists. and it's like billie eilish and lil nas x are the ultimate version of, like, what the new generation of pop stars are. now it doesn't matter what the record labels think. these artists are taking it in their own hands. ♪ can't nobody tell me nothin' in the 2010s, the medium became the message. streaming and social media gave fans a more active role in hit-making than they'd ever had before. ♪ yeah, i'm gonna take my horse to the old town road ♪ ♪ i'm gonna ride 'til i can't no more ♪ [chris] people still want to share their favorite music with others, and they wanna be a part of something. and the means by which we can be a part of something are just much, much bigger and much more available to us than they ever have been before. ♪ got no stress, i've been through all that ♪

♪ i'm like a marlboro man, so i kick on back ♪ ♪ wish i could roll on back to that old town road ♪ ♪ i wanna ride 'til i can't no more ♪ ♪ yeah, i'm gonna take my horse to the old town road ♪ ♪ i'm gonna ride 'til i can't no more ♪ ♪ i'm gonna take my horse to the old town road ♪ ♪ i'm gonna ride 'til i can't no more ♪ [outro]