I wonder this a lot. I think some of the big ones will be like Kanye West (sadly), Bruno Mars, Post Malone, Taylor Swift (maybe?), etc. These aren’t my personal preference but just my thoughts on who will be remembered and idolized.

Yes, I think some of them will be remembered. Who? I am less sure of that.

Possibly Eminem? He's kind of a legend already though.. Damn future generations don't have a lot of music legacy to look forward to lol

Hard to say, probably depends on how long they stay relevant. Swift is an amazing song writer, still very young and still making hits. She has a shot.

Yeah it's hard not to love Taylor isn't it..

Her music is pretty basic

Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West (maybe), Tyler the Creator, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, etc. are all iconic, great artists that seem to have that status right now. But I think with the way music is consumed and just how many scenes there are, it’s hard to say definitively without looking back. I could see people like Weyes Blood, Black Midi, or King Gizzard getting that status but I can’t say for certain.

Edit: literally why the fuck did I get downvoted for this LMAO

My daughter has been into her since she was a kid so I kinda ignored her. Then around the time of the SNL Swiftamine spot I realized that she does know her stuff.

I'm just imagining this question being asked about artists in the 70s. Because at the time many were dismissed - and quite a few are still going strong... 🤣

I think artists like King Gizzard, black midi, BCNR and the likes will be looked back at the way we look back at Zeppelin, King Crimson and Pink Floyd.

I hope not. But ever since the sickening Telecommunications Act of 1996 opened the door to all these mega corporate consolidations which have destroyed all forms of media, including radio & the record industry, there has been a ridiculous attempt to paint these ridiculous autotuned Di$ney puppets as being "every bit as good" as Elvis, The Beatles, the Stones, etc.

Crappy disposable music has always existed, of course. The difference is, they had their one or two hits and then faded away in two years or less. Post 1996, it's the crappy disposable acts that are propped up by the industry, while actual talented musicians are limited to what ever self distribution they can do over the internet, and live performances, which obviously took a big hit in recent years, due to COVID.

Real music is timeless, of course. You can put on an Elvis record from 1956 or a Beatles record from 1966 and it will still sound as good today, where you can dig up some crappy disposable one hit wonders from that era and it's going to sound dated & cheesy and you will probably ask yourself "who the Hell signed these guys to a record label". God help us all - assuming human civilization still exists 50 years from now - if anybody listens back to the music of this present era and thinks that Taylor Swift or Florida Georgia Line are "timeless".

I think that the internet has allowed for an increased globalization and saturation of music that is going to make it much harder to achieve that kind of lasting power. All of the various technological advances we have now mean that anyone can make music.

Additionally, most of the artists that get named as idolized from 50+ years ago tend to be American or British (at least in Western society). With our increased globalization, k-pop bands can now be the new Beatles for Western society (in terms of fan phenomena) in a way that they couldn't 50+ years ago. When you add in the fact that what was able to become mainstream 50+ years ago was much more limited for a whole host of reasons (access, sexism, racism, etc.), it was definitely easier to become Elvis Presley than it is to become [insert artist name here] today.

I also think that the increased number of genres now means people's taste in music is much more individualized. There wasn't "math rock" or "dream pop" or any of the other niche genres in the same way. I see a lot of people mentioning King Gizzard in the comments and while I think they're a talented band, I think they're too niche to the point where a lot of people haven't heard of them so they likely won't achieve that mainstream lasting power.

None of this is to say that there aren't artists right now making awesome music--it's that there are so many amazing artists making music now that you can't have a few standouts like you used to.

Dubious.

Their musical genius aside, Presley and the Beatles captured fundamental changes in modern society. They were first movers in brand new categories.

Presley brought traditional black music (gospel, blues and rock and roll) to white teenagers, a seismic shift.

The rise of the Beatles coincided literally to the very Christmas when transistor radios were first released in the United States, a profound technological change. Teens no longer had to stay home to listen to music. Portable delivery of music has undergone several improvements over the past 50 years (the Walkman, mpg3, IP streaming) but nothing as dramatic as when that battery powered transistor radio first hit the market.

When you think about musicians or groups of the last 20 years, which of them are first movers in entirely new society level categories?

There are artists with tens of millions of listeners who I think will be relatively unknown in 50 years. Unless they have a song with like over a billion streams, they won't be too well known.
Look at a top billboard chart from 50 years ago, 1973 #12 is Clint Holmes. He has 7k monthly listeners now.
Look at the billboard chart for this year. #12 is Chris Brown.
Clint Holmes was roughly the Chris Brown of his day, but now he's a nobody.
I think the only people who will still be widely known are those who made a change to the music landscape, and those who were part of the wave they made.
T-Pain and Kanye with auto tune for example.
But idk, cause a lot of old artists are known for making pop hit after pop hit, so who can say.

Define ‘current artists’. There are some acts still making music that will definitely be known as legends, so are we talking about acts that began in the last 10, 20, 30 years?

The Beatles and Elvis are very different, but their cultural impact will likely never be met or exceeded by another act in our lifetime. So if that is the criteria, probably not.

Think about classical music. We all know about Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. They broke molds and people after emulated/were influenced by them. And while there are plenty of classical composers since then, only those who really study the genre will probably know their names by heart.

So it'll probably be with the future of pop/rock music. Plenty of amazing artists then and now. But the majority of future generations will only know the names of the influential giants. The rest will have to dig deeper.

Yeah I agree.

I agree. There were artists from 10-15 years ago who were massive and then literally faded into obscurity in no time. Just doesn't really feel there are many outstanding musical talents these days to me.

Yeah, and the Internet basically killed the charts off. It used to be a huge deal to get a number one hit when people had to go out and spend their hard earned cash, now it just goes on how many free streams you get...