What music would a 17-year-old girl be into?

Procrastinista said:

A character in my story is 17 years old. She's smart, aggressive, passionate, over-controlling, spunky, and athletic. She's carrying out a revengeful plan, but is trying to come across as an okay person, although not totally sweet, because she hangs with a group of teenagers who've stolen stuff and done other things against the law.

Any suggestions for what music she might listen to? If my criteria is way too specific, I'll settle for what 17-year-old teenagers listen to (and I'll check it out on iTunes and decide).

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Well...and think about whether to date the book by picking what a 17 year old today would be listening to. Will it still be that in 6-months? A year? 2 years?

There are pros and cons to picking something too *now* to the time you are working on the book. Some advise not picking anything too *now* if it can be helped.

~suki

Umm they listen to everything. Any genre you can think of has its teenage fans. So pick a genre and just make it hers. Some like basic pop or rock; some like alt. rock; some like metal (which has a dozen sub-genres). Hip hop has been popular for a long time, but still others like fusion groups that sort of leap all over the place and do a little of this, a little of that. In Europe electronica is still fairly popular with all its subgenres: techno, trance, House, Deep House, etc.

And here's a suggestion: make a profile on last.fm and look around. Check out what the kids are listening to, but like another AWer pointed out, what's hot today is cold tomorrow.

Though I still think in an eclectic music world, you're apt to find any kind of music is okay. When one of my daughters was 17 she liked punk and country. Go figure.

Some teens like country. Some only listen to 70s music. Some have music-ADD and seem incapable of listening to a song all the way through...

Teens are not a homogeneous group. They are individuals, like any other age group. But you knew that.

Anything will work. Literally, anything. I can't think of any genre that would be unrealistic. When I was seventeen I even listened to movie soundtracks.

FWIW, the people I knew who fit your characters' description listened to rap/pop more than anything. Some "safe" choices there might be Jay-Z, Usher, Lil Wayne, Britney Spears, and P!nk. But I'm with the others--I wouldn't name specific artists if you can help it, just because things change so quickly. Like, a couple years ago I might've said Justin Timberlake, but since then he's dropped out of the music industry.

and here's where the disparity hits - I'm 23 now, but when I was in my late teens, the type of kids you're talking about at my school were listening to punk, not rap.

I agree that it's difficult to put something too "now" into the book when that may not be "now" later on. If it works with the character, you could have her be into older music. I'm 18, and a lot of the people I know are into music of all genres and eras. My best friend, for instance, loves 80s rock. My other best friend likes Johnny Cash and the Beatles and Kutless and a whole lot of things that don't seem like they make sense together but it doesn't matter.

How imperative is it that the reader know what music the character likes? I wouldn't just say, "She put on some rock music" because it's too generic, and specifying at least what band she's listening to will help the reader get into the story. But if it's not essential information, I wouldn't go into too deep of detail. Whenever I see an author trying to relate to me through very detailed music choice, I roll my eyes and toss the book away. I'd rather see the music used to define the character, not to endear me to the them.

What do adults listen to? Surely, they listen to anything and everything, depending on their tastes?

Well, it's the same for teens.

It's pretty much been said, but all teens listen to different music, and what's "in" today is "out" tomorrow. It's always changing. The type of music your character likes will be specific to that individual, and only you know the answer. If I have a character who likes a specific band/rapper/singer, then I usually create a fictional musician. That way it doesn't date the story nor does it turn off any readers who may hate the artist I've mentioned.

My little sister is 17 and her music tastes vary pretty widely. She likes The Beatles and The Doors, but that's more a nostalgia thing for both of us. She also listens to bands like Mayday Parade, Go Radio, Darren Criss (Kurt's boyfriend on glee), Marianas Trench, All Time Low, and Cobra Starship. I think those are the kinds of things that the character you're describing might be into. They're a variety of alt/pop punk which kind of bridges the gap between hardcore and a little more tame.

Weird Al!

Procrastinista said:

True, but that's why I listed some attributes of the character. In my mind, this character would listen to edgier music, which could go in a lot of directions, but maybe darker music, or more metal, more angry, or more alternative. But she's also trying to come across a notch more innocent, so she might back off from the extremes.

But perhaps your point is that even within a subgroup of teenagers who tend to get in trouble, their music tastes would vary wildly. I'm not sure if that's true. Yes, there would be exceptions, but would there be similar tastes for many, if not most?

I didn't make it clear, but I was hoping for suggestions of specific artists. If I get some suggestions, I can listen to the music and pick out an artist I feel reflects the character. Thanks to those of you who already suggested bands/groups/singers already. I'll pick an artist who has been performing for a while, in hopes they'll continue for some time.

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Would she be into something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osTu38yuuHo

My daughter is 16, and honestly listens to most everything, I think at that age there is so much discovery going on. it's not uncommon to find her listening to rap and country within a 5 min span

Nightwish? Epica? (old nightwish was euro metal opera <3) darkwave? EBM (electro body music)?

My sister's 18. She's athletic (volleyball varsity team), smart (tested into the Gifted program), controlling as anything, and a little bit of a punk (her hair is candy apple red right now, naturally blond though) with friends do dumb things like steal traffic cones and the likes.

Her iTunes top artists include:

Alkaline Trio, Lacuna Coil, Saves the Day, Story of a Year, Demi Lovato, Boxcar Racer, Blink 182, Never Shout Never, Senses Fail, Band of Horses, The Decemberists, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, the soundtrack to Pokemon: the First Movie, Eminem, Jonathan Coulton, Voltaire, Thursday, Tegan and Sara, Taylor Swift, Kid Cudi, 3OH!3, Owl City, Reliant K, Mike Posner, Atreyu, Charlane Kaye (esp. when feat. Darren Criss), Sean Kingston, Blue October.

She likes a lot of artists from Projekt: http://www.projekt.com/projekt/lobby.asp Also, Vagrant Records: http://www.vagrant.com/ She's gotten sampler CDs from them (Projekt: Gothic and Another Year on the Streets being two of her favorites) so she likes them both a lot.

But if you ask another athletic, intelligent girl around her age, you're likely to get an entirely different list.

She picks up a lot of music from One Tree Hill, too.

Always a good idea to check out new, cool bands on the English TV show 'Skins'.

Okay, I'm 17, and I think I'd fit most of your criteria (lol >.>).

Like the people above me said, I can't say that my tastes are the same as other girls who fit your description, but here are some artists on MY iPod:
Linkin Park, Eminem, Nightwish, Muse, My Chemical Romance, Epica, Evanescence, Within Temptation, and so on.

If you're looking for something edgy/dark, Linkin Park, Eminem, Evanescence, and My Chemical Romance would probably fit along those lines. These artists are also very popular among my friends.

I'm 23 now, but when I was 17, my music list must have looked a jumbled up, confused mess. I went from Eminem, to Britney, to Dixie Chicks, to Bif Naked, I listened to anything. I was the kind of music listener that just hopped from one genre to the next, which most teens are.

I'm wary of name-dropping in novels because I always find it a poor substitue for characterization. Also, it dates your novel. It doesn't necessarily need saying in order to identify who your character is.

However, I think you may want to check out Taylor Momsen's band- The Pretty Reckless, I think they'd match.

Name-dropping will date your story and it's an annoying way to add characterization. Unless it's needed in a School of Rock/Bandslam/Almost Famous sort of way, I'd avoid name-dropping like the plague. One minute Bieber is famous and tomorrow he's Aaron Carter.

But as a seventeen-year-old, I'll say that it depends on what type of character you're building. People don't listen to one type of music. That's like only reading one genre. You can have a favorite genre, although real people usually have more than one genre that they favor.

She could be into Baroque music or Renaissance or Classical even. A Beethoven freak? Blues? Jazz? Mozart? Bessie Smith?

I've met 17 year olds of both sexes who play harpsichord or viola da gamba, violin, guitar.

A seventeen year old girl is into whatever music takes her fancy and if she's smart and aggressive, no one's going to tell her that something she likes is uncool and get away with it.

Nor should they!

Justin Bieber.... (it had to be said).


Most people who are seventeen seem to be branching off into what college kids listen to. Which is pop/dance music. If you listen to the radio (like I do.. satelite though) most of the music is what teens listen to. Adele I think her name is . Ummm Lupe Fiasco.... P!nk... The Black Eyed Peas, JTX, Ummm (again), NKOTBSB (new kids on the backstreet boys), Ummm (again again)Runner Runner, Ke$ha, Bruno Mars, Ummm.... just about anything really.

Here http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100#/charts/hot-100

/Thread

You can't really presume what genre a teenager would like based on a set of personality traits. What a person likes musically is influenced by far more than their personality. Your character will almost certainly enjoy at least some of the music their parents listen to regularly, music enjoyed by older siblings and/or the "cool" aunty and uncle, old stuff they listened to during weekend visits to Grandma's that get them a little nostalgic after she died. Music listened to by their social group, whoever that may be. Music they have access to.

Speaking on behalf of my once teenaged rebellious troubled outcast other half, he liked;

80s and 90s rock, but not the really heavy screamy stuff. Unless the drumming was really good or the bass line cool in which case he enjoyed it despite the screamy voices. Or sometimes the screamy voices would work in the context of the song. And his dad's collection of music including the Pixies, David Byrne, Brian Eno, Talking Heads, Foetus. And classical music. And he loved movie soundtracks to movies he enjoyed, regardless of the genre of the song, including the cinematic music made just to back scenes in the film. And 80s montage music. And 80s pop in general, but not the songs that were all empowerment and shit. And Queen because seriously, who doesn't like Queen? And proper 70s punk because it was the only stuff he could convinvingly sing to after his previously angelic boyish singing voice cracked. And he loved, LOVED, Screaming Jay Hawkins. And Big Mama Thornton. And the bleepy, boopy soundtracks to the Amiga games he played. Especially the Lemmings theme. He still puts that on now, in fact.

His tastes haven't changed really, but they have widened. No one in his family ever really listened to pop music or watched shows like Top of the Pops or had MTV type channels on their TV. It was mostly radio 2. So he'd never heard a lot of the more everyday bands that I loved like Eels, Skunk Anansi, Babylon Zoo, etc. When he heard them through me, he greatly enjoyed them.

He can't stand Oasis. He can't quite articulate why.

One thing that has changed; kids now can access even more obscure and unusual music through youtube etc. My 16 year old cousin has an ipod stocked with, in addition to an eclectic range of music, the nomnomnom song, badgermushroomsnake, Tim Minchin's pope son, You are a Pirate, Nyancat...

Why not make up your own band? Write the songs, fans, ect

My thought isn't so much that it would date your novel as much as it will make your character 1 dimensional. Show some depth that she/he likes what they like, not what they're told to like