You only have to glance at last weekend’s Glastonbury lineup to see how many acts from our youth are making their big comeback. Avril Lavigne, Bombay Bicycle Club, Bloc Party, Sugababes, Gossip and The Vaccines are all artists I would associate with my younger years. Meanwhile, Green Day performed at Wembley last week, celebrating 30 years of Dookie and 20 (yes, TWENTY) years of American Idiot. Netflix even dropped a Nickelback documentary exploring the band’s experience as the butt of the joke for the last two decades.
So, what is happening with us millennials?
I think there are a few factors at play here.
We can choose
This is the first time in our lives that we (millennials) have had both the money and the means to attend festivals and gigs for those bands we’ve always wanted to see. My own example of this would be buying tickets to Interpol’s 20th Anniversary tour of Antics, having missed seeing them in my home city in 2007 when their gig clashed with Kings of Leon. I can finally see Banks et al in the flesh, something my 16-year-old self would have killed for.
The power of nostalgia
None of us is immune to the warm, fuzzy feeling of nostalgia. We all look back with rose-tinted spectacles, and music plays a huge part in this.
This is the first time in a millennial’s lifecycle that our past is far enough away to be deemed nostalgic.
I am particularly fascinated by the journey we’ve been on with an act like Avril, whom we idolised in the 2000s and ridiculed with a death hoax in the 2010s. She entered the limelight at just 17 with her debut album, Let Go. By the time she released Girlfriend in 2007, many of us had moved on from our pop-punk era in favour of a more grown-up aesthetic, making this ultra-catchy anthem a bit, well… cringe.
But now, we embrace the cringe of our younger selves. We share photos of how we used to dress as teens and still remember all the lyrics to our favourite songs. While I’ve always been a massive hipster, I still remember singing along to Complicated fondly, and I’d be lying if I said I never wore a studded belt or fingerless gloves.
And now, many millennials are becoming parents themselves, and being a bit cringe is integral to being a parent. We’re sharing our youth with our kids, baggy jeans and all.
Green Day, for example, fell out of favour twice, gaining nostalgia points with both Millenials and young Gen-Xers. The band’s initial rise to fame took place over the 90s and early 00s. Their popularity was actually on the decline upon the release of the now-smash hit American Idiot, an angry tirade against Bush’s presidency and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Green Day then faded into obscurity again in the early 2010s when, like Avril, their angry pop-punk style no longer fit with the trending tastes. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying Green Day didn’t continue to attract crowds throughout the last two decades, but only now are they drawing 80,000 people to Wembley Stadium.
Everything cool eventually becomes uncool, but only the greatest trends get a second chance at glory.
Nostalgia is very profitable indeed, especially for a band with such a wide generational appeal as Green Day.
It’s been a rough ride
Depending on where you fall in the millennial cycle (born between ‘81 and ‘96), your own experiences will differ— but one thing’s for sure: it’s been a rough ride being a millennial. We have lived experiences before the advent of the internet; we were likely studying or even starting our careers during the Great Recession (2008), and then, just as we got to grips with our adult lives, the pandemic hit and took it all away. There are only so many “once in a lifetime” experiences a person can handle.
When things are hard, music can help us both channel our rage and escape our daily struggles. And the music we grew up with is particularly powerful. In fact, studies have shown that, for all generations, whatever we listen to between the ages of 13 and 16 plays a formative role in our music tastes for the rest of our lives.
We’ve stopped caring
Regardless of what generation you were born in, this one will ring true. When you are young, you care about absolutely everything. You don’t want to be seen as weird or like an outcast. Often you curate your tastes to align with trends, so as to fit in. Like all generations before us, millennials have finally outgrown this stage.
We just don’t care anymore. Belting our hearts out to Sugababes in a muddy field? Know all the words to Sk8r Boi? Actually don’t think Nickelback are that bad? Whatever your guilty pleasure, there’s no guilt in it anymore— we’re pretty much all over 30. We aren’t getting any younger. Let’s just enjoy things.
In the spirit of the great millennial comeback, I’d love to know what you’re bringing back. Excited for Freaky Friday 2? Went to see Mean Girls The Musical? Getting flashbacks to Gossip’s Standing In The Way Of Control in the trailer for Skins? Got tickets to see Blink-182 at Leeds Fest? Let me know how you’re honouring your millennial self in the comments below.
This week, I’ve been working away on various projects (including last month’s Touching Grass round-up available for paid members!). Here are some things I’ve enjoyed this week:
📚 Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy - Women’s Prize-shortlisted novel written in second-person to the narrator’s infant child. This beautiful book explores post-partum mental health, the mental load, marital conflicts and the wonder of having a baby. I highly recommend all mothers pick this up; it’ll break your heart, then fix it again.
📺 The Good Girl’s Guide To Murder (BBC Adaptation) - I remember thinking this book was a little YA for me, and the show definitely goes heavy into that realm, but it’s still a fun, easy watch.
That’s all from me this week— don’t forget to vote today!
Ellen x
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💌 About this email
I’m Ellen, and I write about mental health for the chronically online. I am a freelance copywriter, strategist and web designer, and I work from home with my husband, Craig, at Content By The Sea. We have two rescue greyhounds, Potter and Harmony, and a toddler.
I started this newsletter in March 2020 and have sent over 170 emails; currently, I have over 1,200 subscribers. I write about a wide variety of topics, including diet culture, my love of running, jealousy, my life falling apart, mam guilt, and this dystopian world we all live in.
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In my best Samantha jones voice, I will say ‘honey we were ALWAYS cool’
For serious though, I am so thrown seeing all the clothes I wore as a teen (that bish made me throw away because we thought they’d NEVER come back in fashion) being the ‘in style’. My younger cousin, without a shred of irony loves Limp Bizkit. It’s funny to me but our parents really weren’t kidding when they said this would happen to us one day 😂
My own Millennial cringe deffo rears its ugly head when any nu metal or pop punk song comes on the radio, or heaven forbid, a club - especially because I WILL mosh 😂