Teen music minding its elders on charts

updated 11:03 a.m. ET Dec. 18, 2006

NEW YORK - Just a few years ago, when teens dominated the pop charts, to be a singer of a more senior age — say, about 30 — was something to be downplayed or outright omitted on one’s musical résumé.

Indeed, as the likes of ’N Sync, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera posted hit after hit and sold millions and millions of albums, the most coveted part of a performer’s act seemed to be his or her youth.

But these days, Justin Timberlake has graduated from ’N Sync to sexy adult club tracks, Aguilera is a married woman singing mature ballads, and it no longer seems necessary to shave a few years off your age. While teen acts like JoJo, Rihanna and Chris Brown are still creating hits, they are no longer ruling the marketplace. Most of this year’s top-selling artists were in their 20s or 30s, like Gnarls Barkley, Mary J. Blige, James Blunt, Nelly Furtado and Shakira. And oldsters like Barry Manilow, 60, and Bob Dylan, 65, also had strong sales.

“There has been more product that was clearly adult for the last five to 10 years,” says Sean Ross, vice president of music and programming at Edison Media Research, which tracks radio trends.

“Thirty-five-year-olds are going to a point where rap is OK, and 18-year-olds want more mellow music. ... It’s more like there’s nothing galvanizing in the center, and that lets everybody see what’s in the fringes.”

Still, there may be the rumblings of a teen craze on the horizon. The year’s biggest-selling album was the soundtrack to the Disney TV movie “High School Musical,” although it was aimed at the tween set. And a graduate from that film, Vanessa Hudgens, is having some success on radio with her solo debut.

In addition, while there have been no monster albums from teens this year, there have been other radio successes with acts like 16-year-old singer Paula DeAnda (“Doing Too Much”), 15-year-old rappers Jibbs (“Chain Hang Low”), and 15-year-old JoJo, whose ballad “Too Little Too Late,” was a top five Billboard pop hit.

“I think a lot of times it’s been older people, but now the teenage group, the younger group, it’s very youthful now,” said DeAnda. “There’s hot new artists out there. ... It’s a real big year for us.”

“I think it’s kind of happening,” JoJo said of a possible teen resurgence on the charts. “But I don’t think it’s in the same way that it happened maybe seven years ago with the boy bands and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.”

Back then, acts like Spears and Aguilera made blockbuster albums that sold millions of copies apiece during a music-industry boom.

But as the acts grew older along with the teens that once worshiped them, the craze began to fade, along with the decline of the music industry with the advent of Internet downloading.

“Teen stuff continues to sell, it’s always going to sell, (but) it’s not a craze like it (was),” said Rick Krim, executive vice president of music and talent relations at VH1. “I think a lot of the teen music tends to be disposable, and it’s not the kind of music that stays with you for your lifetime.”

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