Every decade has its musical style that generally makes it easy to place what decade a song was written in if you haven’t heard it before.
40s big band
50s rock and roll
60s essentially has its genre named after the decade or at least I can’t think of anything I’d call a genre.
70s punk and beginnings of heavy metal, disco
80s electro synth, rap
90s grunge, dance, R&B, trance
Etc etc. Obviously these don’t entirely define the music of the decade but are highly recognisable genres that can more often than not pinned down to a decade.
So my question is, since the 2000s I don’t see as much differentiation but that might be because I’m too old (44) and not as exposed to be music as I was in my teens, so help me pretend I’m “hip” and “with it” by giving me some clues. I’m curious to know what you think defines the music of the 2020s, what defines the 2010s and what defines the 2000s. I.e. When someone says they are going to listen to noughties music what do they put on? Etc. Or have we reached a point where music has been explored to the point new genres are much rarer to establish?
And maybe this answer is kinda what I was thinking of. The justification your are supplying about the diminished influence of record labels makes sense and logically I can see that probably means the sound of the decades I listed was less organic and more manufactured. I also feel that there is probably less air for experimental genres to establish and become dominant like in the past.