The Juxe: Mainstream

I was asked in an email what “mainstream” artists I listen to. It’s not an easy question to answer. While I listen to some Top 40 type of stuff, there isn’t a ton that I would consider myself a huge fan of. So to get close to answering this question I decided to apply this criteria:

Take all the artists in my itunes library (4614).

Take out any that I don’t own at least two albums by.

Take out any that haven’t released an album in the last five years.

Rank them by the number of followers on their youtube channel.

By that metric, these are the top three most “mainstream” bands I follow along with their most popular song (based on youtube views). And then one of my favorite songs by the artist.

#3 - Run the Jewels - 343,000 Youtube subscribers

Legend Has It - 44 million views

“Legend Has It” probably is my favorite Run the Jewels song (I’m a basic bitch), but here’s another favorite of mine, mainly because it has this bar which I say all the time:

And I refuse to play humble as though my dick itty-bitty
I got banana dick, your bitch go apeshit if she hit it

#2 - The Strokes - 1.18 million Youtube subscribers

Reptilia - 158 million views

Man, it’s hard to pick a favorite Strokes song. I’ll go with “Is This It?” from their debut. The bass line (wait for it) is one of the most outstanding achievements in all of music, as far as I’m concerned.

#1 - Childish Gambino - 5.36 million Youtube subscribers

This is America - 713 million views

Gambino’s best tracks are the ones where you have to go to genius.com to keep up with all the references and jokes. Freaks and Geeks is a good example of that.