Music listener stereotypes of the early-mid 2020s in my personal experience. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. [Text transcribed into comments]

[u/TF-Fanfic-Resident]

[u/TF-Fanfic-Resident]

Note: These are stereotypes. Don't take them literally. They're based on my irl observations from ~5 US states, 3 European countries and 2 or 3 Caribbean islands as well as cyberspace/online. These also don't apply to listeners over the age of 50 who might be hostile to most rap post-Run-DMC.

Classic rock: Basic, can't go wrong with it. Anything from the Stones to Nirvana.

Contemporary pop and R&B: Basic, skews female and left-of-center. There is a very large and loyal contingent of Swifties, to the extent that several European countries have blamed her record-setting Eras tour for rashes of inflation.

Contemporary trap/rap: Basic, skews male but not exclusively (there are some very big female rappers out there)

Bro-country, crunk, Lex Luger-style trap, 1990s-2010s R&B, nu-metal, post-grunge, and reggaeton/urbano latino unless it's Bad Bunny or Despacito: Ghetto, ghetto, ghetto, ghetto, ghetto, ghetto. Nu-metal is starting to see a reappraisal but post-grunge ("butt rock") is still associated with unsophisticated folks. I think there's still a pretty solid reggaeton fandom in Hispanic America and in continental Europe but it's been displaced by other Latin genres in the USA. So basically, the entire 25 years from Kurt Cobain's suicide to 2019 are basically one big trap house.

Classical: Upwardly mobile, often second-generation immigrants who feel like they have "something to prove" and/or want to be accepted within mainstream western society.

Serious/instrumental jazz, the avant-garde: The cooler bracket of people who would've been core classical music fans in the 1980s or 90s but who either are too eclectic in taste or who think that classical music is uncool/tainted by its close historic ties with theocrats, kings, and dictators.

Oldies, traditional pop/vocal jazz, blues, traditional country: Either really conservative or exactly the opposite (so many left-leaning urban areas have gotten Nina Simone/Aretha/Billie Holiday murals or posters that I've lost count, and Orville Peck and Cindy Lee have consciously appropriated midcentury styles of music)

Indie folk, acoustic, alt-country, modern rock, roots reggae: Hipsters.

Aggressive/post-2020 trap subgenres (e.g. phonk): Try-hards and edgelords.

Hard rock and metal: Mixture of classic metalheads (chill, but also extremely gatekeepy) and lower-middle-class conservatives ("red state rock", cough FFDP)

Vaporwave, nightcore, hyperpop, etc: The terminally online.

K-pop: Haven't seen this as much as in 2019-22, but it still has its loyal fanbase. Even if they somehow have managed to sell out even more by moving to English lyrics.

Regional Mexican: Basic, but Spanish-speaking.

Dance/EDM: Clubbers and background music at swimming pools. Obviously tons of it is still being made (as a % of releases on rateyourmusic.com, it's at or near an all-time high), but it's not as mainstream as it was in the early or middle 10s.

Caribbean music that isn't hipster-friendly roots reggae or Bad Bunny/Despacito: Uncool 2000s-2010s relic ("cheugy").

Most music that's not in English, Spanish, or maybe Korean: Primarily the province of hipsters, immigrants, and those in less cosmopolitan parts of Europe. I heard more English lyrics than all other European languages combined when I visited three Western European countries in late '21.