Had this discussion quite a bit lately, and I have a theory.
When we grew up (I'm 36 and at the tail end of this) we couldn't easily find the music we liked and exclusively listen to it (unless you had rich parents who bought you all MCs and later CDs you wanted), we kinda had to listen to the radio and experience the whole spectrum.
This is even more true of people in the 35-50 age bracket.
But people who grew up with Napster or even later with streaming on demand don't even have to dig a lot. If they like one artist, they can just listen to them and the (very closely related, surprise) recommendations. No more begging your friends to make you a tape copy of some songs on CDs.
Also afaik the amount of music published goes up every year. So if I actively remember, say 100 songs from the year 1994 that is a much more meaningful representation than 100 songs that came out in 2019.
There was a kind of serendipity, though, to what good radio DJs/playlists could introduce you to. I also spent a lot of money on compilations, some of which were curated quite well by labels (like Subpop and SST), record stores (Newbury Comics in Boston), and fanzines (Flipside).
Other sources for discovering good music included friends' record/CD collections, live shows, publications of varying quality, and (I hate to say it) MTV.
Some of these sources were controlled by the music industry, but there were ways for some really interesting and great music from unknowns to float to the surface.
Music stores were a primary source of discovery for me as well. I was introduced to my favorite band after my friend heard their CD playing at a music store.
Bigger stores often had listening stations where they would feature CDs with headphones so you could hear them before you buy. I got introduced to some amazing albums via that process.
I lived overseas in the 90s and radio there was pretty bad, but those listening stations at the local Tower Records kept me connected to English-language music and introduced me to some fantastic albums and artists, including NAS, The Verve, DJ Guru, and The Presidents of the United States of America.
this is very good observation I can confirm, in 90s we watched with my sister music videos and radio stations since tapes were quite expensive and CDs came later (and never really took off with me, almost everything pirated), so we listened almost everythjing in radio in 90s and watched music charts weekly even in TV to stay in picture.
though to be honest you could still be specialized, for instance I was quite a lot into EDM and you could listen almost every day (at least in Europe through 90s, especially in middle 90s) at least 1-2 hours just purely EDM shows, don't really remember other shows with focus on other genres
by end of 90s internet grew a lot, Winamp and MP3 were introduced plus songs through Napster, Direct Connect and I quickly turned away from radio and TV for most of my content and focused almost entirely on soundtracks while still listening to radio in work, still feel kinda nostalgic when thinking about our military dorm in beginning of 00s when we were listening every night in beds ballads like Hero from Iglesias to fall asleep
by the end of 00s I was either travelling or started to work in places without radio in background, so my knowledge of popular music after that dropped pretty much to 0, now you could play me anything from 2010< and unless it's megahits like Gangnam style I would have no clue whether it's popular unless I heard in shops or restaurants when passing by (and since I was out of western world for most of 10s part, good luck with western/US hits)
chart from article should clearly state it's American and I would like to see comparison between different continents, especially which western music would be recognizable in Asia, only then you know it's true global megahit
of course all of this is my personal observation and I'm sure it's also age thing with people having less time to listen the music and less focus on it as they age
When we grew up (I'm 36 and at the tail end of this) we couldn't easily find the music we liked and exclusively listen to it (unless you had rich parents who bought you all MCs and later CDs you wanted), we kinda had to listen to the radio and experience the whole spectrum.
This is even more true of people in the 35-50 age bracket.
But people who grew up with Napster or even later with streaming on demand don't even have to dig a lot. If they like one artist, they can just listen to them and the (very closely related, surprise) recommendations. No more begging your friends to make you a tape copy of some songs on CDs.
Also afaik the amount of music published goes up every year. So if I actively remember, say 100 songs from the year 1994 that is a much more meaningful representation than 100 songs that came out in 2019.