I’m not nearly hip enough to even recognize a fraction of these music types, but take a look at what Kanwar Ranvir Singh of the UK created about GenX and their music contributions.

The Nomad archetype, today’s Gen Xers, is an “away from the center,” splintered, tribe-like generation that contributes much to culture by way of niches and new developments. These niches tend to be edgy and not to everyone’s tastes — nor are they meant for everyone’s taste — but the diversity re-energizes culture and creates new ground for new things to flourish.

The hero archetype, today’s Millennials, is a toward-the-center, mainstream generation that (as they get older) will contribute more to a structured, engineered, big-projects society. (Think the 1950s and “The Golden Age” in America. Heroes/millennials, alas, create and leave little of lasting value culturally, as their contributions tend to be in the realm of mega-huge infrastructure, science and engineering realms.

The “artist” archetype (older Silents, today’s born-2006-and-after generation) are the ones who write the lyrics, music, plays and poems that are widely loved, remembered and enduring.

Graphic by way of Kanwar Ranvir Singh