Which song makes the best anthem for each generation?

[Drop Billionaires, Not Bombs]

Just as it says on the tin - which song best sums up each generation?  Go back as far as you want but try to at least include the Baby Boomers.

My list:

Baby Boomers:

Gen X:

Millennials:

(I guess you can debate whether this is Gen X or Millennial.)

Gen Z: Too soon to tell.  Probably a Billie Eilish song or some sh!t.

[muon2]

Nirvana does not fit with Millennials. Cobain was Gen X and Nirvana is generally considered the quintessential Gen X alt rock band. Smells Like Teen Spirit was released before either of my children were born, and they are both Millennials who don't associate early 90's grunge with their generation.

FWIW Dylan isn't actually a Boomer either.

[Drop Billionaires, Not Bombs]

Nirvana does not fit with Millennials. Cobain was Gen X and Nirvana is generally considered the quintessential Gen X alt rock band. Smells Like Teen Spirit was released before either of my children were born, and they are both Millennials who don't associate early 90's grunge with their generation.

It might fit for older Millennials who were born in the early 80's.  A better contender though would probably be Green Day's "American Idiot", since most of us came of age and had our politics shaped during the Bush administration and the Iraq War.

[muon2]

Nirvana does not fit with Millennials. Cobain was Gen X and Nirvana is generally considered the quintessential Gen X alt rock band. Smells Like Teen Spirit was released before either of my children were born, and they are both Millennials who don't associate early 90's grunge with their generation.

It might fit for older Millennials who were born in the early 80's.  A better contender though would probably be Green Day's "American Idiot", since most of us came of age and had our politics shaped during the Bush administration and the Iraq War.

That makes more sense to me.

As a Boomer, it seems like something funk or disco is really the appropriate background for an anthem, since disco was the uniquely Boomer musical idiom. If I was cynically looking at it from another generation's view I might pick, "That's the Way I Like It" by KC and the Sunshine Band. If you want pop instead of funk, consider "Top of the World" by the Carpenters.

[dead0man]

Boomers-Eric Clapton's Cocaine

GenX-The Uninvited's Too High for the Grocery Store

Millennials-Tool's Sober

[Consuming is good, it's what we're made for]

Darude - Sandstorm

[HillGoose]

New Americana by Halsey actually slaps as a Millennial/Gen Z anthem

Music and TV shows are the one place where generational distinctions actually have some merit, imo.

Other than those 2 things, everyone born since the early 1930s has been a Baby Boomer.

[Drop Billionaires, Not Bombs]

Boomers-Eric Clapton's Cocaine

GenX-The Uninvited's Too High for the Grocery Store

Millennials-Tool's Sober

Was Gen X really the "stoner generation?"

[Del Tachi]

In order for something to be a "generational anthem" it has to go beyond your typical love song or rock ballad; its got to make a statement about the era:

Silent Generation (1924-35):  Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland (1939).  I would argue this is the most significant pop performance of the 20th Century, and the song almost perfectly encapsulates the mix of hope and anxiety that defined the Great Depression and its children.

War Babies (1936-44):  Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry (1958).  This may be the most recognizable rock song of all time, and I think its a natural fit for the teenagers of the 1950s.
 
Baby Boomers (1945-54):  (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones (1965).  So many good choices here:  My Generation, Imagine, Like a Rolling Stone, but I had to go with the one that's about sexual frustration and commercialism.

Gen Jones (1955-64):  Material Girl by Madonna (1984).  What could be a more appropriate anthem for the conspicuously consuming yuppie generation?

Generation X (1965-76):  Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana (1991).  This was the easiest choice on the list.  Cobain's anti-anthem is perfect for a generation searching for authenticity amid material cynicism.

Generation Y (1977-85):  Ride by The Vines (2004).  The 2000s indie rock sound defined this generation, and what song could better represent the tech-obsessed Gen Y'ers than the one that got famous from the first iTunes commercial?

Millennials (1986-96):  Ni**as in Paris by Jay-Z and Kanye West (2011).  This collab is the epitome of 2000s hip hop materialism performed by the two biggest R&B artists of the era.  I thought of several other possibilities, but settled here.

Homelanders (1997-05):  Royals by Lorde (2012).  This song is a reaction against the glitzy, bejeweled lifestyles of the Millennials' hip hop icons.  I think it speaks to the material anxieties of the first entirely post-9/11 generation and children of the "Great Recession".

Zoomers (2005-2015?):  It's still too early to really, but I'll go with Old Town Road by Lil Nas X (2019).  What could be more Zoomer than an LGBT POC independently releasing a country/rap single on SoundCloud?

There are some glaring problems with this list.  For starters, the 1970s (perhaps the best decade for American pop music) is entirely missing from this list and some of the anthems run a bit too close together but, hey, generations are completely made-up and arbitrary anyway. 

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I am a Millennial born in 1989. 80's and 90's songs are all Gen X, 2000's and 2010's songs are for Millennials. Nirvana is absolutely a Gen X Band.  60's and 70's are for Boomers, and 50's and 40's are for Silents.