Fighting Age, i.e. What Should I Like Now?

[Googly Smythe]

I love women singers. Played everyday are songs by Charlie XCX, Stine Grove, Nancy Arjam, Floor Jansen, and Lulu. What does that say about me?
There's good and bad in every generation of artistes, and opinion is divided as to which is which.
Love it, hate it, who cares. But hating a piece of music doesn't mean it's bad, and the reverse is true. My wife loves spinach, I despise it. Is it good or bad? Same goes for music, and all art.

[Bombadil]

Not a great analogy. Spinach is good for people in general. Certain forms of music makes me want to bash my head against the wall, which, I suspect, is not really good for most people.

Here's the thing for me. Yes, my musical choices have calcified as I've gotten older. But, when I was living through my 'golden age,' the music I loved was right in front of me, either directly or by word of mouth and friends, I got exposed to great music. I didn't have to go searching for it. The music market is so fragmented these days, with genres and sub-genres, it's confusing and somewhat alienating to me. It is just too much effort for me, though I recognize the value in stretching myself musically. I try to synthesize my musical tastes into something new, but I doubt I am as succesful in that as I would like. The new thing for me is to write/perform soundscapes to video, and I find that both challenging and rewarding. And, frustrating. I am teaching myself basic orchestration techniques, and using synths in conjunction with traditional instruments...that kind of thing. So, my attention is focused more on my own stuff than anyone elses. My energy level is not high, and I must allocate my resources to that priority.

Give me music with:

Melody;
Harmony:
Passion/intensity;

Played by musicians who can do more than string some loops and beats together, although that has its place—if done creatively, within a context of the 3 parameters I've outlined above. The drum beat in the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows' is a tape loop, and they used tape loops in other things as well. As I said, within a greater context.

Thinking this whole topic over, I realized that there is one young kid whose talent I can appreciate: Ed Sheeran. He got my attention with his song from 'The Desolation of Smaug,' 'I see Fire,' which, imo, is a great song. He is good at mashing various types of music together, he is a capable musician and singer, and he is fairly unpretentious.

Anyways, I gotta go to sleep. Been up all night.

Peace to all.

[slipstick]

It's only really sad if you refuse to listen to anything other than the stuff you liked many years ago because you know in advance that all new stuff is bound to be rubbish.

I freely confess that from time to time I still go back to some of my old favourite music from the late 60s...but I've been listening to huge amounts of other stuff since then. Some of it I've hated, some I've loved, much has made no real impact at all but the point is that I've listened to it and then decided. My current listening includes a range of music from some written in the 12th century to some written last year, from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Works for me, though it does confuse some of my friends with somewhat more limited tastes.

Steve

[topaz]

Don't.

I have always been selective, the same today at almost 54.

There are only 3 artists I am waiting for releases from. Anything else is a bonus.

Frost (uk supreme)
Knower (la supreme)
Kino (anything John Mitchell and John Beck make is going to be cool)

[samsam]

I tell ya, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

[Gamma-UT]

Here's the thing for me. Yes, my musical choices have calcified as I've gotten older. But, when I was living through my 'golden age,' the music I loved was right in front of me, either directly or by word of mouth and friends, I got exposed to great music. I didn't have to go searching for it. The music market is so fragmented these days, with genres and sub-genres, it's confusing and somewhat alienating to me.

You can like whatever you like. But it's no good complaining about how music is so fake and corporatised now if the only people bothered to find music are those the corporations are targeting. They go where the money is.

Yes, you have to work a bit to find music outside of that but it's there and they're waiting for listeners. The good stuff tends not to be heavily genre-ised - although more of it is getting lumped into the "jazz" category. If more people discovered them, they'd be the ones in the charts you seem to pay attention to and yet hate at the same time. I only wind up hearing Ed Sheeran in adverts – and then it takes months for me to rumble that it was Ed Sheeran.

Unless more people do actually discover worthwhile music - which is often things off the beaten track - we're going to wind up with a future full of the first four bars of "Mary had a little lamb" played on supersaws on repeat with someone yelling "Yo! Giggedy!" over the top for four minutes at a stretch blaring out across shopping malls across the land.

[slipstick]

I tell ya, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

In years to come you'll look back on that statement and realise how wrong it was.

Steve

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

it seems like, most of the people i've met.. they like the music of their childhood, teens, and maybe twenties. once they're on in years, they still mostly listen to what they listened to, growing up... not a lot of older folks who keep up to date on the newer artists. more often than not, each generation thinks 'their music' was the best, and they don't like new music. maybe i just haven't met that many people

there was this one 'kid'...about 25-ish... he told me that most people 'my age' aren't aware of newer bands/artists/etc....

on the other hand, i've met the occasional younger person who likes say, '80s rock... met this one kid... maybe 23 years old... really loves queensryche and stryper... knows everything about these bands, in detail...

but say, when i go to facebook and 'friend' a bunch of people from high school (35-40 years ago), it looks like most of them are still listening to the same music we all listened to then.

i've got a theory that, you have to be a 'musician' or somesuch, to actually broaden your horizons throughout life. for most people, music is kind of the 'backing track', or 'soundtrack of their lives', and it doesn't change much after some early formative years... ymmv

[Bombadil]

There's definitely truth in that. If I am feeling down, I'll put on a playlist of early Beatles. It takes me back to a less complicated time when I would play my older brother's records and dance (!) or mime playng along with a badminton racket.

If I am feeling bummed out and angry, I'll put on The Wall or Animals to get in touch with my teen misanthropy.

And so on.

That said, I have a hard time imagining people 40 years from now listening to Justin Bieber or Britney, or the Spice Girls.

But I gotta tell ya, the remix of Sgt. Pepper rocked my world, and I can't wait for the White Album remix due out this year!

[vurt]

i've got a theory that, you have to be a 'musician' or somesuch, to actually broaden your horizons throughout life.

not always true, i have lifelong friends who have never picked up an instrument in their lives since the recorder we where forced in to at school. yet they are out there finding new stuff, through the internet, through support acts at gigs and through friends.
i use them to find new stuff, because im a hermit.

[deastman]

Having just spent last night watching old videos of some truly crap music that I liked in the 80s, and finding that I still love those songs today, the topic is very much on my mind.

I do continue to listen to a lot of the same old playlist from decades past, over and over. First of all, that was some great music. I’d already been through the process of finding the tracks and albums and artists that I really liked, while rejecting those I didn’t like at the time that it was new. It isn’t as if those songs are now less good simply because they are old.

And there is this peculiar aspect to “youth culture”, which rejects the old and voraciously devours the new. There is an endless pursuit of novelty and reinvention, in which the music of previous generations is rejected as somehow inferior.

That said, it doesn’t have to be that way. I consider it a small triumph every time my daughter notices one of my 80s songs and adds it to her playlist, or I find her listening to a Beatles album. And while I do despise the cookie cutter nature of a lot of contemporary pop and EDM, my daughter will often introduce me to new music which really breaks from the mold in interesting ways. Then again, most of her friends think she has weird taste because the contemporary music she likes deviates too far from the cookie cutter norms.

[MackTuesday]

Don't.

I have always been selective, the same today at almost 54.

There are only 3 artists I am waiting for releases from. Anything else is a bonus.

Frost (uk supreme)
Knower (la supreme)
Kino (anything John Mitchell and John Beck make is going to be cool)

Knower FTW

By the way, I went through my Spotify playlist and made a histogram by release year to the nearest multiple of 5. This is what I found:

Code: Select all

1970 02
1975 04
1980 21
1985 40
1990 21
1995 30
2000 11
2005 24
2010 21
2015 23
2020 01

So OK, more 80s stuff than other stuff, but still quite a bit of recent stuff. The 2005 bin has quite a bit of Depeche Mode and Erasure, from their last period of interesting music. Much of the tracks around 2010 are due to Robyn and/or Royksopp, and Chvrches are responsible for something like half of the 2015 bin. The one in the 2020 bin is Chvrches' most recent single, released this year.

[vurt]

you should like what i like otherwise your taste in music is just plain wrong.