Why do we stop exploring new music as we get older?

[john]

Hi

 

I thought this would be an interesting topic to find out about. FYI:

 

analysis:Why do we stop exploring new music as we get older?

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-26/why-do-we-stop-exploring-music-as-we-age/102006492?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

 

[Glammerocity]

"Adolescents use music as an identity marker and engage with it to navigate social circles. Adults have developed personalities and established social groups."

 

This was a conclusion I came to myself when an old GF said she doesn't listen to music much anymore, after I'd told her I was listening to a lot of kpop. I think it can stretch beyond adolescence and adults can hold onto the self-identity thing until their 50s, when they've just had too much life to be bothered about it.

"There is consensus that people are highly likely to have their taste shaped by the music they first encounter in adolescence."

 

I've argued countless times that when we go through puberty we want to be like the big kids and stop listening to pop music, which is for little kids, and start to take music "seriously." But, I asked countless times, how many good decisions did you make during puberty? I realised this error in rejecting pop's aesthetic when I started trying to write songs myself. It's easy to be self-indulgent but writing a good hook is hard.

 

I remember reading the serious music papers and they'd have yearly polls, which seems a little childish now, to decide things like who was the "best drummer in the world," John Bonham, Phil Collins, Ian Paice, etc. When I listen to things like Deep Purple now I wonder how I ever thought Ian Gillan was such a great singer. It's just shouting in tune. Sure, I have the nostalgia but the admiration has waned.

 

A svengali label owner with a house band and house songwriters making songs for a stable of singers told what to sing is Stock, Aitken & Waterman, right? Or maybe Simon Cowell? Yeah, I was thinking of Motown. My generation is very nostalgic and defensive of Motown, it being the music of their youth, but I don't see a difference. The generation whose youth was SA&W or Syco will be as nostalgic for the soundtracks of their own youth. Motown wasn't considered as cool in the US at the time as it later became with its UK popularity. It was vacuous pop music, looked down on by serious music afficianados. The Motown house band, the Funk Brothers, were jazz musos who looked down their noses at it, turning up to sessions half-drunk. Years later they'd try to claim credit for its popularity.

 

I remember the phrase "disco sucks" when I was at school and Abba was music for your parents. Now my generation love both with a nostalgic passion.

 

Whenever friends complained about "manufactured music" (notwithstanding that anything coming out of a recording studio is manufactured) I'd remind them of the Monkees. A group put together for a TV show, who didn't play on their own records and had pop hits written for them by great pop songwriters like Neil Diamond, incidentally another who was a parentally-approved uncool artist. But who doesn't love the Monkees?

 

So yeah, I self-identify as a kpop stan and proud of it.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Glammerocity

[HoboSage]

I think it might at least in part have to do with the shifting away from radio to streaming as the music delivery platform of choice.  The median age of a radio listener is like 46, but for Spotify, it's like 33 - but that age is increasing as older listeners get more comfortable with streaming and/or as younger streamers get older.

Edited February 28, 2023 by HoboSage

[McnaughtonPark]

The article makes some points that I’ve heard before, we listen to the music we grew up with in adolescence.  
 

I like more of the same but new releases.   Thankfully there were so many artists I didn’t get to hear much of back then.  45’s had B sides, so I’m kinda listening to the B sides so to speak.

 

Public Radio has some good new music on after 7 pm that I enjoy.  Mostly indie stuff so occasionally I reject what I’m hearing as rubbish but I like most of it, for the reason that it’s new to me.

 

I do not care for canned pop, country, or any other genre that’s just pumped out on an assembly line.  
 

im too old for some heavy metal of the 80’s.  Weird thing was my friends liked it.  I went the way of the blues instead.  I suppose it’s still what draws me in.  Funk makes me want to dance but I don’t like disco.

[jhanover]

I haven’t stopped exploring. I took little breaks now and then. With the shortwave radio I discovered John Peel ( should be a national holiday in the UK for him ), and now with the app to pick up those stations I am finding all sorts of cool music. Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Netherlands, France, even Pidgin English station in Nigeria. After listening to Azra of now Croatia, I want to work my sound to be as influential as theirs was and still is. Bajaga y Instruktori of Serbia, are very comparable to Elvis Costello and the Attractions in building very structured  and cool songs. Henk Weingaard and Dutch Trucking music is cool. Have even heard a Czech cover of Air Supply’s “ All Out Of Love “. There’s even a station in Japan that plays video game music. The world is huge get out there.

[jhanover]

Radio Garden is the app I use. Some of my favorite stations. Pink Unicorn in Uzbekistan all things Metal, Vladix 4 Rock in Serbia, Dark Radio in Romania, Total Country Inchicore, Ireland, Antyradio Made in Poland, Christmas stations from everywhere, Mongolia, Greenland, TyeDye Blues and Shawn Nagy’s Oldies L.A. in the USA, Nigeria, and many many more. Free app just have to deal with a few ads now and then. They even have stations dedicated to Kishore Kumar, and Mohammed Rafi.

[jhanover]

On 2/28/2023 at 2:51 PM, McnaughtonPark said:

The article makes some points that I’ve heard before, we listen to the music we grew up with in adolescence.  
 

I like more of the same but new releases.   Thankfully there were so many artists I didn’t get to hear much of back then.  45’s had B sides, so I’m kinda listening to the B sides so to speak.

 

Public Radio has some good new music on after 7 pm that I enjoy.  Mostly indie stuff so occasionally I reject what I’m hearing as rubbish but I like most of it, for the reason that it’s new to me.

 

I do not care for canned pop, country, or any other genre that’s just pumped out on an assembly line.  
 

im too old for some heavy metal of the 80’s.  Weird thing was my friends liked it.  I went the way of the blues instead.  I suppose it’s still what draws me in.  Funk makes me want to dance but I don’t like disco.

There’s a razor thin line between Funk and Disco on strumming patterns be careful. Agree though, Disco still sucks lol

[MikeRobinson]

To my way of thinking, articles like this are just "begging the question."

 

(This logical fallacy is classically demonstrated by:  "Have you stopped beating your wife?")

 

By asking the loaded question, "why do we stop 'X'," they implicitly assert that we had done 'X.'

 

Even though I am now – (koff, koff ...) – "a little bit older than I used to be," I have never grown tired of music.  And, I have never stopped listening, especially, to the "indy artists."  It is, in fact, extremely exciting to me to hear what artists can do, now that production technology which used to be "utterly inaccessible" is now available to everyone.  (Including me. Heh.)

 

Some of the music, of course, to my ears is "boring and repetitive."  But hey, what's new about that?

Edited March 2, 2023 by MikeRobinson

[McnaughtonPark]

On 3/1/2023 at 5:51 PM, jhanover said:

There’s a razor thin line between Funk and Disco on strumming patterns be careful. Agree though, Disco still sucks lol

I guess it was more about the bands I liked moving from rock to disco just to appease the market.  Some didn’t do that, some for perhaps only one song, but some just went along with it.  R and B went the way of disco, radio, but there were a lot of bands that held their own.  For people of my generation, rock and folk had mainly ruled the airwaves form many years until disco then punk and all the rest that followed.   I honestly think the real problem I had with it was that it marked the end of an era the likes of which we probably won’t see again.  The rest of it is probably attributable to human nature not liking changes of any kind.  

[jhanover]

You always had groundbreaking artists before the later genre. Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, New York Dolls for Punk, Abba for Disco. Once R & B went Disco, and now with Autotune I miss it. I am finding that despite the horrible opression of the Soviet leadership, a lot of bands created comparable to the time songs that are epic. Kind of shows you how resilient people are. Two of my favorite documentaries about music are “ Afghan Star “ and “ Looking For Sugarman “about the power of music well worth watching.

[Steve Mueske]

I think a lot of this depends on whether or not you are a musician or interact with musicians. Every music-oriented person I know loves to explore new music.

 

Many people, however, use music as a means to supplement their routines. They create playlists for working out, for studying, taking road trips, etc. Usually there's a style in mind. Most people, in my experience, don't listen to music in an exclusive sense (that is, for itself, for expanding, or whatever) because they don't have a listening practice. They don't devote time to it. I'm not denigrating them, everyone has areas of focus and interest.

 

And the article itself is a lifestyle piece. It's intended to be consumed without a lot of thought or engagement. It's just the time and space we live in. So much competing for time and attention, and we have limited amounts of each.

 

I will say that This is Your Brain on Music is a brilliant book. I don't think the quote pulled from it for reference in the article does justice to it. It was written by a musicologist and is an extended investigation into why music affects us the way it does.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Steve Mueske

[VoiceEx]

I enjoyed reading this article though I must admit it I was amused by how it comes off as an "all you can eat buffet" for Boomers, GenX, and the early millennial spectrum. Its like its begging the question, but mainly for old musicians and old music fans, whose musical heroes have either died, are near dying, or have lost their 'touch'.

 

Thinking about that made me giggle a little bit because I was imagining a huge concert hall filled with senior citizens, all chanting in unison alongside a list of performances by the latest Neil Diamond cover bands. You know, a cult-like mass swirling with glistening IV units, at 6PM 😅

 

I also didn't like how the "Expanding our Horizons" bit in the article is practically begging the readers to forcefully undergo some sort of mental "training", simply because alot of the music we have nowadays lacks substance and tends of be underwhelming.

 

To give one example:

"Be patient and persistent. Don't assume because you don't immediately like an unfamiliar piece that it's not worth listening to. The more you listen, the better your brain will be at triggering a pleasure response".

 

Tell me, how bad does a song actually have to -BE, in order for it to physically stop the audience from passing the 30 seconds mark, despite its "persistently pleasuring experience" 🤣

Edited March 19, 2023 by VoiceEx

[Glammerocity]

On 3/19/2023 at 2:06 PM, VoiceEx said:

I also didn't like how the "Expanding our Horizons" bit in the article is practically begging the readers to forcefully undergo some sort of mental "training", simply because alot of the music we have nowadays lacks substance and tends of be underwhelming.

 

It's nothing new. A lot of music we had in the old days had no substance and was underwhelming. Music is no better and no worse nowadays, whenever nowadays started, than it ever was. 

 

I could sit here all day naming songs from years ago that lacked substance and were underwhelming. Even at the time I found the Ziggy Stardust album to be vastly overrated. Few hooks and the title song doesn't even have a chorus. If it hadn't been for the image selling it, a lot of people would've turned off after 30 seconds. Bowie made some great music but that was not a persistently pleasuring experience to me.