Have you grown out of really listening to music?

[Stylizer1]

When I was young I seemed to care a whole lot more about listening to music. Now it seems I can't relate to most of it. I still hear lots of interesting stuff but can't find myself really adding anything new my library, or at least throwing it on once and a while.

It might have to do with Albums not being pushed as heavily as songs are.

"Kids don't buy albums anymore they rent songs" - Me

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[Eisen]

When I was young I seemed to care a whole lot more about listening to music. Now it seems I can't relate to most of it. I still hear lots of interesting stuff but can't find myself really adding anything new my library, or at least throwing it on once and a while.

It might have to do with Albums not being pushed as heavily as songs are.

"Kids don't buy albums anymore they rent songs" - Me

Same here. A lot of music is simply not appealing anymore. I still get German Indie (Hamburger Schule) inspired by Blumfeld and Tocotronic and when a new New Model Army gets out but that's pretty much it. Punk is deader than dead and I haven't stumbled over a good metal LP in ages. Pretty sad, I used to adore music.

 

[ArchAngel55]

I can't listen to auto-tune and everything is radio friendly or made for the masses. I've asked my older friends for stuff to check out and music was way better before.

 

[Gordon Lightfoot]

Nah. As far as new music, I can always find interesting things through the few of my friends who are active listeners. Plus, I spend my free time reading reviews, I find things in a couple Facebook (sue me) groups. I'm on rym all the time. There is always something newer that works for me.

And as far as old stuff goes , well that is a neverending journey of discovery.

 

[member 157595]

When I was young I seemed to care a whole lot more about listening to music. Now it seems I can't relate to most of it. I still hear lots of interesting stuff but can't find myself really adding anything new my library, or at least throwing it on once and a while.

It might have to do with Albums not being pushed as heavily as songs are.

"Kids don't buy albums anymore they rent songs" - Me

There's a difference between growing out of listening to music and not embracing current music.

I don't think I've heard anything within the past few years I have any interest in, but not a day goes by that I don't listen to music itself for at least 1 hour or so. It's hard to WFH as a parent without music tbh.

 

[Teemu]

I don't think I've heard anything within the past few years I have any interest in, but not a day goes by that I don't listen to music itself for at least 1 hour or so. It's hard to WFH as a parent without music tbh.

I'm listening to a lot of jazz right now just to help my infant sleep lol

 

[member 157595]

I'm listening to a lot of jazz right now just to help my infant sleep lol

My 22-month old kind of likes Queen's music videos.

 

[peate]

Actually, I'm listening more than I used to. Finding "new" music is the best part. New as in never heard before, not according to release date.

 

[member 157595]

Actually, I'm listening more than I used to. Finding "new" music is the best part. New as in never heard before, not according to release date.

Agreed. For me, I really like early punk music. So much of that was obscure and came out when I was either not yet born or a small child, so I'm still discovering it to this day.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

I've been utilizing spotify to find a lot of new and lesser publicized music. Before COVID I was getting a lot more into live performances of local music more as well.

I still generally find a handful of new songs I like and listen to them 20 times a day for a few weeks until I'm burnt out. :\

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

Yes. I’ve defaulted to podcasts.

 

[kihei]

As I grow older, I find I listen to music more intently than I ever did, especially classical music and jazz. I'm somehow more curious about how great music is put together by composers and musicians. Why this sudden interest now, exactly, I don't know. But I'm glad that it's arrived.

 

[Ducks in a row]

I have never been a big music listener but when I do listen to music I like older music. More recent music sucks compared to things from decades ago.

 

[Shareefruck]

I expressed the same sentiment about the shift towards songs to someone, and they corrected me that apparently, the pendulum's shifted back to albums in the mainstream. Not sure if that's true.

That said, I think it's more a case of what's available becoming worse and worse rather than the whole growing up/nostalgia thing that people like to point to, personally. I'm still getting really into older albums that are completely new to me.

People always say "there's still tons of great music, you just have to dig for it," but that only depends on where your bar is for what's worth listening to, IMO. If you're only interested in things that hit you the way absolute would-be all-time-great classics do for example, you're not going to find much even if you dig for it, at least according to my sensibilities.

 

[izlez]

Just not being as enthralled as you once were is understandable. You're human. People change.

But it's not the music's fault. There's endless music out there coming from endless genres and subgenres that is as easy as ever to access. I don't listen to anything auto-tuned. I almost exclusively listen to albums in full.

There are lots of music review sites on the internet. I found one that had a number of my existing favorite albums rated high. From there it has been a useful tool to find similar good music as well as expand my tastes. It's not magic, but it points you in a direction and if you WANT to find new music that interests you, I'm sure that you can

 

[Shareefruck]

^ it still COULD be, though. The fact that there's endless music out there and convenient ways to access it doesn't suggest that its peaks are going to be necessarily as good as other eras for everyone's tastes.

Everybody always jumps to the conclusion that if you don't like the current era as much, then obviously you just must not be looking hard enough, as if the expectation is that quality/value will always be uniform, but that's never been the case, IMO.

Quality/value fluctuates from era to era, and it's just as likely for the current era to be a relatively weak period as it is for it to be a golden age (which most people who hold this view will have no trouble admitting is the case for the current era of certain other mediums)

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I just wish some alien force could dump unto me all the music that I would love and be left alone. Searching for music sucks.

 

[Shareefruck]

I just wish some alien force could dump unto me all the music that I would love and be left alone. Searching for music sucks.

I don't hear this take a lot, but I completely agree with it. A lot of music lovers relish the discovery process, but personally, it's just a necessary means to and end for me, and one that's often tedious.

 

[tarheelhockey]

There's a difference between growing out of listening to music and not embracing current music.

This, and also there's a certain chutzpah in thinking that there's nothing left to discover from the past.

That being said, this:

I still hear lots of interesting stuff but can't find myself really adding anything new my library, or at least throwing it on once and a while.

Sounds more like simply getting old enough that songs aren't going to hit you in the time of life where they stick as your "soundtrack". Ask someone who's 15 right now to show you their playlist and I guarantee it has song on it which don't resonate for you, but will have great meaning to them later in life. That's just how it goes, it's the reason musicians go from "not even real music" to "essential listening for any living human" to "nostalgic but dated" on a predictable schedule.

 

[Mrfenn92]

Really haven’t listened to new music over the last ten years or so, just no interest.
Have gone back to my old cd’s and make a nice list of music I’ve been enjoying immensely again.

 

[Saturated Fats]

Happens sometimes. But I have a few 'pallet cleansers' that I'll go back to, which remind me how to love music, and why I love it. And being obsessive about websites like RYM helps.

But there are few things in life that can't be solved by Pet Sounds and Illmatic.

 

[Ouroboros]

No, and I can't really foresee a time when it will happen. In terms of 'media' it's pretty much my only time sink as I've never really had any interest in film or television.

In fact, since all this COVID stuff kicked off in March I've been listening like a fiend.

 

[Legionnaire]

Not so much right now. Everything reminds me of someone or sometime.

 

[DNE3]

No change for me in current listening habit. Internet worldwide format makes it ultra-easy to find music other than radio-generated top 40 lists. I gradually migrated from older to newer in part to detour past the rap era and after I realized - for me personally - the future of music was worldwide and cross-culture, and plus it's fun to link and discover. I can't always understand the language lyrics but I can appreciate the particular rhythm associated with certain countries. I follow music links in search of that elusive ten percent that will stick around for a while, simple.

suggest DavidDeanBurkhart

https://www.youtube.com/user/daviddeanburkhart

 

[Tawnos]

^ it still COULD be, though. The fact that there's endless music out there and convenient ways to access it doesn't suggest that its peaks are going to be necessarily as good as other eras for everyone's tastes.

Everybody always jumps to the conclusion that if you don't like the current era as much, then obviously you just must not be looking hard enough, as if the expectation is that quality/value will always be uniform, but that's never been the case, IMO.

Quality/value fluctuates from era to era, and it's just as likely for the current era to be a relatively weak period as it is for it to be a golden age (which most people who hold this view will have no trouble admitting is the case for the current era of certain other mediums)

The one thing I will say is that there's nothing fundamentally new going on in music right now. Those peaks you speak of typically line up with some ground-shifting change of the music itself. Blues and jazz were revolutionary. Rock n roll and soul were revolutionary. The folk music of the 60s was revolutionary, as was the evolution of rock going into the 70s. Heavy metal was revolutionary. Disco was revolutionary. Punk was revolutionary. Etc, etc. And every single one of those genres had revolutions within their own spheres. None of that is happening right now. There are certainly movements within each genre. Just as an example, a strong movement in metal over the last 5 years had been djent... but djent is essentially a rearrangement and reinterpretation of existing elements of metal, rather than an evolution. There's nothing wrong with that, but nothing revolutionary about it either.

That being said, there's a whole lot of artists out there making incredible new music within those existing forms. I found a phenomenal metalcore album that just came out this year from a band called Polaris. Larkin Poe (roots rock) put out a really fantastic album this year. I could continue on. My point is that rather than thinking of things in terms of musical eras, which really have to be defined by musical revolutions, there's more than enough value and quality out there within genres that already exist. Not every album is going to be good, but one of the best parts about the industry right now is that there's still plenty to look at. The originality doesn't come from the scene artists play in, but rather from the artists themselves.

This last comment isn't directed at you... but I don't fully understand the comments about auto-tune. You only really get auto-tune in pop and the genres surrounding it. You don't really get it much in the more musicality oriented genres of any shade. Well... not in any noticeable way. Most studios will use some level of pitch correction, but neither you nor I can hear it.