Cornel West. I actually thought it was pretty awesome that this aging Harvard professor and civil rights activist had succeeded in his second career as a rapper, and was definitely planning on listening to his music at some point in the future. Imagine my disappointment.
:smack: Looking at that link I have heard of him. Damn I feel stupid now.
I’d be shocked if Common hadn’t sampled, or at least quoted, Cornel West at some point.
What’s a Common?
I’m 35. I rarely listen to the radio, so there is a lot fo current stuff I don’t hear. On the other hand, I’ve bought several albums released in the last year or two, so I guess that counts as current.
I’m 44 and couldn’t answer the poll.
I spend a lot of my disposable income on new music, but since most of what I listen to (death metal, thrash, prog metal, etc. and various, um, extreme jazz) doesn’t get radio airplay, I decided I couldn’t accurately answer the poll as it’s posted.
If you want to get picky, I guess I could have answered “do not keep current” since I don’t keep current with the type of music the OP was asking about, but I do keep current with the types of music I like.
It’s been a lot of years since I knew who was hot and what they sang and could recognize singers by their voices even if I didn’t know the songs. In fact, now that I think about it, the only reason I’m familiar with any new performers is if they’re featured on the LOL Cats Celeb section. When my daughter was still living at home, I’d hear more because she’d hook her iPod up in the car and share with me. But when I drive, I mostly listen to NPR or a local new station. And on the very very rare occasions when I tune to the county’s pop station, I feel like I hear the same 4 songs every single time. Good grief, I’m sounding like my mother!!! :eek:
And for the record, I’m 57. And by record, I don’t mean vinyl… 
I’m 55 and my current favorite artists are Pink and Rob Thomas and/or his band with the silly name.
If they don’t come out with something new pretty soon, well, I’ll just continue to pine for their next release.
Slight hijack: I would love to have a poster of Pink in mid twirl while doing her glitter song. My goodness, she is beautiful.
I’m probably strange, but hearing a song I enjoyed in the 80’s or 90’s often makes me oddly uncomfortable. Not always, but often. It’s hard to describe, but it brings home the passage of time for me. I don’t do nostalgia well. Anyway, I think that’s part of the attraction for me with the new stuff. Keeps me feeling young (er).
I am 58 and I keep right up to date with music, since the 60s. Although there are periods (sometimes years) when nothing good happens.
I used to manage bands and do live sound and feel that if you don’t see live music regularly you may as well be dead.
I am blessed because in Australia we have the best outlet for new music on the radio, JJJ, available across the nation. Hard to grow old listening to them.
I knew they got married, but I thought they were divorced.
Mind you my “keeping up” level has slowly devolved. I used to know everything about acts that I liked - band members, histories, anecdotes…all sorts of minutiae. Now I just know which albums I like and want to get and don’t care about the details.
I stopped keeping current in the 1980s.
43 and I keep current. I don’t listen to the radio much, so I mainly learn about new bands from friends, reviews, and the internet. So far this year, I’ve gotten music from the Decemberists, Bright Eyes, Okkervil River, the Dum Dum Girls, and An Horse. Plenty of others, too, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment.
I’m absolutely up to date. It’s just that that date is 1983.
Would it help to know that he had a cameo appearance in The Matrix Reloaded?: http://thoughtsoninternetmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Cornel-West.jpg
No, I didn’t think so.
38 and I thought I was not keeping up until yesterday, when I saw Panic! at the Disco in concert, and they played a cover of Pumped Up Kicks, and I knew that song not from having liked it and sought it out, but just had absorbed it from listening to the radio.
Not really. I do keep seeking out new music and new bands, but I don’t listen to the radio or watch MTV, and I’ve never heard most of the big chart-toppers. (So, I’m the kind of guy who might buy the new Weird Al album while being totally unfamiliar with most of the songs he parodies on it.)
Part of the problem is that much of today’s popular music doesn’t speak to me, being aimed at demographics that I’m not in. And on the rare occasions when I’ve tried to give rappy-hippity-hop-type music a fair listen, it’s left me cold.
Why would I keep current? I’m exploring backwards from 1989.
Like a couple of other people, I keep current with the people I like, but the people I like aren’t too mainstream – i.e., most of them never make the Music section of Entertainment Weekly.
I realized while watching '80s week on DWTS last week that I pretty much lost track of Top 40 music when I quit drinking, and thus quit going to bars, c. 1985.
This! Except I’m a bit older.
This summer I went to see Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys (w/ Cage the Elephant) and Arcade Fire. By year end plan is to see Feist.