Does anyone over 40 like today's new artists ?

Cafe Society
1

Back in the 70’s when I was in my teens, and my father was in his forties, my father
introduced me to a lot of new music. He introduced me to bands such as the Eagles, Three Dog Night, Fleetwood Mac, Moody Blues, etc.

I am now 50, and I cannot think of any new band over the past decade that interested me. Most of the music that I listen to now is the same music that I listened to 20 and 30 years ago. I grew up listening to almost the same music as my father.
I do not have any kids, but I am a teacher , so I am exposed to most of today’s music. Most of it really sucks, IMHO.

So, are there people here in their 40’s and older that have discovered any new bands over the past few years that they enjoy ?

2

I couldn’t tell you anything about specific artists, but I do enjoy listening to the Going Quantum podcasts on Youtube, which is a mix of dubstep, drum and bass, and various other electronica styles.

3

You are not exposed anywhere near close to “most of today’s music”

4

People who complain that there’s no new music to like just aren’t looking for it, frankly. There is constantly new music in every genre you could possibly think of, and several in genres that are just now being defined, or whatever.

But I’m a spring chick at the tender age of 27 so maybe when I’m 50 I’ll feel the same way. I sure hope not though.

Now, where’s **voguevixen **to come tell us how great One Direction is?

5

I’m pushing 50 with no kids and yet I’ve found a number of tunes/people whose music I enjoy - Bruno Mars, Adele, fun, and various others. I don’t particularly care for most hip-hop which is huge right now but outside of that I’ve found lots of new music I enjoy.

6

I’m 60 and mostly listen to JJJ. This evening’s playlist.. I like most of it.

7

Well, I have found some bands in the last few years that I like. How I find them is varied, though. We have a music-only public radio station in DFW (KTX) and a good community radio station that’s struggling a bit, but still good (KNON), and a few college radio stations with shows that play new stuff. NPR also features new music in some of their shows. I first heard of one of my recent favorites (Battles) on Fresh Air. Also, I am in a band, and my band members and the bands we play with introduce me to a lot, often displaying how un-hip I really am.

On top of that, I’ve found a few bands from commercials, of all things. I was thinking about starting a thread about this. When did commercials start using recent, contemporary rock songs? I heard Lightning Bolt in a Gatorade commercial first. That song rocks too hard to sell sports drinks.

8

I’m not much of a fan of music generally, so my opinion counts for little. But I am somewhat buoyed by the return of melody and original instrumentation to modern music, and so a lot of songs have been catchy enough to appeal to me.

On the other hand, I don’t like Adele.

9

Valid point.
Better for me to say that most of my exposure to today’s music is through my students.

10

I’m listening to a lot of electro swing and modern cabaret lately, such as Caravan Palace. Does that count?

11

Back when we were young, we didn’t have to look for music. It found us on its own.

12

I, personally, don’t listen to much Top 40 stuff, though some of it is definitely okay (and there’s been some earworms). However, there are tons of recent bands that are pretty cool. I like Streetlight Manifesto and Chase Long Beach for ska. KARA and BoA are pretty decent from the East Asia/Korean* pop scene. Of course, there’s always the older hats that still product music, Nightwish is from the '90s but they still do fairly good symphonic metal. MC Frontalot is “borderline” new (1999), but his nerdcore rap can be good – the very recent Epic Rap Battles of History Youtube channel also makes some catchy stuff. Jonathan Coulton makes good… uh… folk pop indie rock? Sure, let’s go with that. The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets (1992) are damn good… uh… Wikipedia says punk. Abney Park (1997) does good steampunk/industrial music. There’s also a few of the old bubble/dance/europop bands doing their thing to good success, like Smile.dk. There’s… uh… whatever the hell the Animal Collective does. Voltaire does some deliciously dark catchy music in a genre I can’t define (Wikipedia says “dark cabaret”).

You might like Cage the Elephant. I’ve heard people compare them to The Eagles (though I’d say they’re much closer to The Ramones). Their second album is a bit weirder though, not-quite-but-almost prog rock-ish to my ear. I’m not sure you’d like them, but I know a lot of Eagles/Fleetwood Mac people who take to them.

Now, I’m 23, so your question isn’t directed at me, my point is mostly that there are tons of artists that your students probably don’t listen to because they’re not popular (and the ones that do listen to it probably only talk about it with like-minded individuals, not with all the popular kids in class). Lots of bands are putting out good music in basically all genres (hell, that list was nowhere near an exhaustive list of the relatively new artists I listen to).

The pop isn’t bad, but pop never appeals to everyone. Is it mostly vapid and overproduced? Sure, but that’s pop for you. Maybe three or four trailblazers and then a bunch of copycat followers. And, as always, even the trailblazers put out 90% bland forgettable stuff, but that’s true of any band in any genre. And, hell, looking at the current Billboard “Hot 100” there’s a LOT of variance on there. Just from the ones I recognize in the top 20: P!nk, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Lil Wayne, and Fall Out Boy. Some of those are more similar than others, but I’d say there’s at least three distinct genres in that mass (it gets a lot fuzzier with subgenres).

Like I said, I can’t really vouch for/against the popular stuff too much. I’ll let someone else defend the Beyonces and Katy Perrys, but music is pretty good right now – if for the sheer number of bands consistently putting out albums more than anything else.

  • I say “East Asian” because Korean bands (esp. girl bands) seem to have a tendency to make some singles in Japanese that get fairly popular. Granted BoA also did an English album IIRC.
13

I turn 60 this year. I really like Mumford and Sons, Adele, Norah Jones, Matchbox Twenty, Alicia Keys, Maroon 5, and I enjoy some of Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Kelly Clarkson, P!nk, Lady Antebellum and Kate Perry, and a lot I’m not thinking of this second.

The trick is, I work at it and always have. I hated the fact that my father never gave Rock & Roll a chance (yes, I’m that old) and always determined I’d never feel that way about music. Even genres I don’t like (hip-hop, reggae) I’ve tried to appreciate.

14

I’m 54, and the last ten CDs I bought include albums by Jackie Oates (30), Pokey LeFarge (30), Hayes Carl (37) and DJ Shadow (41). I can’t put an exact year of birth on two other artists from that ten, but I’m confident both Muleskinner Jones and Jason Steel are well under 35. At the other end of the spectrum, the same ten albums include offerings by Townes van Zandt (who’d now be 69), Marianne Faithful (67), David Francey (59) and James Hunter (51).

Make of that what you will. Personally, I think there’s always a lot of good music out there, but that what changes as we get older is the amount of effort we’re prepared to put into seeking it out. The music you loved in your youth will always be special to you, but that doesn’t make it a golden age in any objective sense.

John Peel, the legendary British radio DJ, would always insist that the records he was most excited about were the ones he hadn’t heard yet - and that he hoped might surprise him in some way. That’s an admirable attitude I think, and far more rewarding than automatically dismissing anything recorded after - what - 1975? 1980?

Also: there’s a lot more to music than rock music alone. Stir a little jazz, folk, country, dance, blues, world, soul or dub into the mix and you might be surprised what you discover. Ian Anderson’s free monthly podcast for fRoots magazine is an excellent place to start: http://www.frootsmag.com/radio/

15

I’m over 40, and from the school of Goth/Industrial/Post-Punk, and yet I quite like some of current pop music. Pink, Ellie Goulding, Adele, particular David Guetta tracks (Titanium, She Wolf, When Love Takes Over), Gotye, Kimbra, Macklemore. Just don’t like a lot of the biggest-selling artists - Beyonce, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, they all do nothing for me. Ditto anything from the Lil Wayne, Kanye West, JayZ, Chris Brown, Rick Ross general area of hip-hop meets singing (I do quite like the Drake track “Started From the Bottom” though). Oh, and I really, really hate that guy from Maroon 5, Adam Levine, is it?

Did have “We Are Never Getting Back Together” stuck in my head and didn’t mind, that shit’s catchy.

16

I’m 43. I grew up loving mainly what is now called “classic rock,” but I also appreciated some of the then-current 80s popular music. I try to keep up with a minor but more or less representative sample of what’s going on each year – though of course there a hundred genres I know nothing about (what’s the fifth-biggest thing in Gambia this year? Are they better live than on their studio recordings? What about the second-biggest act in Sri Lanka? etc. etc.)

So, restricting myself to, say, five hundred or so acts mentioned in one or more issues of “Rolling Stone” over the past 12 months, I can make the following generalizations:

  1. Rock is pretty much dead. There are local acts that can put on an exciting performance, but there’s very little creativity left in rock songwriting/recording. Even folks like Jack White and Radiohead are running low on creative juices, and even interesting acts like Dungen have a sound right out of 1971.

  2. I very much enjoy the clever, often poetic wordplay of quite a few hip-hop artists these days. There was a good New Yorker article a couple years ago about the then-new “Anthology of Rap” book. This turned me on to old acts like Chino XL, but also led me to listen more to current acts like Taliban Kweli and even Kanye West. College radio stations are great for this sort of thing, including related genres.

  3. There are a few US (or Brit) popular acts which do have the potential to generate something entirely new. Janelle Monae comes to mind.

17

My wife is in her early 50’s and loves all the new bands. For some reason she dislikes anything that she grew up with. She has a real “been there, done that” complex.

18

I’m 50, and there are plenty of new young acts that I’ve heard and liked, and plenty that I really don’t care for. That was also true when I was 20.

19

I was introduced to Evanescence with their first album and really liked it. I would have considered myself into classic rock (Queen, Eagles) and pop before then but really took to alternative, as Evanescence is classified.

What really helped me find new music, though, was Pandora. (I’m sure there are many such services out there.) I started a channel called Evanescence and started with that band. After six months of “training” it with my preferences, I maybe get a song every month or two that I don’t like. Most of it is stuff I’m glad I have heard.

“new” bands/groups/people I discovered since:

Flyleaf
Breaking Benjamins
Lacuna Coil
Norah Jones
Anna Nalick
Michelle Branch
Within Temptation
Hinder
Veronicas
Walk off the Earth (and I love their covers and original stuff)
Linkin Park
Plumb
3 Doors Down
Daughtry (and it was years before I knew he was on Idol)
Adele
Avril Lavigne
gotye (and love WotE cover of it)

And probably more that I can’t think of at the moment. I have it play all day at work and, again, rarely skip a track!

Now, you might not be able to do this at work, or much, but something like this might help you find current groups you like as well as play older stuff you like.

Just a thought.

vislor

ETA: I’m in my 40s

20

I am 2yrs away at the age of 38 and love all kinds of new music. Very little of it is main stream though.
Some of the best current music:

Tycho

Chromatics

Toro Y Moi

Real Estate

Wild Nothing

Sure I also listen to about 75% old stuff but there are talented artists putting out quality music nowadays. If you are looking for another Dylan, Wilson or Lennon, you aren’t playing the game right. Nobody could make that music again. It just isn’t possible.