I agree that it can be cyclical as many things are. I started taking piano lessons at age 5, picked up guitar around 10 and majored in music in college, ended up in a band (some covers, mostly originals) and also used music in my professional career. All that to say, music has played a major role in my life. BUT, there was a long period of time, after marriage, after kids, that I didn’t listen a lot except in the car and I hardly played or created music. There were many reasons; partly time and energy constraints, partly because I was always told to stop playing cause it was too loud and Himself couldn’t hear the droning of the television, partly because I began to deaden myself emotionally to escape some painful experiences. And to me, music is equated with emotion. I can match the music to my mood or put on music to create a mood or compose music to express what I’m feeling. When I stopped feeling, I ruled out music. I’ve been back into my music lately, have even begun writing again and turning up the volume and singing my heart out or dancing around like an idiot. And damn, it feels good. I really think that things go in phases and reflect where you are in your life emotionally - which isn’t to say if you’re not currently interested in music, you’re not in a good place emotionally. That was just my personal experience. I think that sometimes you just find other things that fulfill the same emotional needs that music did/does.
And Ringo, I like both those bands, too. I actually like a lot of the current music. Have you checked out GooGoo Dolls, Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd? I don’t know if they’re completely current, but you might want to check them out.
A lot of bands seem to be going back to a more basic rock thing and are using more vocal harmonies. Although I still have to have Indigo Girls at full blast sometimes.
Govindha, consider yourself warned. Personal insults are not permitted outside The BBQ Pit.
Cajun Man ~ SDMB Moderator
… but for me to buy a CD these days, it’s gotta be exceptional. Case in point: I love Paul Simon’s Graceland and so I bought You’re The One which I thought sucked pretty bad.
I know it was because I was expecting another Simon masterpiece, and it was my own damn fault, but I’m done buying CD’s out of loyalty to the artist.
Thanks
Q
My interest in music grew strongly from high school through college. There are few things in life I value more.
P.S.
For the love of Bog - the word is lose, not loose.
As a musician, I would like to applaud the excellent posts by, Mama Tiger. Thanks, MT for bringing some great suggestions and really lucid insights into this thread.
Graceland rocks the house! My mom and I listened to it in the car today.
I love music. I listen to the radio all the time (thankfully, we have a station that plays all kinds of good stuff that isn’t on the top 40, but it might go off the air soon–proof that it was too good to be true), but I don’t buy CD’s of the music I hear on the radio.
Really, the only CD’s that I actually listen to all the way through are my Radiohead and Massive Attack CD’s. All my other ones usually just sit in my CD case–because they got played on the radio all the time.
I have some really great stuff on my mp3 player that I would have never heard of if it hadn’t been for the radio, MTV2, and my friends.
The good stuff is out there–the trick is just to listen to everything, and every once in a while you’ll hear something gorgeous.
Check out The Postal Service for some beautiful music–I heard their song “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” late one night while listening to the radio–it was like getting hit with a brick. It was amazing.
Hey, thanks for the recommendations Salem. I’m not familiar with them - I’ll give’em a listen.
Listening to music is just another hobby. And for me its come to the point where I’d really rather be doing something else. For instance thinking. I really enjoy thinking. It’s something much more active and engaging then the passive experience of listening to music, watching TV, reading a book or going to the movies. My participation in all of those, by the way, have gone way down in recent years. Not that I don’t ever listen to music, watch TV, read a book or go to the movies, it’s just that they all occur with a decreasing frequency as I age.
Mirror: My thanks as well! I am always looking for new music to fall in love with. I’ll check it out, for sure. To give you and Ringo some perspective as to what range of music appeals to me, I remember getting excited about every new album from… (ready?) The Goose Creek Symphony to Roger Whittaker.
But I was a friend to all the genres inbetween too: For example: Apache from The Sugar Hill Gang, anything by Kraftwerk and of course my beloved Harry Chapin
I know, I know. I’m just so frickin’ old! 
Q
Well, listening to music and reading books aren’t quite as passive as you might think. And for myself, I find I do my best thinking with music on–it gets things moving somehow.
Interest in music is a cyclical thing for lots of people. Exposure is some of it–you can get sick of anything and need a break. And sometimes your mind just needs the quiet, I think. It bothered me the first time it happened to me, but I’ve come to realize that either my tastes are changing or I just have a need for quiet for awhile, and I don’t sweat it. It does sound like the OP is going through one of those phases. I do agree with other posters that some widening of horizons would be a good idea, just on general principles–that list sounds pretty restricted.
Shapenote is difficult to listen to–recordings never seem to sound like actually being there and singing. Of course, once you’ve got a taste for singing it, the recordings become much easier to enjoy, and singing is always good.
Thanks, Zenster. My dad was a pianist, thought about going into a concert career (but fortunately he didn’t – he didn’t have the temperament for it, and then he developed Parkinson’s in his 50s so his career would have had to end early in any case). Plus he played in dance bands to pay his way through college. So I was raised to believe that music is an important part of human creative expression. Plus going to sleep with him playing Beethoven piano sonatas and such, an experience I recommend for everyone.
I do understand that everyone has different forms of creative expression, however. I have ZERO ability to appreciate most modern art. I look at it and it just looks like lumps or bumps or blobs of color to me. And yet I once was given a tour of a modern art museum by a guy who thought it was the most incredible stuff he’d ever seen in his life, and spent hours trying to explain to me what it was he got out of the art. I could understand that it had meaning for HIM, but it sure didn’t carry across to me. It still looked like lumps and bumps and blobs of color.
So if your creative expression is in art, or poetry, or nature, wonderful! Just enjoy the hell out of it!
But all that being said, I think a lot of young folks are cheating themselves when all they listen to is music from the last 10-15 years. It’s such a pale imitiation of the musical forms that gave rise to it. Rap is a poor, pale, thin imitation of the unbelievably complex and rhythmical African music. Rock is often a poor, pale, thin imitation of jazz or blues. Anyone who’s ever listened to the Bulgarian Women’s Chorus will never hear a group of voices singing together the same way again, after their centuries-old soul-stirring harmonies. I’m just saying to give things you’ve never tried a chance before you say all music has lost its appeal for you.
And like criminalcatalog says, the music you cannot believe you could ever live without hearing is out there waiting for you. But if you stop listening to music, how will you find it?
There is music for nearly every purpose. A few years ago I spent most of my time listening primarily to a hard rock station (KUFO, for those of you in Portland), and CD’s from the artists played on that station. Then I got tired of all the screaming, and moved to blues, Nick Cave, folk, and alt country and stayed there for a while. When I started grad school, I was spending a lot of time in front of the computer, and needed something that kept my thought processes going, without being too obtrusive, too repetitive, or too vapid. I started listening to Trash Can Sinatras, Sparklehorse, Spoon, Brendan Benson, Guster, Beulah, The Shins, and The Sea and Cake. Now I’m in a non-music listening office and it drives me batty at times. So most of my listening is either classical or some of the above artists on weekends, or something a little more driving in the car.
I probably would have lost interest in music as well, if I’d defined music only as the hard rock I started out with at the beginning of my little bio. There’s something available for every mood, and it’s worth the effort.
Of course something that I don’t think has been addressed in this thread is the OP’s annoyance with his sisters’ constantly loud music playing. I can see how any chance at silence would be a welcome respite. You may find once you have control over what you listen to that you’ll slowly want to listen again. Case in point: it took me a few years after moving out of the house before I wanted to listen to the Eagles, Beatles, or Bob Dylan again. I needed that break from my dad’s constant staples before they became enjoyable to me again.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Imitation or evolution? You have expressed an opinion, and you’re certainly entitled to it. But a whole lot of what gets described as rock is so much greater an evolution that draws to some degree on those earlier genres, but has expanded much more. While it’s been backwardly adapted, electronics brought rock a whole new plain that rock players explored early on.
I think some of what this thread is about is that some tire of shoveling through the shit before they find another nugget.