Third time I’m trying this. The first thread was an accident, and the second I screwed up on the poll.
Oh, if you see this OP without a poll it means that the OP got posted while I’m still working on my poll options. Please wait till there are poll options, or, if you wouldn’t mind, post your answer, then come back and vote. Thank you.
It seems the older people get, the less likely they are to keep up with current music. I’m 36 and I do a fairly good job keeping up with rock, and plan to for a long time. I listen to other genres, but don’t really keep up with them. I’ve also gone through a couple of, “Music sucks now, they don’t make it like they use to,” phases but changed my mind after hearing a lot of good new songs.
Strange…it posted even though I’m still working on the poll options. OK, I checked “Allow multiple choice: Give users the ability to select more than one answer” checkbox just like I did in the other poll. If this poll only shows radio buttons, then I give up.
Let me put it this way, I recently looked at the top 40 at recognized only a few artist names, and zero song titles.
I’m 20.
As far as things like genres I actually like, not really. I don’t “keep up with music.” If I hear something I like, I get it, regardless of whether it’s from 1942 or 2002. I don’t look for new albums and such, with maybe one exception regarding a band that I know is young and still very active.
Dude only when my ten yr old runs the radio in the vehicle. I swallow hard and try not to sound like my dad. I was teasing my son that every rap song today mentions going to the club. gettin some love… and riding on some 20’s and counting money. He told me to leave him alone i was ruining it. I told him do you think twenty years from now anyone will be singing… " call me Mr Flintstone… I can make your bedrock" ?
I do now way more than I did 15 years ago when I was a teenager, or even 10 years ago in my early 20s.
Not that I actively look for ‘new music’, but I don’t filter my listening nearly as much and when I hear something new I like, I seek out more by the artist.
Back then, most of what I listened to was made before I was born, and the rest was mostly from the 80s. Now, I’m actually listening to a few artists who are still producing new stuff. (Plus stuff from before I was born through the 80s.)
Yes, with a caveat: I don’t listen to popular music. I prefer the stuff they play on college radio, and I try to keep up with that. This is ‘rock’, and also ‘other’. 35-49 demographic.
I fall into your 35-49 demographic, and I keep up with (or try to anyway) current music in a couple of genres, but mostly I am interested in punk rock and metal. I maintain subscriptions to a couple of magazines and prolly spend something close to $100 on music per month. I buy both used and new (shoutout to Zia Record Exchange).
Music has always been a huge part of my life. I listen to it nearly every waking moment, I play several instruments (ok, I own them and can make noises with them). I have written and recorded over 90 songs in the last 10 years. I have a fairly extensive CD collection; I think I’m just over 3000 now. I also have about 50 music DVDs, both videos and live concerts. I worked as a DJ at 2 radio stations while I was a college student (country station on Sunday mornings and early afternoon, rock station Saturday & Sunday afternoons). I used to be a FOH audio guy, although I did monitor mixing on occasion as well.
And, I just started writing a blog about what I listen to. There’s a link down there in my signature.
For a lot of reasons, music is one of the most important things in the world to me, so naturally I am always seeking out more more more.
I’m 44. Generally speaking, I feel that I don’t keep up with popular music much anymore (and probably haven’t for at least 15 years).
I do subscribe to a couple of music magazines, and I’m probably more aware of newer acts and new releases now than I have been for a long while…but, even so, there aren’t many new acts for which I really care.
43, and I try to keep up somewhat. There are two things that help in this regard. The first is Pandora, and the second is a Rhapsody music subscription. Pandora helps me discover new music, and Rhapsody lets me download the music I do like for a reasonable cost. For example, I probably wouldn’t pay $15 for a Lady Gaga CD, or even $10 or so for the mp3s, but since I can download it for the price of the subscription, I do, and I must say I’m glad I do. Some of the new music is really rather good, but I just can’t invest thousands of dollars in music like I did when I was younger.
A distant third reason (though still technology related) is my Squeezebox boom - it makes accessing Pandora a breeze.
If the music business was similar to what it was when I was in college (i.e, listening to radio and buying CDs), then I would be a curmudgeon, but it has changed for the better, at least for me.
As far as giving a damn about what may, or may not, be on the top 40 list - I haven’t bothered since the late 60s (currently 57) Shunned top 40 radio altogether in favor of album rock stations in the early 70s and never looked back. Most of my listening over the past 30 years has focused more in the jazz, blues, acoustic & bluegrass spectrum and since moving to SE TX a few years ago salsa, tejano & zydeco have crept into the mix as well.
I’ve always kept up with current music but I’d say I especially have in recent years as I have much more access to new bands through the internet. I’m 34, and 5 years ago I would have said the best music was made in the 90s, but now I’d say over 90% of my all time favorite songs have been released between 2005 and 2010. But that could just be because I have access to so many more songs now that I did 10 or 20 years ago.
I try to listen to at least one brand new album per day, but working in an office makes it easy as I’m used to having my headphones on most of the day. I’m completely serious when I say I’m starting to get sick of all the 2010 albums I have already and am really looking forward to what music March brings. I’ve only heard about 5 or 6 good albums this year anyway.
I’m 27 and I checked “no” on the box. I do try to buy anything new by John Adams eventually and I listen to some contemporary classical music, but I really don’t try to keep up with anything.
In my teens I listened mostly to rock music from the 60’s and 70’s (favorite bands were The Beatles, The Who, Pink Floyd and Genesis). As I got older I started branching out into 80’s rock and the like and also began listening to more and more Brazilian music, bossa nova mostly, and some classical. Nowadays I go to the symphony often and almost never put on a rock or pop record if it isn’t for the benefit or other people - of my old favorite bands the only one I still listen to with any regularity is The Beatles. Lately I’ve been getting into jazz in a big way, but I mostly listen to stuff from the 50’s and 60’s (unfortunately, where I live it is very hard to get a chance to listen to live jazz).
The only band I ever really liked that was new was The White Stripes and they mostly played variations on 70’s rock in the 2 albums by them that I did like a lot. (Get Thee Behind Me Satan was good but not great and I didn’t care much for their first two albums, never listened to the last one). I’ve disliked most hip hop I’ve heard, though Michael Franti was good, hate most country, can’t stand most electronic music and find folk music boring.
I find that I am a more tolerant listener now than I was when I was younger and that seems to be a constant trend. Music I thought “bad” used to really bother me, now I’m just bored when it plays. I listen to a greater variety of music and seek more new stuff than I used, it’s just that the stuff that I like, although new to me, tends to be a few decades or centuries old in most cases.
I sorta keep up by way of radio, online streaming, YouTube and a rarer than it used to be CD or DVD purchase. My tastes have stretched out a bit in my later years. Now I listen to oldies (40’s 50’s) “pop” (old standards and Top 40) just for the nostalgia. Main interest is mainstream or “straight ahead” Jazz.