Outgrowing music... is it bound to happen?

Cafe Society
21
  1. But I definitely don’t fit any particular mold and can only speak for myself.
    Grew up listening to what my 8, 10 and 11 years older siblings listened to.
    Beatles, Zep, Doors et al. But also Mancini, Sinatra, Alpert from my folks.
    Loved all this music but ate up the new styles that came along: Reggae, New Wave, Punk.

And I continue to seek out the newest stuff, and am quite bored now with classic rock. I acknowledge that incredible music was produced in the 60s and 70s. Even some in the 80s. But I’ve heard Stairway and Highway and other “classics” ad nauseum. It has been interesting watching my kids discover what I grew up with and I guess maybe now take for granted. And as far as what’s new we have the same tastes. Now I’m loving Snow Patrol and Interpol and Franz. My band plays mostly originals but happy to say we cover some of these.

I do see most people my age “settling down” into easy listening but what will always be natural for me is staying current. So don’t be surprised if this future 50 year old grandpa is out there rocking right beside ya.

22

I’m 59, and can honestly say that I’ve never “outgrown” any music I’ve ever enjoyed; but I’m constantly finding new music I didn’t know about before. I hope the same happens to you.

23

Spot on. I’m 42 now; when I was 23, I could easily have been one of the guys working in the record store in High Fidelity – hell, most of my senior year of high school was spent hanging out and talking music with the owner of the only decent record store within a hundred miles of my hometown. I had an enormous collection of import picture-sleeve singles, and could and did hold forth authoritatively on the differences between American and British releases of albums by a huge number of artists. I did four years of college radio, every Friday night from 11:30 until whenever I decided to turn off the transmitter – “The Only Show That Matters”. Live shows at every venue in Atlanta in the late 80s. By the time I was Lou’s age, I had a room full of vinyl – thousands of LPs and hundreds of singles, culled from cutout bins and special-ordered from mail-order houses all over the world.

It was about that time that I stopped spending quite so much time and energy on music, and started investing more of myself in my career, my relationship with my girlfriend (now wife), etc. I also stopped enjoying live shows quite so much – didn’t help that my wife’s musical tastes pretty much begin and end with Broadway musicals and Barry Manilow, so music wasn’t something we shared. Once I got married, and the kids started coming, I just had less and less time and energy to invest in keeping up with what was going on in music. Throughout my 30s, I occasionally found something new that interested me – Teenage Fanclub, The Beautiful South, Neko Case, Fountains of Wayne – but I pretty much quit listening to radio or going to live music shows. Most popular music that seeped through to me pretty much seemed to be as bad as most popular music always had been, and I just didn’t make the effort to find new stuff anymore. While my musical tastes broadened some, it was mostly in the direction of old jazz.

Basically, when I was younger, I didn’t have a whole lot of other things to occupy my attention, and I invested much of my mental energy in music. After other things came along that were important to me, I invested that energy in them instead. I still enjoy listening to the stuff I’ve always listened to, and to the occasional new stuff that comes to my attention, but I just don’t have the time or energy to seek it out.

24

Voodoo, you’ve seen a sizeable chunk of my music collection and I’ve got 5 years on you. There’s a few of us out here.

25

At 45 and with a second job and a family to support, I have to rely on the library and mp3 downloads (legal), plus fall back on my CD collection.

So from my old coot perspective, it’s clear to me that if you’ve got the taste for music, you’ll retain it, so long as you’re in the right space to enjoy it. What changes may be your interests.

Because I hate listening to rock radio (in Harrisburg, Pa., there’s a station that offers "rock music … without the hard edge. :rolleyes: ), I turn to the library, so at least I can give a listen to the Strokes, Tori Amos, the new Brian Wilson “Smile” and an (albiet limited) selection.

But I’ve been using the opportunity to get into the best of the older stuff, like Louis Armstrong, Coltrane, Monk, the Elvis box sets, Dylan, Mahler and Bach (Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould and Murray Perahia).

And I have a use for “wallpaper music” as well; it’s perfect material to write too. There’s nothing like writing a murder mystery to the “Murder, Inc.” soundtrack.

And, yes, Celine Dion can make me cry.

26

I agree with much of what ultrafilter said.

Also, note that the car commercial is trying to portray the old standby of marketing of “youthful rebellion versus status quo” or whatever you want to call it. So the kid accidentally blasts loud, angry music and the old squares are offended. Therefore if you are young, you are supposed to feel like that young guy represents you – you are not the old square who can’t handle rock and roll/rebellion/innovation.

Plus there’s that generation gap. One of the falsities of that ad campaign is presuming that the old squares are too old to have even listened to rock and roll back in the 50s or 60s, can’t handle guitars, and assumes that all older people only listen to Celine Dion and Josh Groban.

For some people, music just doesn’t mean as much to them as others. I once knew a guy who wasn’t into any kind of music at all (which is a completely alien concept to me)!

You might get older, and your tastes either narrow in focus, or you might become less of a music snob and be willing to listen to more different styles because you accept that other music doesn’t carry any “weight” for you, so it doesn’t matter if it’s background music.

For me personally, I don’t listen to nearly as much angry music now as I did years back. But even when I grow old I will not suddenly become square, nor will I embrace treacly garbage like Dion and Groban.

27

I’m a 40-year-old music fiend. What I’ve discovered as I get older is that the music of my parents - swing, blues, jazz, early rock and roll - is starting to appeal to me more than the newer stuff coming out. My musical taste is still expanding, only it’s going backward in time. Music for me used to be pretty much, “It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it, so I’ll give it a ten.” Now I’m more interested in the stories behind the songs, the history, the influences and the craftsmanship.

On the other hand, I have a teenage daughter and while I’ve been turning her on to Queen and Bowie, she’s been turning me on to Bowling For Soup and Dashboard Confessional.

28

I’m not sure I agree with this. There’s plenty of styles that developed in the 90s that have no obvious 80s equivalent. What was, say, Massive Attack’s equivalent in that decade? Or Daft Punk’s? Or the Artful Dodger?

I mean, off the top of my head, I can think of the following styles that developed in the 90s: Jungle (aka drum and bass), trance, trip hop, microhouse, big beat, drill ‘n’ bass (a term I don’t like, but it describes bands like Aphex Twin), grunge (yet another term I dislike, but I can’t think of any 80s band that sounded like Soundgarden or Alice in Chains), etc… What band sounded like Xiu Xiu in the 80s? Or, to be less obscure, who sounded like Rage Against the Machine? or Tool?

Although, I must say that most of the innovation I hear seems to come in the electronic/dance genres.

Music is constantly growing and evolving, and I don’t think there will be any groundbreaking genre like rap anytime soon. Rock exploded in the 50s, Rap in the 80s; I think it’ll be awhile before we ever see anything that revolutionary again.

As to the OP, I’m almost 30, and I find myself discovering music even more than I did during college, especially since access to obscure stuff has become so much easier with the internet. While I’m out exploring long lost classics I’ve missed out on–such as Pere Ubu and X-Ray Spex and Wire–I’m also trying to keep abreast of the latest developments. I listen to WOXY, KEXP, and WNUR to keep up with the new stuff.

There’s plenty of exciting stuff out there; I don’t ever want to turn into one of those people who thinks all the good music has already been done, and that all the good ideas are behind us. They’re not, but it takes effort and digging to find the good music.

29

40 years old, and I still listen to and enjoy lots of new and old music and I go out to see live shows very frequently.
The one thing is I will say about aging while maintaining a musical appreciation is that your tolerance for “Average” becomes smaller and smaller. Back in the day, I used to like pretty much all the Punk bands I saw… they were a novelty… they were “my” music… I was really drunk/high. Now, although I still go to those shows from time to time… I have seen that “Mediocre Punk Band” hundreds of times now, and I realize that they aren’t really doing anything special. At best they bore me, at worst they annoy me.
Now, when I use the word “mediocre” or “average”, keep in mind… most of everything sucks (musicwise). There are only a few Artists and Innnovators and People with Vision and Talent… and then a lot of bandwagon jumpers (ex. Mudhoney vs. Stone Temple Pilots). The shit to good ratio varies per genre (and personal taste), but the shit will always outweigh the good. Over the years, I have found that I am listening to a larger variety of music… I no longer just like one or two genres. I’m not an angry young man anymore (well, not young anyway). But I think if the 27 year old me looked through my music collection, he’d be happy to see The Damned, Mötorhead, The Rezillos, and The Minutemen still residing there… he would probably be somewhat disconcerted to see the Nina Simone, Johnny Cash, Wanda Jackson and NWA… and would have never heard of Arcade Fire, The Dirtbombs, Johnny Dowd and Neko Case. He would be happy to see no easy listening or ambient soundscapes or smooth jazz, though.
Hell, I could have taken him with me to see Gang of Four last week… we both would have enjoyed it.

30

Considering Soundgarden got together in 1984, I’d have to say that Soundgarden sounded like themselves in the 80s. Nirvana and Mudhoney and other grungers had albums out before the end of the 80s, and even then they weren’t breaking new ground (they looked to Neil Young as inspiration for cryin’ out loud…). Maybe some of this music hit the major label lbum sales charts in the early 90s, but the Maximum Rock’n’Roll reviews were clogged with it before the end of the 80s. I’d suggest just listening to The Pretty Things’ 1967 track “Old Man Going” all by itself and you’ll realize how little new there is under the sun. You could stick that on a new Metallica album and no one would blink (well, maybe… the prettier bits have vocals that are too good…)

Similarly there was rap and hip-hop even before the 70s ended. Rock’n’roll in the 50s sense was certainly around (as “race music”) before the 1940s ended. There’s even a great French compilation of (African-)American music titled Rock’n’Roll 1947 . It’s pretty hard to draw a rock’n’roll/r’n’b hard and fast line.

There were plenty of people playing with drum machines and tape loops in the 80s… entirely too many in retrospect. You could easily choke a horse with minor label “post-punk” stuff that had the same working assumptions as a band like Massive Attack. It just wasn’t on the big labels and didn’t chart.

We’ve been suffering under the weight of electronic dance music for decades now, I don’t think that microgenre cul de sacs like “trip hop” and “bass’n’drum” are innovation in the way that, say, “jazz” or “rock” is.

31

BBC radio has a long running show Desert Island Discs where a celebrity gets to chose the ten pieces of music they would take with them if abandoned on said desert island.

Usually after the first choice (sometimes before) you can tell if this week’s guest is a ‘music person’. Some people will chose pieces that move them or had a big influence on them*****. Others just pick things that were hits when they were young or remind them of their honeymoon.

I’m not sure how this answers the OP but I would guess that a music person (Hi Lou would still be listening to the John Peel****** show past retirement age. Non music-folk will settle for the ‘nice’ stuff in the charts.
***** musicians always, and they have everyone from opera singers to rockers, but some politicians (for instance) have surprising passion for music.

****** If that was still possible :frowning:

32

I never bought Neil Young as the “godfather of grunge”. I always felt that he glommed onto the hip new scene and they felt obliged to pay their respect. Before he came along, whenever a “grunge” band would discuss their influences, the name Neil Young never seemed to come up.

33

Along a similar vein and nothing against the quality or otherwise of new musicians but as you grow older your concerns change. Teen angst, rebellion, first love etc etc (to broadly stereotype) just don’t have the same resonance although you can get nostalgic echoes listening to your own old stuff, even if it is Elton John.

Like many here I’ve ended up going back into the roots - appreciating stuff I just didn’t know about, didn’t get or was too snobbish to give a chance to when I was 18-23. (I’m 49 now).

Until his last album what I loved about Springsteen (I’m sorry I just can’t get worked up about the plight of Mexican immigrants enough to emotionally invest, not being from the USA) was his life concerns mirrored mine. Tunnel of Love is one of my favourite albums - addressing broken dreams, lost opportunities, regrets - all the concerns of middle age.

New bands aren’t speaking to me and there is no reason why they should. They probably can’t, given their age any more than I (as a would-be writer), Dylan or Springsteen can really feel that gut fire of youth in a new and exciting/frightening world.

34

Heh. I’m 42, and I still rock pretty hard (see my sig). I don’t go out so much anymore, but I do probably once a month, in addition to playing a few gigs a year. Indeed, I have kept up pretty well, though much of today’s music seems to be pale imitations of earlier music, which happened to be music I grew up with, somewhat; i.e. it’s weird to see Green Day when I grew up on the Buzzcocks, Jam, Clash, etc.

Instead of mellowing with age, the music I like is still pretty hard/wild/etc. Whether that’s keeping up as opposed to jumping on some acid lounge bandwagon or somesuch. Much popular music is definitely aimed at younger folks, as it probably should be, but now instead of grownups liking fuddy-duddy music, it’s rock n roll (the new fuddy-duddy music).

35

“Old Man Going” is your proof of “there’s nothing new under the sun?” Sure, it’s a good song and ahead of its time, but the clips that I’ve heard sound like psychedelic rock meets The Who.

If you’re looking for a new genre like “jazz” or “rock” or “rap,” you’re not going to see it anytime soon, as I’ve said. Besides, it takes time for these things to explode from the underground and even be noticed.

I’m not exactly sure what you’re looking for in music, but when it comes to innovation, I really don’t see a lack of it as you do. I don’t think any of the bands I’ve mentioned are copycats at all of 80s. (OK, fine with Soundgarden. There first album wasn’t until '88, and I don’t believe their sound gelled as such until at least 1992.) Similarly, take a band like The Smashing Pumpkins? Any 80s soundalikes? I can’t think of any.

I’m not sure what you’re looking for in music. Revolutionary change? I would argue that electronica’s influence on music in the 90s and 00s qualifies. Yes, there may have been people experimenting with music concrete, bleeps and blips, tape manipulation, and crap like that since the freakin 30s (let’s see Stockhausen, Brian Eno, etc), but it doesn’t mean that electronica as a cohesive genre existed then the way it does today. Its influence now is profound. You just don’t have music like Autechre, Aphex Twin, and Pole in the 80s. You might have electronica of some sort, but it’s substantially different (in my opinion) in terms of structure and influence on pop culture.

As for the underground, I don’t really know what’s going on in the true underground. It won’t be until ten to fifteen years from now, when a truly new genre does emerge, that we’ll realize the nasience of that style was quitely taking place in the 90s and 00s. That’s how it always goes.

36

I’m 23 and I’ve already done that - I outgrew Aerosmith six or eight years ago. I don’t listen to much alternative anymore, although I have a lot of respect for the stuff that’s held up. I sure don’t listen to Janet Jackson anymore, she was the first concert I saw. I’ve seen Metallica twice, not that I was ever a big metalhead, but that’s not going to happen again. Don’t really listen to punk anymore - although the only group I was really into was the Dead Kennedys, and I liked the music instead of the scene and the phony attitude and clothing, so I didn’t have any chance of making it as a suburban teenage punk anyway.

Music often comes to represent a specific period of your life: the way you felt, the way you looked at the world, and so on. Sometimes you can outgrow that and find it still sounds good, but that you don’t connect to it the same way anymore. That seems pretty natural to me. There are groups and artists I can see myself listening to for the rest of my life, but there are only so many musicians who are that good.

37

I absolutely agree with this. And the influence of electronic music has become all-pervasive - try listening to Britney or Eminem, and imagine stripping the music of anything that’s crossed over from electronica.

38

My $.02 as a 42-year-old music nut with wide-ranging tastes and a mid-life-crisis rock band:

There is a spectrum that describes people’s relationship with music:

  • at one end is the person for whom Music Doesn’t Matter. They have a limited basis for how to judge music and it doesn’t really occupy their thoughts.

  • in the middle is the people for whom Music Once Mattered. They went through a period, usually teens through early 20’s, where a genre or specific band occupied their thoughts. They still keep an eye out for that music, but don’t invest any more time than that. Very rarely, some artist they didn’t know about may reach them, but just as likely, they can drift into thinking that Celine Dion really isn’t all that bad.

  • at the other end is people for whom Music Matters. These folks may have limited time as they grow older to devote to this passion, but it is still a passion. Also, they may, as previous posters relate, have shed some earlier prejudices and be more open to a wider variety of music.

With this spectrum in mind - a few observations:

  • by far, the majority of the population falls in the spectrum somewhere between Music Doesn’t Matter to Music Once Mattered. Certainly over 85% of the population.

  • almost all publicized music - produced on big labels and getting advertised in mainstream media - is trying to appeal to the Music Once Mattered group - in other words, current teenagers. That is how it has been in the modern era - so no surprise.

  • almost all popular music is not the music that will endure from this era. Go back and look at a Billboard Top 10 or 20 from a decade or three ago. How often is more than 1 or 2 slots filled with a song/album/act that, in hindsight, we think of as a quality, enduring act? How many people really listened to the Velvet Underground? The Ramones? Heck - not a single Ramones album sold well - I just watched their documentary End of the Century. Sure, the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and others achieved commercial and critical acclaim, but it is rarer than you might think…

So BBVLou - I think what you are finding is that, in your professional world, you are being forced to interact with people that you might not choose to interact with in your non-work world. And the majority of these folks are folks for whom Music Doesn’t Matter or Music Once Mattered. These are also folks that are different from you in a lot of other ways, too. Dealing with this type of person is part of what makes work a grind - you don’t have as much choice about who you deal with at work in most cases…

Over time, you just learn to let their musical cluelessness wash over you and you stick with what works for you. Every now and then I run into someone who truly loves music in a work setting and we have good conversations. Otherwise, most folks tend to look at me and say “yep, there he is, the music nut.” But since I happen to be the boss, it is no big deal… :slight_smile:

39

The main thing for me is that I’m not in college anymore. I was in college and grad school from 1990 until 2000. I knew a ton of guys into tons of music.

Nowadays, I’ll get the occasional Adult. Contemp. album if I hear a single I like (e.g. Macy Gray, Norah Jones).

I get music from new incarnations of what I used to listen to (Audioslave, Velvet Revolver).

Same things I’ve always listened to if I think they’re still putting out good stuff (Beck, U2, Dwight Yoakum, Lucinda Williams).

I don’t buy nearly as much, or listen to as much, so I guess I’m not concerned that I’ve limited my search. The days of a guy coming by the room with a 24-7 Spyz or a Primus for the first time in your life going, “you gotta listen to this” are over for me.

I try to read the occasional review in the Baltimore alternative weekly rag. . .which is, for instance, where I heard about Ray Wylie Hubbard.

And, there’s a Rock station in Baltimore that exposes me to enough new stuff to keeps my happy. I know most of you probably think this stuff is crap, but I’ve gotten into a few songs by Nickelback, Creed, 3 Doors Down, Shinedown.

40

In 1984, metal was definitely a subgenre of rock, but in 1987, there were metal bands that were definitely not rock bands (Napalm Death, Slayer, Bathory, etc.). Hardcore punk had even earlier acts that you’d be hard-pressed to consider rock bands (D.R.I., Minor Threat, etc.).

Lacrimosa (at least the later albums), Virgin Black, Opeth, Isis, Arcturus, and Solefald all come to mind. Or did you only mean popular music? If so you, you should’ve been more specific.

I definitely agree that music changes slowly, but if you’re denying that there’s been any significant change in the past 15 years, it just shows that you haven’t been listening.