Zoe, all your posts are pure gold, did I ever tell you that?
msmith, if you’re at the age when you worry about what to listen to, the only advice possible is to listen to what you love. You have to find that out for yourself.
I dunno about that. Nearly 26,000 CDs were released last year (this article is fun). True there’s more bad music now than ever, but there’s simply more of everything. I think the noise/signal ratio is the same, it’s just that the sheer volume of music out there means it’s more difficult than ever to find the good stuff amongst the rubbish.
What’s with this strange idea you all seem to have that you ever, ever, ever had to?
EXACTLY!!!
I escaped that whole bullshit trap by thumbing my nose at what the “cool kids” listened to way back when I was 10 years old. I had the audacity to listen to Classical music. My parents listened to Classical and my mom was a singer and musician and their passion for the music rubbed off on me and my sisters. The nerve! The “cool” kids at school gave me all sorts of crap, and they never let up. They just pissed me off and made me determined to never let them dictate to me what I should like. So, I was out of the current/trendy musical loop then, I’m out of the loop now. I listen to whatever the hell I like (some of it quite oddball) and I don’t give a second thought about what I’m “supposed” to like.
I still enjoy music that I loved when I was age 14. (“The Wind and the Lion” film score by Jerry Goldsmith was my first musical purchase, and damn—it’s still good! I’ve got it in my iTunes playlist.)
Remember back at the dorm when everyone checked your music collection to make sure it was appropriately cool? That doesn’t happen so much after graduation. Never happens after 30. Don’t buy music you don’t like just to enhance your cool reputation.
The most liberating moment of the last couple years was when I stopped making a distinction between “cool” and “uncool” music. A live band was playing at some city’s Labor Day festival and took requests from the audience. Some guy with a really sarcastic inflection said “Jimmy Buffett!” The singer said, “Yeah, I know some Jimmy Buffett.” And he proceeded to sing “Come Monday.” He wound up looking much more dignified than the sarcastic jerk in the audience for it.
You want music that’s both contemporary and that has a low skeeve factor? I recommend Sheryl Crow. Follow it up with some KD Lang, Lyle Lovett and Diana Krall. For the same money, you can still get the best Ella Fitzgerald and David Bowie albums ever recorded.
Try some new stations on the car radio. College music isn’t where it’s at any more.
I’m 36 and I listen to pretty much whatever I want. I generally like music which is a little rough around the edges. Garage band type music. I like some bluegrass. I never thought I’d say that. I’ve been listening to the Ramones lately. I’ll listen to the weekly blues programs that the local campus radio station and the public radio station play.
The best part about being over thirty is you don’t care what anyone thinks about what you like anymore.
The worst part is that there’s no pat answer to “what kind of music do you like?” If you really want to know, we’ll practically have to take songs on a case by case basis.
Of course, I agree with most posters above - listen to whatever you want to. The fact that a person is a little older and more comfortable with themselves should broaden their horizons. I listen to everything I can - rock, hip hop, jazz, classical, world beat, blues, country - whatever’s good is good enough for me.
I guess I would twist this question a little - it is more a meditation on how your tastes evolve when you get older and how you can stay up on new music - not just Top 40, but all new music - when you have more responsibilities?
I agree with the Simpson quote - the best music is whatever was on the radio when you you 17 - however, I would modify it to be “whatever you heard and got passionate about when you were 17” That seems to anchor us. The question is whether you will allow your tastes to broaden, like I describe above.
As for staying current - well, it all depends on how big a priority music is to you and what you are willing to do to stay current. There have been numerous threads about this - it is hard and some folks just don’t have the time or priority to do it…
I listen to what I like. My tastes have certainly changed, though much of it is a rediscovery of the things I disliked as a teenager since it wasn’t rockenroll. For instance:
[li]Older musicI’m very impressed by the great American popular composer of the 30s like Gershwin, Porter (though I liked him a lot as a 20-year-old), Warren, Kern, etc.[/li][li]Classical music. Used to listen to it, but now I’m listening enough to be able to identify more of the pieces. [/li][li]**Broadway.**Loved it as a kid, but came back to it recently, especially the stuff before the Sondheim/Lloyd Weber crap.[/li][/list]
My problem with most popular music today isn’t that it’s crap. It’s that I’ve heard it all before.
I’m 37 and think the new Green Day rocks. Give it a listen.
Anyway, like all the other posters, listen to what you wanna listen too but try to remain open to new stuff. I got XM Radio so I’d have an opportunity to hear new music and still read CMJ for the new music reviews.
I couldn’t afford to buy any kind of music when I was young. We had a family stereo, but we bought very few albums because we were so broke. I was 29 before I had a permanent job and could afford to buy any such thing. I was 34 before I got around to buying a stereo. The idea that I was only supposed to buy the current “cool” thing never even occurred to me. Not when I was a kid (and couldn’t afford it anyway) and not now.
Well, I, for one, celebrate Michael Bolton’s entire collection.
/kidding
Seriously, though, I burned a CD the other day comprised of tunes from “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” and I have to say, I missed some of those tunes.
Green Day’s and Jimmy Eat World’s new discs have been enjoying heavy rotation in my player, too.
The Format. The Format. The Format. If you’re not listening to these guys, start. NOW.
I’m not going to blame The Format for their promotional prose, but whenever I hear “Beatlesque” I know that the actual music will be fifth rate derivatives with no real hooks or melodies. As this is.
The problem, as RealityChuck says, is that much of modern “rock” does sound like inferior versions of the good stuff. There’s some distinctive music, like hip-hop or electronica (not that they’re new anymore), but the mainstream is eating its own tail.
As for “cool,” I’ve read too many threads even here in which people diss anyone who doesn’t like the latest, hippest, and especially most obscure bands. It’s true sometimes that good music reaches only a cult audience and that bland music can top the charts, but I’m of the opinion that the best music will also be widely popular music. This has been true throughout music history, in all genres, and there is no conceptual reason why it shouldn’t be true today. Even in the early 70s, when the Top 40 charts were loaded with songs so bad that they can’t even be revived as nostalgia acts, FM radio sprang up with the alternatives that have come to define what great rock music is all about, and which became so popular that they destroyed Top 40 radio in the process.
If that is not happening today, then it’s the fault of the music makers. Not the radio stations or the record companies or The Man for not allowing pirates to freely operate. We’re repeatedly seen great, catchy, original songs cut through to multiple demographics because everyone is hungry for great music. There just isn’t enough of it, and the few who do it once can’t seem to repeat.
Somebody good and new and different will come along and change this, I hope and trust. And when that somebody does, everybody will know it because the music won’t be as derivative and forgettable as The Format.
You know, when I was a kid and I’d hear my parents listening to that easy music crap, I thought something chemical happened in your brain when you hit 30. Click–you’re no longer cool and you have bad taste in music.
As I’ve grown older, I realize that my parents just, well, have bad taste in music.
As a young child I listened to old-time country, because that’s what I heard at home. I enjoyed it, too, until my 11-yr-old self believed my friends when they said I was dorky. So then I started listening to disco, which was popular at the time. (I was still dorky, but that’s another story). At that point, I began listening to what was popular with my friends.
When I turned 16, my uncle sent me a tape players and a boxful of tapes. He’d thoughtfully taped his entire Beatles collection and felt it was time to introduce me to the Beatles. I listened to virtually nothing else until I turned 17 1/2.
I then went through a phase of listening to oldies rock (c. 50s & 60s). Shortly thereafter I discovered Broadway music and loved it. Then I discovered older oldies (c. 40s & 50s) and fell in love with it. I loved old torch songs.
I meandered through jazz, bop, new country (probably one of my least favorite genres, but there are artists/songs I enjoy), classical, world music. My CD collection has a variety of genres represented, with the noticeable exceptions of rap/hiphop (something that, try as I might, I’ve never enjoyed overmuch).
Right now I’m binging on French pop. I’ve discovered Enzo Enzo, Serge Gainsbourg, Les Nubians, Paris Combo, Les Sans Culottes, etc. So I listen to that a lot.
My Rhapsody artists lists includes Alanis Morissette, Andy Williams, Barry Manilow, Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Charley Pride, Chris Isaak, Christina Aguilera, Chumbawumba, Cyndi Lauper, Dave Rudolf, David & Steve Gordon, David Bowie, Dean Martin, Devo, Dolly Parton, Ella Fitzgerald, George Gershwin, George Jones, George Strait, Hank Williams Sr., Harry Connick Jr., Helena, Johnny Cash, Johnny Mathis, Katrina and the Waves, Les Nubians, Les Sans Culottes, Lisa Loeb, Loretta Lynn, Manhattan Transfer, Medieval Baebes, Paris Combo, Patsy Cline, Peter Paul and Mary, Poe, REM, Randy Travis, Raquel Bitton, Roy Acuff, Serge Gainsbourg, Stan Getz . . . . The list is longer than this, but this is all I feel like typing.
Do you think I’m dorky? Maybe. What matters is that I’m listening to music I enjoy, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. And I hope that you will listen to whatever you enjoy without any worries!
Wilco
Why y’all trying to act like a bunch of open-minded college kids? Just accept the fact that you’re thirty, flip up the collar on the polo shirt, crank up the Hootie on the minivan stereo, cruise on over to the local pro shop, and celebrate the fact that you’re a 30+ schmuck with horrible taste in music!!!
At the last Dylan concert I went to, hardly anyone except my daughter was under 30. I’ve expanded into Beethoven, hampered by my tin ear. Robert Johnson is also good. I find I hear more nuances even in some of the old stuff I used to listen to in college.
But don’t knock everyone under 30. We gave two tickets to a series at the Chicago Opera to our daughter in college, and she had a waiting list of people from her dorm who wanted to go with her. She also discovered that having memorized Subterranean Homesick Blues from constant repetition got her brownie points. And I discovered that when I was away and my 18 year old was using my car she and her boyfriend obsessively played my copy of Tubular Bells - so there is hope for youth. 
Go here. Listen well. You will find new music you like.
Not all of it will be new. And you won’t like all of it. But some of it will be new and appealing.
This station is about the only place left on the airwaves where I can still listen to discover new music worth purchasing.
Artists I’ve discovered here:
Zero-7
Macy Gray (more than a year before she won her first Grammy)
Pink Martini
Tuck and Patti
Groove Armada
And if there’s a new album coming out by an old artist like Sting or Rickie Lee Jones or (hypothetically) Chicago… this is about the only place in LA you’ll hear about it.
Ok first of all, the flipped up polo shirt seems to be back in style. Second of all, Hootie sucked when I was 21 and I have no reason to believe that has changed in the past 12 years.
I’ll have to check out the new Green Day album.
Based on what I know of the underground, I gotta disagree with that. There’s a lot of good, popular music, but anything that’s remotely challenging or inaccessible just won’t break through. There’s a reason that you only hear so many classical pieces–there’s other good stuff out there, but a lot of it requires you to really listen to appreciate it, and that just doesn’t take off.
And things are different today. In the early 90s, when Nirvana reshaped popular music, there wasn’t really much variety in popular music; just the dregs of hair metal, maybe the new wave, and the ever-present soft rock. Compare that with what’s out there today: there’s nu metal, alt rock, pop punk, hip-hop, techno, soft rock, synthpop, and tons of other stuff. The public fanbase is just too fractured for any one act to come along and change the scene overnight now.