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What Happens To Our Musical Taste As We Age?
An anonymous reader writes: New research from Spotify and Echo Nest reveals that people start off listening to chart-topping pop music and branch off into all kinds of territory in their teens and early 20s, before their musical tastes start to calcify and become more rigid by their mid-30s. "Men, it turns out, give up popular music much more quickly than women. Men and women have similar musical listening tendencies through their teens, but men start shunning mainstream artists much sooner than women and to a greater degree."
As I sit here with "The Who" playing on my MP3 player.
Why do you need new bands? Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact.
but men start shunning mainstream artists much sooner than women and to a greater degree
That's cause we're much cooler than women.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
pop music is 'given up' because it targets a demographic of youth as a branding and marketing driver. Bieber sells the idea of manufactured sex appeal to young women, while angsty pop rock sells the idea of rebellion and individuality through consumption to boys. LMFAO and Pitbull are just clever branded advertising for premium alcoholic spirits and luxury apparel/vehicles. They set a standard outside of childhood that no self-respecting adult would entertain.
30somethings are a very difficult democraphic to market anything to. Pop themes like true love, freedom, rebellion, and partying fall on the deaf ears of millenials who've seen systemic police corruption and racism as a tool of an increasingly totalitarian state basically wipe the concepts out. Miley Cyrus' magical transformation into some glam rocker didnt shock us because we didnt grow up caring about the moral majority and conservative culture war dogma.
Good people go to bed earlier.
One day you'll learn, youngsters.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I realize this analysis is about "popular" music, so this may not entirely fit. But last year I listened to one of those Great Courses sets on "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music" and really changed what I've been listening to, which now includes quite a bit of concert music (baroque, classical, etc.) that I never really appreciated before. Am I an outlier that I'm picking up something new just as I turn 40, or does this not count because it's not pop music, and old fogies are supposed to drift into listening to this ancient stuff anyway?
I'd say I've also picked up a lot of new material recently because of Pandora, but I'll admit most of that is older music, where it's a genre/style I liked, but I somehow missed some of the artists from that era who are similar to ones I already liked.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Many if not all of my fellow musician friends actually stop being such fucking snobs as they mature and realize just how well conceived a lot of pop music is.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
My musical tastes soured because of all the corporate bullshit. Now it's indie YouTube videos for me. AdBlocker is my friend.
I didn’t RTFA, but I suspect the truth is more complicated than the summary. I was a child in the 60’s and didn’t pay attention to music back then. Somewhere in my 40’s I was like Whoa! Why wasn’t I paying attention to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin when it was on the radio??? I liked disco and still do. I liked New Age in the 80’s but now I’m like WTF was I thinking. Current music seems pretty good to me especially groups like Maroon 5 and OK Go. I even find my foot tapping to Katy Perry.
Different genres seem to have different peeks in different years to me. Funk was at its best in the 70s and 80s., Rap the late 80’s early 90’s. Blues and Jazz seems good in all eras. Hard Rock 60s and 70’s. Heavy Metal 80’s and 90’s. Techno from 90’s through today.
My dad on the other hand only liked Jazz and thought Rock was fad even in the 80’s and 90’s and opined several times that he thought its age was almost over (seems Rock has out lived my dad).
Letter To Iran
I think older music (including classical) benefits from a survivor bias: the bad stuff has been forgotten, leaving only the good stuff.
The same thing will happen to the music we knew as kids, and the music we hear from pop artists today.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
As far as Ariana is concerned, I just can't watch her for too long
Might I suggest listening to music instead of watching it? I think you're doing it wrong....
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Mixing Country and Rap will get you Crap.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
That's what is interesting about classical music though- unlike popular music often times the music does not become popular until the public is ready for it. Bach finished the Sonatas and Paritas for Violin in 1720 and the music was not actually published until 1802, long after his death. Even then it was not popularized until 50 years later.
If anything this is a testament to Bach's genius, discussed more in the book "Godel Escher and Bach" which I highly recommend.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Our tastes don't really calcify we just don't have any buttload of free time anymore to go exploring new music. So
we stick with what we do know and like. It doesn't help that pop music is an even bigger marketing behemoth than before.
And the length of the monthly pop music carrousel keeps shrinking.
Freddie Mercury. Harry Belafonte. Led Zeppelin. Highway Star. Cyndi Loper. Pumped Up Kicks. Tron & Switched-On Bach. The Sons of the Pioneers. Chip Tune. Paranoia. Jimmy Hendrix. The Bobs. The Grateful Dead. R.E.M. Moonlight Sonata. The Disney Electric Parade. The Final Fantasy VI soundtrack. Forever Young. The Hukilau Song. Over the Rainbow, and Make New Friends. Joy of Man's Desiring. Gnarles Barkley.
It seems like every year, I get into more music. I discover things that I never saw in older music (such as The Sons of the Pioneers), and I also like seeing things from my childhood revisited, like with Mesh. I have a hard time finding what I consider to be genuinely "new" music; I always have this sense that I am hearing a mutation or freshening of things that have come before.
I think it's something else altogether.
In your teens and early 20's you're partying hard with friends, getting laid, and making lots of good memories. The music playing at that time is the soundtrack to the happiest time of your life. Twenty plus years later and you're weighed down with a mortgage, several kids, a shit job, and an impending divorce. Now the music you hear is the soundtrack to a less wonderful part of your life.
When you're young, you can't help but be exposed to new music. You have no control of the turntable at parties, or when visiting friends. You are challenged more often and learn to enjoy it. As an adult you just press the skip button when something doesn't immediately please you.
TLDR: It's not the music, that's pretty much a constant, it's the memories you have when you were listening to that music.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Music virtually died in the late 90s, as far as I'm concerned. I was in my 30s. Nirvana is a lonely signpost on a desolate two-lane highway, leading into a rap desert.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'm in my late 30's (*sigh*) and my music tastes have only expanded. Thing is - they expanded into areas that still aren't the current "popular music." It's difficult to tell how that would be represented in this report.
Granted I'm likely an outlier of sorts but it's not clear that the methodology would consider me such.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
I don't think it's that either, at least not exclusively.
When we're young we have no frame of reference for life. We roll with whatever life throws at us because there's no preconceived notion of what life is. Even into early adulthood we're still learning what life entails, but by the time we reach our thirties we usually have enough notion of life that we start to seek to stabilize it.
I think that with music there's a distinct difference between what is good, what is popular, and what is both good and popular. When one looks at top-40 and top-100 lists from the past, one can see music that topped the charts when it was new that's not popular today right along with music that is still played. There's a lot of music that isn't played anymore that was popular; I'm sure the same will be said of music made today. We might well find that Taylor Swift becomes the next Linda Rhonstadt, almost completely disappearing from popular culture despite having made quite the splash for many years. By contrast, we might find Amy Winehouse being looked at as the next Janis Joplin twenty to thirty years from now.
Another side is the following of short term trends or fads versus following long term trends. If the buying public trends away from autotone and other heavy post-production techniques, there will be a decade of music that falls into a catergory similar to how 'eighties' defines a genre whose constituent parts don't necessarly otherwise have a lot in common. We may look back on this era's music and those who continue to listen to it with the same mirth as we look at fans of groups like KC and the Sunshine Band.
I still listen to new music. Some of it's good, some of it's crap. I also listen to older music that I didn't know about when it was new. Life would be kind of dull if I was stuck on bands from the late eighties and nineties; I can only take so much Hootie and the Blowfish.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I can't help but think there are many types of people on this survey, some will be rigid, others will always be dynamic. I personally listen almost exclusively to alternative rock stations, and while I like my favorites, I quickly tire of the repeat playlist on your Morning Zoo.
But most importantly, I follow the 5/10/85 rule. 5% of music is timeless brilliance, 10% is listenable yet disposable, and 85% is crap. Those percentages vary by genre.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
I'm in my 50s, but I can say that my tastes have not narrowed but certainly become more demanding. I want more complexity in my music, and a greater attention to detail. Maybe as the article points out its partially boredom from the "I've heard it all before", but I have some relatively recent albums that I enjoy just as much or more than my younger year classics. There is great musical talent out there and I like new stuff. There are many obscure albums from the past that the pop world completely missed, and it is fun to discover them.
It takes harder work to find what I like, and I don't have as much time to devote. I am lucky to see a live show more than a few a year, even though I keep vowing to do better.
I think it's something else altogether.
In your teens and early 20's you're partying hard with friends, getting laid, and making lots of good memories. The music playing at that time is the soundtrack to the happiest time of your life. Twenty plus years later and you're weighed down with a mortgage, several kids, a shit job, and an impending divorce. Now the music you hear is the soundtrack to a less wonderful part of your life.
When you're young, you can't help but be exposed to new music. You have no control of the turntable at parties, or when visiting friends. You are challenged more often and learn to enjoy it. As an adult you just press the skip button when something doesn't immediately please you.
TLDR: It's not the music, that's pretty much a constant, it's the memories you have when you were listening to that music.
Glad I'm in my 40's and I'm not weighed down by a mortgage, several kids, a shitty job and an impending divorce. I mean, seriously, what a fuck up way to look at life.
Be seeing you...
Does Classic and Rap give you the Clap?
Retail music stores have disappeared, MTV has faded into irrelevance, so how does anybody know what the "top charts" are anymore? In all seriousness, where does one find these? There are a million web sites all claiming to have authoritative lists. Also, with the recent availability of unlimited streaming, I have experienced an explosion in diversity of musical tastes in my mid-40s. I no longer have to take chances on albums or individual tunes I might not like -- I can listen to a hundred different artists in one day.
There are exactly two different kinds of music - good music and bad music. What makes music good or bad is left up to the individual - everybody has different opinions.
I'm 62, from a small town in Alabama, a child in the fifties, high school in the late sixties, college in the early seventies, and guess what? I like it all! From classical to the latest, there's good to be found (and a LOT of crap). There's even good and bad music from the same artist, e.g. Eric Clapton early was great, but kinda lame later.
I usually listen to music played randomly from my collection. You could hear an old bluegrass song followed by Nirvana followed by Bach followed by a gospel song followed by a Disney tune. The only thing all the songs have in common is that they're only the good ones.
On the road I listen to XM. The presets are Symphony Hall, Met opera, Lithium, Classic Rewind, Bluegrass Junction, and BB King's Bluesville.
Glad I'm in my 40's and I'm not weighed down by a mortgage, several kids, a shitty job and an impending divorce. I mean, seriously, what a fuck up way to look at life.
Like it or not, that's reality for lots of middle-aged people. How many people really, really love coming to the office day in, day out, and putting up with the same corporate BS? And at least 50% of marriages end in divorce, so it's not like that's unusual either.
When you get into your 30's you start to get a clue.
When you are a teenager you don't have said clue, and everything sounds just great.
One of the things you slowly realize as you grow older is that you're not really making any kind of a 'stand' by advocating some sort of music over some other sort.
Also, Sturgeons Law applies very much to music.
If anything this is a testament to Bach's genius,
Of course, you mean PDQ Bach.
Have gnu, will travel.