I have some friends my age still listening to the same bands they used to 20 years ago, complaining about how music today sounds all the same. However I discover something new almost every day and I’m not kidding.
It’s true that some of my discoveries are bands from decades before I was born, so they can’t be considered new, although they are new to me if that makes sense.
What about you? Still listening to the same tunes you used to listen to when you were a teenager?
I try to always listen to new stuff. 1001albumsgenerator.com is a great project for getting out of your comfort zone and discovering some missed gems. It can be a slog at times though.
I linked it somewhere else in the thread. I’m finding there a lot of “new” stuff really interesting, even some of my favourites album are included here!
Signed up today, got an awesome Aretha Franklin album to listen to. Excited for tomorrow’s album already!
I’ve been meeting up with some friends for five years going through the 1001 albums book. You’d be surprised How much to can identify items in modern music that trace back decades. I love finding albums I overlooked or some that I thought I knew better but never really sat down with the entire album. I also set up and /c/[email protected] if anyone what’s to discuss albums.
Cool, I’ve got the generator running as a small group with a group chat alongside. Most weeks someone will also suggest an album outside of the generator for everyone to listen to and rate.
If I can work out how to I’ll add that community!
Okay, the old saying “horses for courses” comes to mind…
Yes, I actively search out new and wonderful music, and listen to it, and like it. Problem is that a lot of current music just sounds bad, either over- or under-produced, and i’m going deaf.
Last new music I really loved was Christine and the Queens, and that’s almost ten years ago!!!
But, and here’s the rub, when I want to sit here on a lovely summers evening drinking some cider with my spouse, I’ll mostly put on music from 30+ years ago. Frank and Walters, New Order, Biggie, The Cure, MC Solaar…
Mostly? its because I know it, and as sounds become ever more remote to me and my brain, I can rely on my memories to fill in the bits I can’t hear any more.
Not new bands but new to me. I managed to be a mild metalhead my whole life yet never listened to Iron Maiden. I started on their music a few months ago. I can’t believe I waited until I was in my forties to pick them up. Amazing guitar work and great vocals.
I rented their Live After Death from Lovefilm about 15 years ago, and that’s what got me into them. Couldn’t believe I’d written them off as an 80s band I wouldn’t like.
Don’t be too hard on your friends. This is actually scientifically proven. https://neurosciencenews.com/music-youth-17765/ You love the music that you “grew up with as you were forming an identity” You can always change but it is more work to create new memories and nostalgia based on different or “new” songs.
Of course not 😅 I’m not judging them at all, I finished years ago that phase where I thought my music taste what better than theirs
now I just know it is/s
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Do tell? Halloween? Maiden?
I’ve always been the type to look for music. In highschool I was torrenting music constantly, then in the last couple years I subscribed to Spotify. I get so much dopamine from finding new music that I listen to new things probably every week/month. I do still listen to what I listened to 10-20 years ago, it’s just all a mix of my favourites at the time.
I also started making an effort to discover new music to me, no necessarily new music, simply because my tastes shifted quite a bit and I realised it by noticing I almost stopped listening to music. I just started following some very nice YouTube music album channels that introduced me to some great music that I’d never learn about otherwise.
Another thing I didn’t realise I was doing was that I wasn’t keeping up with the artists I enjoyed, I kept listening to the old stuff, but I didn’t listen to the new material to see if liked where they were going.
I’m more focused on new releases by bands I’ve listened to for a long time. Mostly rock, folk, and pop from the 80s/90s.
But I also got into EDM a little while ago and added a lot of new and old stuff to my frequent plays.
I don’t want to be the old grumpy guy, but the current pop music is very rarely pleasant for me… Queue the struggle for control when I’m in the car with the kids: We found that Yacht Rock is safe territory for all :p
I don’t know what it is, but I rejected pop music so hard when I was young (I was a big tomboy and lived for punk, still do, but I’ve embraced my femininity a bit more) and now I’ve kind of come to love some of it. That being said, I only listen to pop music if I agree with the message. You won’t find me listening to blurred lines or my humps because I just don’t vibe with it. Pop songs about loving yourself? hell yeah!
Please elaborate more on this “Yacht Rock.” it has certainly piqued my interest.
Pretty much anything that sounds like Steely Dan.
Oh, that’s a can of worms :p
https://www.yachtornyacht.com/ decides what songs are yacht rock.
https://www.houstoniamag.com/arts-and-culture/2019/07/this-is-the-definitive-definition-of-yacht-rock is a good summary of the genre.
Where most of my friends are getting stuck listening to the same music they’ve been listening to when they were young I try to actively look for the new artists/styles too. Not everyday of course, but definitely at least one a month.
For me it’s both, and it depends on what I’m doing. I have a lot of tolerance for returning to the bands and songs I love and relistening to the same albums over and over again. I’m the type of person that will listen to a song 10x on repeat if I love it. But in those situations, the music is the primary activity. I might be driving or something but most of my mental processes are focused on the music.
I love discovering new music, though, and I find that it’s better for me to listen to new music while I’m focused on something else, the opposite of my “old” favorites.
It seems counterintuitive, but every night I play video games for a couple of hours before bed and that’s when I put an album I’ve never listened to on. Maybe I’ll hear something that will pull my attention away form the game and I will repeat that song a few times (this happened recently with ‘That’s all for everyone’ from Tusk), or I will be humming it the next day, and that will kind of form the neural pathway in my brain to cause me to seek that album/song out for more active listening.
It’s been a great way for me to discover new (to me) music.
But there is nothing like the comfort of a well-known and well-loved song at the right moment.
Every so often I’ll put on some of the old jams. But man, I’m just not angry enough anymore to listen to the old hardcore punk stuff I used to be into. Every so often I’ll put on a few albums though and think about those old times. Lately though I’ve gone down some crazy rabbit holes from jazz, ambient new age stuff, lots of lo-fi and lo-fi adjacent stuff. I recently discovered Macroblank and Monodrone, those two artists have taken up a lot of my time lately. I went through a pretty heavy vaporwave and futurefunk phase a few years back when I was trying to find more eletronic/funk style music like Breakbot. So all the stuff I listen to now is a far cry from the punk and metal I used to listen to back in the day!
I have to admit that I don’t actively seek out new music as such anymore.
But I usually welcome suggestions and follow a few reaction channels on YT. So I feel well-covered for my own need of new stuff.
Just got into ‘Sicksense’ for an example. Pretty neat band so far.
I’m always looking out for new music, but there’s so much always coming out that it’s hard to separate what I want to listen to from all the stuff I don’t.
Youtube has put me onto a lot of Australian stuff lately, such as Smoko (The Chats) and Hertz (Amyl and the Sniffers) as well as some more indie stuff like Wet Leg. I might just be old but these bands are all new to me and I love it.
Check out IDLES if you’re not already familiar.
I love IDLES, don’t know how they didn’t make the list. Never Fight a Man with a Perm was playing on my commute.
I actively seek new music (and discover older music that I previously didn’t listen to, just like you described) but also have bands that I’ve been a fan of since I was a kid that I still listen to. I exclusively listened to 60s and 70s rock when I was growing up, Zeppelin and The Beatles are still two of my favorite bands, but I have definitely expanded my palette since then. I agree that the “music these days” take is a tired one; if your only source of new music is the hits radio, of course, it will all sound the same.
I have this beef with people who say new country music sucks (or any genre for that matter) - sure there are bro-country singers that only sing about trucks and beer, but there are also insanely talented country musicians and songwriters out there right now.
I have this beef with people who say new country music sucks
Aren’t the decent guys calling themselves “Americana” nowadays? Coulter Wall, Tyler Childers, etc? The pop-with-fiddles they play on Country radio is mostly terrible.
Honestly, I think most musicians don’t care about the categorization or genre labels. Country and Americana could be interchangeable for the most part, but Americana seems a little broader to me. Per your example, Childers has more of a bluegrass influence, while Wall has more of a cowboy/western country influence. Both of those genres are certainly under the country and americana umbrellas.
Fair enough. I feel like people (me) want to differentiate between “guy with a guitar on his porch” music and the highly produced big-stadium-show stuff. Bluegrass, folk, and outlaw country on one side vs top40 Country on the other.
