What do you listen to after 30.5 years old?

[16251]

I guess being a musician might skew this ARTICLE

[Song80s]

what the article doesn't seem to mention, is that at 30 yrs of age or thereabouts, adults change their life priorities.

 

They get married, have kids, chase their careers. These big changes could affect what time they have left for casual listening, searching for new music, etc

[SteveCoscia]

Interesting article.

 

My favorite albums were bought when I was about 17 until I was about 27 - those are the years 1971 until 1981. From 1981 onward, my musical preference got static, although I bought a few new albums here and there. My 30s and 40s were very career driven and reading business books replaced listening to albums. When our son became a teenager (in about 2007 or thereabouts), he introduced me to new music that I wouldn't ever have found otherwise.

 

But my 17 to 27 albums are so much better than the music introduced to me by our son. The music from my era endured the test of time.

[KuruPrionz]

Maybe it's true or maybe it's just clickbait?

 

Define "average", the 40 people who answered leading questions?

 

While I don't listen to much of anything mostly, I will listen to ANYTHING. I've done about 20 remix competitions on Metapop, ain't no oldies on there. I like doing it, puts me in a totally different space.

I've played thousands of gigs, tons of covers and most of them I've only ever listened to in passing or decades ago. Am I really supposed to listen to Conway Twitty's version of Rainy Night in Georgia before we get a request for it at a gig and fake our way through it?

 

I'm 65, like Billie Eilish, just remixed something from Hana that I thought was an awesome song and performance and I've always bounced around looking for something new and different.

Maybe I'm not average? I don't own a TV, haven't for 30+ years. I've played in 2 bands that never discussed anything, just started playing in an abstract way, sometimes the goal was to find something and groove on it, sometimes the goal was to let something get going and then lunge in wildly and destroy it into something else.

 

Music is fluid, alive, ever changing. The rocks in a river are carved by the water but the water is not carved and will assume any and every form that it flows through.

 

Then again, I could be wrong and people only hang out at their favorite pond on the river. If they are happy, I am happy for them. Boring lot, eh?

[Baldwin Funster]

After 30? I dont remember. After 58? I dont listen to alot of music. Except what I want to learn. The music I loved at 30 is so worn out on me that I limit my exposure so that if I'm forced to hear it I still have a small reserve of tolerance to still enjoy it.

For that reason I cant even stand to play the common covers anymore. I insist the song list is songs that no bands around ever cover.

I dont expect to find a band that agrees with this. So be it.

[Skinny]

Most of the music I own was purchased between about age 16 and 32 (1996 to 2012; CD"s, downloads, and vinyl) Got married in 2013 and had kids in 2015 and 2017, so as posted above, priorities in life change. Although I still try to actively seek out 'new' music (both new and new to me), I struggle more and more as time goes on to find something that really grabs me, but I get lucky once in a while. I like streaming Radio Paradise, and if I hear something I really like, chances are, I"ll buy it. I check out new releases every Friday on the Apple Music store, but these days, I rarely find something that I like enough to buy. I also belong to a vinyl records FB page that has inspired me to purchase something that I"ve never heard or heard of.

 

I never want to be of the mind that 'all new music sucks, and only older stuff is good', so I try to keep current and keep my mind open. With that being said... I"m about to put my kids down for naps, and then hit the computer to see what"s new today.

 

Merry Christmas, y"all!

[Docbop]

My listening was always changing because what I want to do with my life kept changing. Guitarist, bassist, recording engineer, back to guitar and music school. Then taking the off-ramp into the computer world, but still music and probably even more experimentation with Avante Garde Jazz and World music. Got burnt out on computers and got a scholarship to music school and thought I got back down that path again. Then R&B and Jazz was everything for me and diving even deeper in to Jazz. Then the addiction to money kicked in and return to computer world. Music moved to the back burner, but still simmering in background. Computers became just a way to make money and music started pushing it's way forward again. The good thing musically about computer world I was around young people a lot and I check out what they were listening to. That helped an old guy (in computer world over 30 is considered jurassic) get along with my co-workers but kept hearing new things. Then I had to quit working for a couple years to take care of my mom so playing music and got into digtal recording was only things I could do being home bound 24/7. After she passed I got back into playing again and working at the church got me back into recording again qne put me around a lot of today HipHop and Jazz artists. Then I left the church and went back to computers for my last job before deciding to retire. That was really a big age difference, even bigger than most of them realized. I've always looked younger than I am, but it again opened me up to new music in fact one of them is person who turned me on to Snarky Puppy. Then I retired and music has been my focus and I continue to explore different genres.

 

So for me listening to new things was more what my peers were listening to when I was young. As I grew old I because quite an explorer from roots to world music and ever deeper dives into Jazz and HipHop. Rock is the one thing that kind of died for me in the 80's. When I listen to rock/pop these days it's mainly to hear what's going on and from an record producer point of view.

 

So keep on exploring it keeps your mind and heart young.

[cedar]

I admit I haven't read the article linked, but the title of this thread did remind me of an argument I once read somewhere that our adult musical tastes really come into focus when we are 14 years old. I don't know if that's true for most, but in my case it is. By 14 - if not earlier - I knew that straight-ahead jazz was my favorite genre. I've become exposed and learned to enjoy many, many other genres and styles since then, but my favorite stuff remains jazz.

[ProfD]

While some of us remain MOM (Musically Open Minded) over a longer period of time, many folks' tastes in music are shaped well before 30 years of age and they no longer consume it in the same way afterwards. As mentioned above, life priorities also factor into the equation.

 

My ears will always remain open musically but I do have a filter that has been shaped over time. While it is more rare now that it was a few decades ago, I'm pleasantly surprised when I hear "new" music that grabs my attention and makes me smile.

[GovernorSilver]

My friend turned me on to his favorite WFMU program "Strength Through Failure with Fabio". I don't know if he is over 30 - I think he is. I am over 30.

 

I don't know of any commercial radio station that has playlists as eclectic. When I look at the Dec. 17 playlist, I see stuff all over the place: Hawkwind, The Fall, Oliver Nelson, and a whole bunch of artists I never heard of. I do love hearing something new to me on a regular basis.

 

https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/99422

 

I have other friends who either have releases on Bandcamp or have pointed me to specific releases on Bandcamp. I never listening to anything on Bandcamp when I was under 30. I don't think it even existed back then.

[Ed A.]

Not so with me. I'm listening to unusual stuff I didn't know existed or didn't exist when I was 30.5, and I'll be 63 next month. I'm much less likely to still listen to the music I listened to when I was 14 (Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Black Sabbath, etc.).

[El Lobo]

I think the article takes a common assumption and elevates it to fact when the reality is that it very much depends on who you are, what your life is like, and what your relationship to music is. Like Jr. Deluxe said, I mostly only listen to music that I need to learn for a band. Since gigging has been nonexistent for months, that means I don't listen to much music except when I'm trying to find a particular tune or a backing track to play over. In the car and at home when the housecleaner is here, I put on the commercial-free classical music station. It de-stresses me. I cannot listen to news or talk radio anymore. I listen to oldies music (50's-60's) to go to sleep. I'm listening for how the music was produced or arranged to make it sound the way it did. Somebody had to score the strings or horns, arrange the backing vocals, etc. And how did they record that song before they had many tracks to work with? Some of that production puts modern music production to shame. There, I'm officially a curmudgeon. And get off my lawn.

[stoken6]

Can I take this opportunity to recommend the Vox podcast Switched on Pop? The format introduces two presenters (lifelong friends, one a songwriter, the other a musicologist) who examine today's pop through a lens of music theory and songwriting techniques. I find it an enlightening way for a curmudgeonly old musician like me to hear new music. (Some of you may remember I linked to the Cory Henry episode some weeks back).

 

Cheers, Mike.

[GRollins]

Yes, I still like the stuff I listened to when I was in my teens, but I have two other comments:

 

1) I listen to rock, jazz, and classical. They're on some sort of glacially slow cycle in the deep parts of my psyche. I don't know what drives the cycle. If I'm listening to one genre, then that's pretty much all I listen to at that time. I immerse myself in it (almost) completely. Right now, I'm listening to rock, but I sense that the cycle may be shifting to--probably--classical. Note that I only play rock/prog/fusion jazz. That doesn't change. What changes is the external influence on how I perceive and compose music.

 

2) The radio stations around here are pathetic. I missed Metallica when they first started up. Now that they're played on the local "classic rock" station, I hear them and find some elements of their music interesting. Don't much care for the growled vocals, but the instrumental parts can be very good at times. Other than Dire Straights, Metallica is probably the only music from the '80s that I can tolerate. Mark Knopfler is a friggin' genius. But the '80s were a complete, wasted, desert. Then came the '90s and mirabile dictu, Grunge showed up. There was some worthy stuff in there. Other than Grunge the rest of the '90s was largely empty. My point here being that I'm not totally closed off. There are things that work for me, but they're so rare that I'm not statistically wrong to say that music after the mid-to-late '70s was dead. Less than 1% of all the new releases between, say, 1977 and today worked for me. The ones that did were welcome surprises, but surprises nonetheless. Statistically, they're still flukes. I wish it was otherwise.

 

Grey

 

P.S.: Before anyone starts prattling on about how great the '80s were musically, I defy anyone to tell the following apart without a dramatis personae in hand:

--Twisted Sister

--Skid Row

--Motley Crue

--Scorpion

--Bon Jovi

--Poison

--Nazareth

and--arguably--AC-DC, although their screechy vocals do tend to set them apart a bit. Instrumentally and thematically, though, they're pretty much the same as the above. And there are other bands that fit that same mold that I can't remember at the moment. They all sound the same. After the '70s, rock became far too formulaic and predictable. Find a sound that sells and clone it ad infinitum, ad nauseum and people will buy it and go to the concerts. Prodigious quantities of money were made. But did it represent any sort of musical progress? Black leather/spandex and Marshall cabinets stacked three high (3/4 of them false fronts, just as stage props) do not constitute musical innovation. As accessories, they're neutral, but when theater overwhelms the music, there ain't nuthin' left, and the music becomes empty posturing.

[RABid]

That is about the time I stopped being a full time musician and went back to school to get a computer science degree.

[Docbop]

To me where you live has a lot to do with it also. I the USA since music education started disappearing in school people became prime targets of commercial formula music on radio and eventually streaming. The music copyright group ASCAP and BMI then going after any business that played a radio or CD in their business to pay for turning on a radio. The average person doesn't realize they are being manipulated like a puppet. But you go to Europe where music and art education is still strong and it's a different story. You go into businesses and not only are they playing music they are playing a wide variety of music. So that effects people listening tastes.

 

 

Thinking back the thing that opened my ears as a kid was watching one of the really early talk shows on local TV. Normally I'd turn that stuff off but the intro said they were having a new musical group and they were going stage something called a Freak Out on the show. Well it turned out to be The Mothers of Invention with Frank Zappa talking to the host about his music, new ways of music notation, and then what a Freak Out was about. The Mothers played a tune from their just released first album "Who Are the Brain Police" and I was blown away. Then Zappa talked some more and they did one more tune. With what I think then was later became The GTO's and others from the Hollywood scene. The Mothers went from a tune to a free jazz like jam with with "Freaks" jumping and dancing on furniture and shocking the hell out of the host and the audience. I was so excited I could barely sleep and went to the record store the next day to buy the first Mothers of Invention album. My whole idea of what music was about changed that night. I later because part of the Hollywood scene hanging on Sunset, going to the clubs to hear music and meet other musicians. There was music everywhere back then.

[GRollins]

There's music everywhere now...it's just elevator music with an attitude.

 

Grey

[Biggles]

Years ago a couple of year out students (20 year olds) were working in our Department, one day they were talking music and they asked me what I was smiling about.

 

I said life changes your music preferences.

 

Up to 30 you like what is in the charts and always know what is current

 

30-40 and you are aware of the charts but they are of less importance

 

Over 40 you just do not care about what is top of the charts, all you will care about is good music

 

25 years later I happened to meet one of the students again, and I asked him what was at the top of the charts, he did not know, he then smiled and questioned my parentage as he had remembered our conversation 25 years prior.

[232006]

 

.....Over 40 you just do not care about what is top of the charts, all you will care about is good music.....

 

 

Mostly true I guess.

 

I must admit to being a fair bit over 40 but was hoping to get a recent release above the place it reached....

 

UK Official Singles Chart

[Mark Schmieder]

As I got out of college and full-time grad school (replaced by night school when I started working) in late 1981, it was prime time for the shot in the arm that the indie movement gave to pop/rock (this happened much earlier in the UK of course, and would have for me as well had I not been in the Hoosier State for college during the beginnings of the punk and new wave plus ska/two-tone movement). But then things got stale towards the late 80's.

 

The rebirth of acoustic-oriented music (indie, folk-rock, Lesbian singer-songwriter, etc.) in the90's, brought me back to a high awareness level and buying new stuff by new artists.

 

Then by the mid to late 90's, I became increasingly active as a producer rather than a consumer. Things also started getting stale again. So my buying trailed off, and then when I moved (due to economic pressure) 25 miles east of Berkeley in 2006, I no longer could receive my favourite radio stations for indie stuff, so that was the nail in the coffin.

 

From then on, I have depended on recommendations from others. Only rarely does someone come along that I am inclined to "follow" per se, and sometimes their careers stagnate as well and I lose interest (e.g. The Arcade Fire). Others have a late career re-bloom (Blondie, Sleater-Kinney, and some others) and I bother to buy their new albums. Going to a concert usually revives interest for me; I saw some great ones over the past decade.

 

My goal for the past decade has been to have zero CD's by the time I retire. Can't say the same for books; the computer is no replacement for ten independent fingers and the flexibility and speed (as well as ease) of arbitrary browsing and diving into semi-random (even if guided) pages. But I don't follow authors that much either; I still haven't even bought the "final" Kurt Vonnegut book.

 

As I've gotten older (past age 40 more or less, which is now two decades ago), I have been more moved by passion than slickness. For this reason, live music has also held my attention far more than recorded music (excepting recordings of live concerts, especially when presented as well-recorded video experiences). And COVID has accentuated these factors all the more, as I am isolated and need some sense of connection and empathy.

[Mark Schmieder]

As for openness to new music, that has never changed for me. My interest in ethomusicology since my first exposure to gamelan at age 10, has ruled my entire life. I am always seeking out new sounds, sonic palettes, approaches to musical balance and storytelling, etc.

 

Perhaps as a result of this focus, my perception of what is "new" and "different" is rarely triggered in the pop/rock genres anymore. I even hear blatant ripoffs that I can't believe people get away with, such as the cop of "Yesterday" in what I think I remember being a Norah Jones song. Almost any time I hear a recent hit, the lack of subtlety in the "similarities" to older songs is quite disturbing to me, given the bogus Harrison lawsuit years ago.

[RABid]

I'm rural small town and local radio was never that good to me. Pop top 40 and country. Mainstream stuff. Before the emergence of internet music I had to guess at what to buy. Frequently joining the Colombia House record club and ordering things that I thought sounded interested. In the 70's it was Kraftswerk. Now it is Bonobo and Tycho. In between was a lot of guessing.