
Why we listen to new music - never-the-bride
https://pitchfork.com/features/article/listen-to-music/
======
mattkevan
Listening to new music is one of my favourite activities. Don't understand how
people are happy to listen to the same old stuff - it must get so dull.

There's so much good stuff out there, and it's so exciting to find an artist,
genre or new combinations of sounds I've not heard before.

Bandcamp is great for this – better than Spotify or Apple Music. You can
explore by artist, genre tag, label, and by people who have bought/wishlisted
an album. Plus there's lots of interesting smaller artists who are not on the
bigger platforms.

~~~
lowercased
> Don't understand how people are happy to listen to the same old stuff

I have a lot of emotional/memory attachments to certain music - it ties in
with a lot of specific events in life. Listening to those 'same old stuff'
albums/songs can take me back to places when I want to reminisce. I can get
some of the same feelings, even smells and tastes sometimes, with the 'same
old stuff'.

Not all of those are 'old' like decades ago - I've got some stuff that I
started digging in to just a few years ago which is now in my 'heavy
rotation'.

~~~
drawkbox
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Music can take you back to points in your life in a way that few things can.

People should always listen to new and old music, like books or movies/shows,
sometimes repeated listens, viewings, or reads, can open up new aspects of the
music, something you didn't see or hear before.

------
murat131
Listening to new music has got to do with openness and as we age we tend to be
less open to new experiences. I think best way to listen to new music is not
just about a new band or new albums but more about new genres. I used to not
enjoy jazz, found it elitist and quite frankly I didn't even get it. About 10
years ago I started listening jazz and anything that's got mixed with jazz,
like jazz-funk, or jazz fusion and I learned more about music itself while
enjoying new tunes.

People have the tendency to outright deny than to try new things but if you
think about it, it's just picking up patterns and how they make us feel.

~~~
JeanMarcS
When I was around 15, mainly listening to heavy metal bands (Iron Maiden and
alike, so not just basic rock chords/riffs), a friend of my father introduced
me to prog rock, that I liked, and told me : if you like this, you will go
from heavy metal to prog, then from prog to jazz, and finally to classic
music.

And he was right (although I’m not totally over with that journey as I like
listening to classic music, but I’m not completely into it)

~~~
mettamage
I found piano trio's to be quite nice compared to other forms of classical
music. In part, I realized, it's because it sounds a bit more like a band
compared to complete orchestra's.

My favorite piano trio:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e52IMaE-3As](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e52IMaE-3As)

~~~
JeanMarcS
Great piece indeed ! I knew I already heard it (and the comments told me
where). Great interpretation.

As a fan of dissonance, I’m more listening to Stravinsky, but I also like some
Dvorak (not sure to spell the name right). But I still think I’m not ready yet
(despite being nearly 50)

Thanks for the link anyway !

~~~
mettamage
Well, I'm 31 and what helped me was a girlfriend who was brought up with this
stuff and dragged me to every opera and classical music performance in town (I
exaggerate a bit, but you get the idea). Forcing yourself to getting a lot of
exposure is a method that, albeit uncomfortable, worked for me.

Dvorak is a favorite of mine as well. I'm a fan of Dumky. I haven't listened
to Stravinsky while knowing it was him, so I'll have a look!

Edit: listening to the soldiers tale of Stravinsky. It sounds like video game
music that could almost be in a Zelda game.

------
founderling
I use the Music-Map for my "music journey". Every other day, I start from an
artist I already like and travel through the names until I stumble into an
area I have not been to before:

[https://www.music-map.com](https://www.music-map.com)

~~~
bmelton
This is really great. Every now and again I'm fortunate enough to stumble onto
a new / unknown artist to me. Weirdly, Grooveshark was really good for this
(as it gave me some of my very top favorites through a Grooveshark Premium
thing -- Quiet Company and Justin Townes Earle) but I've found generally
limited utility in going from those new bands into either Google or Spotify's
"More Like This" functions.

Looking at the map for Quiet Company yields a list of names that are mostly
foreign to me that I'll be plowing through as I work.

~~~
blakes
I miss Grooveshark, it's radio feature brought me so much amazing music.

Surprisingly, Youtube Music has pretty decent music discovery in the form of
it's radio feature, sort of like Grooveshark.

I wish they would combine Google Music's functionality and organization with
Youtube Music's discover-ability and expanded library.

------
l33tbro
This from the website that built an empire on discovering and promoting new
music - but today reviews Tik Tok videos [1] and treat Taylor Swift and Beiber
like they are Richard D. James.

[1] [https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/tiktok-report-benees-
supalone...](https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/tiktok-report-benees-supalonely-
and-the-inexplicable-power-of-vibeyness/)

~~~
readarticle
Methods of discovering and promoting new music change over time, especially
compared to the peak days of a niche electronic music artist in the 90s.

Tik Tok is an absolutely _massive_ recent source of new music growth [0],
Taylor Swift and Beiber are absolutely massive artists with almost
unparalleled influence across multiple genres, their riding of new vibes
throws off tsunami wave effects.

They’re doing their job, and doing it well, the effects of giving their first
10 in a decade to Fiona Apple’s new album for example, you’re just not the
target.

0 - [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tiktok-
vid...](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tiktok-video-app-
growth-867587/)

~~~
l33tbro
> Taylor Swift and Beiber are absolutely massive artists with almost
> unparalleled influence across multiple genres.

Massive like Rick Astley? Hootie and the Blowfish? Your argument attributes
artistic quality with an artist and their machine's size and reach. I'm sorry,
but this doesn't justify critical notice or attention.

As for their influence - I'm at a loss for what you mean here. What genres are
these two artists influencing - other than pop? Maaaybe hip-hop with their use
of the millenial whoop [1] - but even that is a stretch.

> their riding of new vibes throws off tsunami wave effects.

This is what Madonna, MJ and basically every mainstream artist has done for
eons - co-opting genres and trends to remain relevant (Kenny Rogers even did
disco).

> you’re just not the target.

Thanks for the patronizing tone. As a DJ, signed artist and music nerd of more
than 20 years, I think I understand a little about the nuances of this stuff.
I actually used Aphex as I thought it may be relatable to a tech crowd, but I
could have said a number of artists (new or old) from many different genres to
make the point.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennial_whoop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennial_whoop)

~~~
readarticle
_Your argument attributes artistic quality with an artist and their machine 's
size and reach._

I didn’t mention or consider artistic quality in my comment, and didn’t mean
to suggest popularity is quality.

 _This from the website that built an empire on discovering and promoting new
music..._

Is what I originally replied to, if “new music” implied quality music, than
this is a miscommunication.

------
spunker540
I still like exploring “new” music, but new music that I’ve fallen in love
with over the past year is Elvis, Judy Collins, James Taylor, and Curtis
Mayfield/The Impressions. It’s hard for me to justify giving modern music a
chance when I haven’t even given the established greats a chance. The modern
music will still be around in 10 years. Hopefully by then it will be more
clear what’s standing the test of time, at which point I’ll give it a listen.

Same thing happened with Kanye by the way. In the 00s I (mostly) wouldn’t
touch it, but it’s now clear it was highly influential, important music and
I’ve begun to revisit it.

~~~
viklove
Music is culturally contextual and temporal in many ways. Think of Floyd's The
Division Bell, an album which tries to capture the feelings and emotions that
resulted from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Or think of RATM's self-titled
album, which was a reaction to the police brutality and race tensions that
were churning in the late 80s/early 90s. Or even MGMT's Little Dark Age, which
is filled with opinions surrounding our modern affection of social media and
smartphones.

You're living in today, and there's music being released that touches on the
common struggles we're all going through as human beings in today's world. If
you wait 10 or 20 years to listen to modern music, you're purposely removing
yourself from this conversation.

If music is just nice sounds to you, then that's totally fine, but for a lot
us it's much, much more than that.

~~~
spunker540
I think you’re being uncharitable by saying anyone who prefers older music
only likes music for the “nice sounds”. It may also be I have more interest in
music history than most.

But even if I want to watch a tv show or read a book, I similarly want it to
be something that is more important than just “well it came out yesterday so
must be relevant”. If something can still be relevant a decade after it came
out, that’s when you know it’s really good.

And for the record I love music. I’m a multi-instrumentalist, I’ve played
professionally in weddings, bars, played buckets in a street performing band,
and continue to study music, actively taking classical piano lessons,
composing songs. I play every day.

~~~
viklove
I'm not sure why you're presenting this dichotomy that you can only listen to
old music _or_ new music. I listen to and love both, I'm surprised that
someone like you who clearly has a deep interest in music would rule one out.

> And for the record I love music. I’m a multi-instrumentalist, I’ve played
> professionally in weddings, bars, played buckets in a street performing
> band, and continue to study music, actively taking classical piano lessons,
> composing songs. I play every day.

This comment makes your perspective particularly strange. Do you only play
covers? Have you ever tried writing your own music? If so, does that mean that
you wouldn't listen to _your own_ music until a decade after you wrote it?
Because it's a bit hypocritical to only listen to music that is more than a
decade old, and still expect people to give _your_ new music a chance
considering it hasn't stood the test of time.

Do you think Elvis would have ever had a chance to make a living off of his
music if everyone was like you?

> anyone who prefers older music

You're not just saying you _prefer_ older music though, you're saying you're
not even giving new music a chance:

> It’s hard for me to justify giving modern music a chance when I haven’t even
> given the established greats a chance.

That's pretty absurd in my opinion.

~~~
spunker540
it’s not like I have some hard line policy. If it makes you feel better I
actually have listened to some music that came out post-2010. For example they
released some remastered Beatles tracks last year and I didn’t wait 10 years
to listen.

~~~
viklove
So you're saying people shouldn't listen to the music you've composed until 10
years after you release it. Good idea, I was going to ask for your soundcloud
link, but now I'm thinking I won't bother until 10 years from now when you've
proven that you're good enough to grace these ears!

------
superpermutat0r
I can no longer enjoy the music the way I did as a teenager. I automatically
picked up the lyrics, I still remember them to this day. I sought new music,
new bands. There was a peak when I was around 18-19 and after that I listened
to music less and less. Similar thing happened with movies.

I followed sites like pitchfork but today I'm just not interested. I started
noticing that music on my hard drive would get bigger and bigger and I had no
time to listen to all of the stuff I wanted.

I do have some moments where the spark lights up again. There was a recent
live 12 CD The Rolling Thunder Revue that I gobbled up and learned a lot of
lyrics automatically. Or the new Arctic Monkeys album, or Kendrick Lamar's
butterfly.

What my conclusion from this is, I'll just let the Lindy effect filter all the
good stuff and I'll come back to the music from decades ago when the time is
right. A bunch of new music and new movies are just forgettable, even the
critically acclaimed.

I guess I'll miss out on a lot of present culture but I really don't go around
circles where present cultural references are mentioned regularily.

~~~
tayo42
Funny I'm the same way I think. I used to be so into music, I was always
listening to something. I had a massive collection of pirated music lol.
Always looking for something new to check out.

When edm and dubstep blew up I was always out at shows, festivals, random dj
nights. Tried writing a lot of my own music, even had small release

Then idk I got my first job out of college around 24 and stopped searching or
even listening. I only have music on in my car and like stuff from high
school, concerts I go to are just bands from high school

I think part of it is there is no scene for music any more? Or I'm so out of
touch. But bands used to be big on the radio, but there's so many release
sources. there's no filter anymore. Everyone used to listen to the radio. Now
everyone's Spotify is custom and completely different

~~~
smoe
> I think part of it is there is no scene for music any more?

There are plenty of music scenes, but I do think they are not as big and
influential on overall youth culture anymore.

What subcultures revolve around changes over time and we might have had an
oddity in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s were the subject was primarily the
music genres that evolved during that time? When I was a teenager, pretty much
everyone that was in a scene, associated themselves strongly to one music
genre with basically no overlap. You were either into Techno, Metal, Hip Hop,
Goth or Punk and the life/fashion styles that come with it.

But when I asked my mother, who was a teenager partying hard in the 60s/70s
when bands definitely were big on the radio, what the subcultures revolved
around, from her perspective it wasn't music, but political and socio-
economical stances. For example hippies: Music definitively played a big role
in that scene and many iconic songs came from it, but it was not the main
thing the scene was about.

And I think it could be the same thing these days. Music is still important to
people and evokes a lot of emotions, but it is not the main thing the youth
cultures are build around.

~~~
WarOnPrivacy
> "I think part of it is there is no scene for music any more?"

> There are plenty of music scenes, but I do think they are not as big and
> influential on overall youth culture anymore.

I think what changed is that gate-keeper, hyper-promoted acts don't hook as
much of the youth as they once did.

We have this one local music festival that's made up of hundreds of acts
playing in dozens of small venues. The audience is huge but it's dispersed
over 10 city blocks so you don't really get that crushing mob feel.

------
recursinging
Being an exemplary candidate for this article, and a hobby musician myself, I
listen to new music searching for that effect where on the first listen, the
hair on the back of my neck stands on end. It's exceedingly rare to find that
nexus of musical innovation and recognition which seems to cause it.

I find production and sound design are a good space to innovate in, while
letting recognizable melodies, scales and rhythms keep everything digestible.

------
coldtea
Art (and music) is not something for endless consumption. Music is something
we tie to our experiences, to our life, to times we've known, etc.

There's no real need to always seek new music, obsessively, unless you
particularly enjoy to (or you have business reasons). You're not a bad person,
or more shallow, or lesser art lover, for not doing so (in fact many very deep
creators of art had a very limited set of artists and works they liked).

Having a set of songs, artists etc that speak to you, and you have grown into
-- what most people do --, can be even deeper than endless "crate digging" and
collection/consumption approach to music...

~~~
meowface
In my opinion, this is no different from saying there's no need to watch new
films or TV shows that come out, or even older ones that you haven't seen
before. Why do that when you can just watch Seinfeld, Breaking Bad, the
Godfather, and 2001: A Space Odyssey? Why check out books you haven't read
before when you have [insert childhood favorite]?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with repeatedly returning to old stuff you
like. But I don't see how people can be satisfied doing _nothing but_ that.
Fantastic new art is being created all the time, and the amount of people
creating art is also increasing all the time.

The point of endless digging is to try to find other stuff that you may end up
liking as much as, or perhaps even more than, the older stuff. It's not simply
to consume for its own sake: it's to discover things you otherwise might be
missing out on and would be thankful you found. How can you even know if
that'll happen or not if you aren't exposed to lots of new things?

Also, what does it even mean to "endlessly collect" music in the modern day?
You just listen to stuff you haven't heard and turn it off if you don't like
it and save it to a playlist/favorites list if you do like it. There's no cost
to trying albums you haven't heard before, like there was in the past. If you
do really want a physical copy for whatever reason, it's easy to listen online
first and decide whether or not you should get the physical copy.

This seems akin to lamenting that people are "endlessly collecting" new shows,
films, and documentaries by browsing Netflix.

~~~
saithound
> In my opinion, this is no different from saying there's no need to watch new
> films or TV shows that come out, or even older ones that you haven't seen
> before.

Sure, the same argument applies, but that seems to be a feature rather than a
bug. There's no need to obsessively seek out new movies or TV shows, unless
you particularly enjoy doing that.

~~~
meowface
I'm not saying obsessing about it. The parent implied they never sought out
new things to listen to. Looking for something new to watch every so often is
a pretty standard activity, I think.

~~~
saithound
On the contrary, the parent's point seems pretty clear about the obsessive
aspect: "There's no real need to always seek new music, _obsessively_ [...]".

~~~
meowface
True. But I think they were presenting a false premise, because the parent
they were replying to made no mention of obsessiveness.

------
BLKNSLVR
(This ended up being a love letter to my musical journey, if that doesn't
tickle your fancy then don't waste your time)

I like discovering new music. Very few people in my circle of friends like the
music I choose to listen to. I think I have a specific pathway to how I got
here:

I wasn't into Faith No More, I didn't like Epic at the time it was a hit,
until I heard Midlife Crisis. That song blew my young teenaged mind. Cue the
Angel Dust album and the weird, beautiful, jagged aural landscape it created.
I researched Faith No More for their history, found The Real Thing, the song
in particular but also the album are both highlights. Where my journey forks
way off the known track is where my research came across Mike Patton's
previous / parallel band: Mr. Bungle.

I found their first full-length album (self-titled, Mr. Bungle) on tape, and
bought it. Holy fucking shit it was a chaotic mess of who-the-fuck-knows, what
even is this? It's musical instruments, but they're being, I don't know, just
bashed at incomprehensibly. I paid a hard-earned $25 for that tape though, so
I was determined to get my moneys worth out of it, so I listened and listened
and kept listening (I didn't have a huge catalogue of other music) and I
eventually "got it". In the end you'll find patterns in the chaos because it
is, after all, music; composed, designed, written, planned. It's up to the
listener to put in the effort.

Mr. Bungle was the gateway drug that opened my mind to the joys to be found in
complex, difficult, and original music, and part of my personality, how people
know who I am, is defined by my obscure tastes and knowledge of music that's
forever hidden only just under the surface of mainstream popularity (I'm by no
means very deeply knowledgeable).

I get great joy finding new music that I like, and I'm always surprised when I
find something new to me, but not new to the world, and wonder how I'd missed
it all these years when it's exactly the kind of thing I would like.

My source of new music is pretty much exclusively ThreeD radio[0] a local
independent, volunteer-run and listener-funded station in little ol' Adelaide,
South Australia. There's a lot of gravel, but there are diamonds hidden
amongst it.

[0]: [https://www.threedradio.com/](https://www.threedradio.com/)

Edited to add: I've only listened to Trout Mask Replica twice, so I'm a good
five listen-throughs away from any semblance of understanding of that musical
masterpiece.

------
_bxg1
When I listen to the same music over and over it rapidly becomes deadened.
When I have it fully internalized I stop truly "listening" to it at all. A
static music selection becomes a wasteland. It can recover given time - if I
don't listen to something for a couple years it can become fresh again - but
like grazing land, I have to keep moving.

------
Razengan
Does anyone else grow "numb" to a track after listening to it for a while?
400-500 plays seems to be the limit for me, and the period between plays
doesn't seem to matter, after which it evokes no pleasing feelings, and even
causes a little annoyance as if some part in the brain is "sore" from it.

~~~
nprateem
Hedonic treadmill.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill)

------
nemo44x
As I’ve aged I’ve discovered that new pop music tends to be a reflection of
the current youth culture and it’s something I’m not interested in. I still
listen to new music produced by artists that were in their prime when I was
younger though. They aren’t culturally relevant but either am I any longer.

I’ve also found that I enjoy digging into older music And genres I would have
never considered when I was younger. Robert Johnson is about as primitive as
can be but it truely is fantastic blues, a genre I never much cared for. Or
finding different folk music from way back, or genres like Bluegrass and their
fast picking guitar legends like Norman Blake.

So yeah it’s not new music but it’s new to me. But what I wouldn’t give to
hear what Kurt Cobain would be making today if he were still alive.

~~~
tartoran
Yeah, theres lots of great old music that it’s new at the same time. And it
comes with the perspective of time, one has the ability to see how it aged.
The most im impressed with is forgotten music that has aged very well and
feels ever more relevant; that is music with essence. Sometimes despite being
a bad recording it still moves the needle in the positive direction. In modern
music the newness factor sometimes obscures the essence and one is not able to
fully asses it at the present moment.

~~~
nemo44x
Agreed. To me it’s fascinating to hear people singing about the same themes
and problems of their day. Or even breaking the assumption that everything was
simpler or more pure.

Hearing Robert Johnson singing about squeezing his lemon and quipping (yeah
that’s what I’m talking about) is pretty funny. Or Hank Williams just
reminiscing about going out, getting loaded with his girl, grabbing some after
bar food, and causing a ruckus everywhere they go.

These are popular themes in pop music of today.

------
roro5179
Listening to new music is tough. You won't know if you will like it and odds
are you won't like it as much as whatever your favorite music is at that
current moment in time. So I understand why people don't do it. I listen to
new music (largely through Spotify's Discover Weekly) but often have to force
myself. The thrill of finding an entire world of music by an artist sometimes
even a new genre is what keeps me going. My best friend and I share new music
with each other and it really has added a lot to our relationship. As a rule
of thumb for life, breaking out of the comfort zone generally seems to be the
right thing do do. Anyways hope all of you are listening to new music and
enjoying it ..... eventually :)

------
polyterative
As an artist I battle with this everyday, curious people actively seeking for
new music are really hard to find

~~~
svantana
I feel the same, but I don't think that's the issue; the problem is that there
is such extreme amounts of new music coming out everyday, and "everybody wants
to reach everybody", i.e. a lot of artists are going for maximum exposure. You
can hardly contact relevant blogs etc, because lists are being sold so
unscrupulous bands can send out thousands of promo emails.

That said, there really should be a recommendation service focused on small
but active artists. I hate that spotify etc is turning music into an on-demand
commodity rather than a socioculture art form. For the interested, music
journo Liz Pelly has a lot of good pieces on this topic.

------
snug
I only listen to music when I'm working on, and on spotify there is only a few
"Workout" playlist created by spotify that never really get updated. When I
search for Workout playlist for user created playlist, there's a huge range of
music that doesn't even feel like workout music. Curious if anyone has found a
good workout playlist that gets updated with new music.

------
kstenerud
"The Rite" may have been technically groundbreaking, but it sounds TERRIBLE.
We've seen plenty of artistic experimentation over the centuries leading to
new artistic genres, but early experiments like these are almost always awful.
It takes someone with skill in aesthetics to turn the new into the beautiful,
and it's rarely the inventor who does this.

~~~
onychomys
It works better if you think of it as a soundtrack/score to a movie. There's
lots of stuff going on that you're missing by just listening to it without the
visuals.

------
kitotik
Henry Rollins uses a great food analogy:

Listening to the music you know and love is like carbohydrates, discovering
new stuff is the protein(the meat).

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
Unless you're doing keto ....

~~~
kitotik
Which seems unhealthy and extreme when looked at through this lens!

~~~
WarOnPrivacy
IDK. K has a promising therapeutic future.

That doesn't change that you and Henry are absolutely correct, tho.

------
Yaa101
Since internet I listened to all new music from the 20th century. A lot of
"old music" from foregone age was new to me. So new music is a relative term.
However, and that is my personal opinion, most new music from 2000-2020 I
think is total utter crap, I rather listen to something from 1914 with
horrible sound quality than something from 2014.

~~~
Cthulhu_
> most new music from 2000-2020 I think is total utter crap

Oooh here we go. What music have you listened to? Popular music or the very
long tail of new artists and bands that are now able to produce and release
good music from their home without the big publishers (although spotify,
soundcloud, apple music etc are now the big publishers).

Because I personally disagree. I'm more into metal myself and I dig a lot of
the stuff that came out after 2000. New genres and subgenres have popped up or
come into their strength (folk, djent, synthwave, etc). I'm listening to a
varied playlist right now of skillful musicianship, most of which from after
2010:
[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2h4EoZIoRbUAJnHlHE1eHM?si=...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2h4EoZIoRbUAJnHlHE1eHM?si=Uwds1kRBTO-
jkBxrgK0NDw)

Anyway I object to a statement "this is utter crap"; you're presenting your
personal opinion as a hard fact which is a big part of everything that is
wrong today.

~~~
Yaa101
>Anyway I object to a statement "this is utter crap"; you're presenting your
personal opinion as a hard fact which is a big part of everything that is
wrong today.

That is how you interpret my personal opinion, I never said if things are
wrong today, I just stated that today's new music is utter crap in my opinion.
There is a lot of good music played by nowadays musicians.

I have no problem with you disagreeing with my personal opinion, but I do have
a problem with you telling that I imply other things than I am telling.

>"this is utter crap", I never said that, there is a difference between "I
think" and "This is", Don't twist my words, you are being dishonest in this
conversation for doing that.

------
chris_st
If you'd like to be adventurous, I highly recommend the Nief-Norf folks[0] who
are streaming live music in support of modern chamber music, and having old
streams available. Some really great music here. They're raising money there,
but encourage people to listen for free if you can't support them. Full
disclosure: I'm acquainted with Megan Ihnen, one of the people who run Nief-
Norf... you should check out her singing, her voice is a force of nature, for
example here[1] (where the recording doesn't do her any favors, alas, but it's
better than nothing).

[0] [https://dots.livemusicproject.org/virtual-norf-
space/](https://dots.livemusicproject.org/virtual-norf-space/)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb4OYwDurWo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb4OYwDurWo)

------
Polylactic_acid
I don't think my dad has willingly listened to a new song in the last 30
years.

~~~
petepete
I added my parents to my Spotify family plan. My mum created a playlist called
"Kitchen" that contains all her favourite songs she could remember at the time
and plays nothing else!

They still listen to the radio more and then complain about the adverts.

------
tobyhinloopen
I use Spotify Discover Weekly. In the 30 recommendations, there usually is one
I like. Than I check out the Album and artist and with a bit of luck I have
hours of new music to listen to.

~~~
onychomys
Discover Weekly is pretty great, although it tends to have a lot of covers of
songs that it knows I already like. Turns out way more people have covered The
Beatles than I ever would have guessed. Sometimes I'll click through to the
artist page if I really like their voices, but for the most part I just skip
to the next song in the list.

------
lsmpsn
Maybe I’m the odd one out but there was some study that showed most people
stick to the same tastes they developed in their teenage years - music, food,
hobbies, etc.

Is this just how old people become boring or caricatures of themselves?

Perhaps this is my own personal experience but it’s hard to adapt to something
new when the rush of nostalgia when listening to old jams is so satisfying.
You “fall in love” with the same albums and songs all over.

------
tams
> Listening to new music is hard.

It's harder if getting familiar with a piece of music also makes it boring to
you for a while.

I enjoy threads like [1], [2] about strategies for discovering new music.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194107](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194107)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1161002](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1161002)

------
Semaphor
I have mainly 2 ways of discovering new music: a) Concerts and festivals (if I
like them, I check bandcamp) b) The newsletter of a pirate metal music site
(they have new releases which usually are new albums, so if I like the cover,
name or genre, I check them out on YouTube to decide if I buy them). I’d say I
buy about one album per month on average (sometimes I get the whole back-
catalogue, sometimes nothing).

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ralphc
58 years old, graduated high school 1979, 30 years old in 1991. I do listen to
things from that time, but there's sooo much interesting music that came out
after that. Different genres of metal like metalcore and doom metal, nu metal,
then EBM (NOT EDM)/synthpop, K-pop, dubstep, on and on. It's exploded since my
"cutoff" date, I'm not limiting myself.

~~~
roro5179
you're NOT EDM statement made me chuckle as well as an image of a 58 year old
jamming out to some BTS(which I will admit I am loving recently). Keep living
life to the fullest. "I'm not limiting myself" is a beautiful way of putting
it.

~~~
ralphc
BlackPink in your A-RE-A!

------
pachico
I remember stumbling upon a hypothesis when I was studying musicology that
suggest that music is appealing to us because is has to do with our most
primitive senses when in our mother's womb, both for rhythm (heart beat) and
melody (mother's voice). We then build on top of that.

------
Hamuko
Finding new music is tough. At one point I discovered acid jazz and wanted to
listen to more acid jazz, but I didn't really know where to find new stuff. As
far as I know, there isn't really any good way of finding recommendations
tailored to you.

------
WarOnPrivacy
Over 50 here.

I was just discussing this with my sister, my lack of nostalgia for old
favorites.

What I feel is more like the opposite, it's repulsion to overplayed music. As
in - I sometimes leave a store when I can't handle Clear Channel music playing
overhead. The 5 bazillionth hearing of "Tears in Heaven" or of any artist
beginning with 'Sir' triggers a fight or flight response.

I'm not overstating my case when I claim that (for me), listening to
overplayed music is indistinguishable from abuse. Even the artists that I
adored in my teens/20 are becoming unlistenable. David Bowie was the most
recent to go. Pink Floyd is close behind.

If music is medicine, it's all Fentanyl by the time Clear Channel gets done
with it.

It makes me continually grateful for all the access we have to new artists.

\- - - - -

PS: The Beatles catalog is just a preschool songbook now. Fight me.

~~~
freehunter
When I was in elementary school (in the 90s) we all sang Beatles songs with
the teacher in our “music” class. My parents didn’t listen to The Beatles so I
had no idea who they were, I just though the songs we sang were silly nursery
rhymes. Even later Beatles songs like “Bungalow Bill” or “Maxwell’s Silver
Hammer”.

Obviously not all Beatles songs are like that and the musical difference
between McCartney and Lennon was one of the biggest contributors to their
breakup, but yeah... a lot of their music today is treated as inoffensive
background noise for grocery stores and elevators.

~~~
WarOnPrivacy
> Don't understand how people are happy to listen to the same old stuff - it
> must get so dull.

It feels like being force-fed doughnuts.

------
quijoteuniv
No man ever steps into the same river twice

~~~
quijoteuniv
I believe the process of renewing one’s experience of listening music is more
interesting than renewing the playlist.

------
pjdorrell
For most forms of passive audio-visual entertainment, we strongly prefer new
to old, for example:

* films

* jokes

* stories

* news

* documentaries

Music is unusual in how much we _don't_ seek out new items.

------
chantelles
I grew up with boomer parents (one went to DJ school) who blasted only Beatles
and yacht rock, explaining anything made after their youth was not even music.
It spawned in me a lifelong curiosity and dedication to new music. I do on
rare occasion reflect back, but never to The Who, who was my unfortunate
childhood alarm clock and constant soundtrack as I played/gardened outside.
(The DJ wired the yard for Who sound).

~~~
WarOnPrivacy
> I do on rare occasion reflect back, but never to The Who, who was my
> constant soundtrack

I opine that any song can be weaponized thru overplaying.

This may be an unpopular opinion.

~~~
ralphc
It's popular opinion with the US government [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
latin-america-40090809](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40090809)

