# People Stop Listening to New Music When They Turn 30?



## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

> A 2015 study of people’s listening habits on Spotify found that most people stop listening to new music at 33; a 2018 report by Deezer had it at 30. In my 20s, the idea that people’s appetite to consume new music regularly would be switched off like some kind of tap was ludicrous. However, now I’m 36, it’s difficult to argue with.











Bring that beat back: why are people in their 30s giving up on music?


It would have been unimaginable in our 20s, but these days more and more friends are disengaging from a passion we once shared. Surely this is premature?




www.theguardian.com


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I'm 65, and I'm still exploring new music, both in classical and pop/rock.


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## N Fowleri (5 mo ago)

For many people, music is a part of their self-identities. Most often, our self-identities are rather fixed by the time we are well into our 30s. I've heard the same thing about types of food or cuisine. Of course, there are exceptions. There are people who always crave the new and exciting, no matter how they self-identify. There are also people whose self-identities are never fixed throughout their lives.

I still find new music that I enjoy, and I'm 50, but there are bounds on what I try, compared to when I was in my teens and 20s. Also, the music of my youth connects with me emotionally in a way that I don't think any new music ever could.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

The study referred to in the OP does not reflect my experience. But I am just one person, 70 years old, who has never not been curious about new music.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

The survey needs to be widened to look at the listening habits of all age groups instead of implying that it's all downhill for new music once we're passed 30.

I stopped buying new in my 30s as I didn't have spare disposable income to waste on new music.

I resumed once I had some spare, and the market was easier to access. I'm still looking for new.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

How are we defining "new" - newly composed or new to the listener? I just turned 70, and I am exploring music all the time - however, much of it (classical and jazz) was composed decades or even centuries ago. I listen to relatively little popular music composed after 1980. 

I am pleased to say that I recently added WFUV to my listening - my default during a workout. A nice blend of contemporary alt-rock (heavy on singer/songwriter) and songs from the classic rock era, although frequently "back wall" tracks.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

well, as life goes on people grow, but it isn't linear. If at 36 it seems like you are in a rut, its just a phase. If you just bought a motorcycle or sports car, its mid-life crisis.

nothing to worry about

If its any good to you, I'm a geezer and I just started listening to Jack White. That tune "Sixteen Saltines" really does it for me


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

At around 30, or even before, I stoppped considering music an important part of my life, and barely listened to anything. At 45, in Covid time, I rediscovered this pleasure and became quite passionate again. However, I was conservative since my childhood, it was all opera and "popular classic". Trying to delve into POP and be a normal young person was unsatisfying. I am determined not to do such experiments anymore, because with kids, my time is limited and I am not on a partner hunt anymore :-D . I plan to explore e.g. opera new to me, but with some predictable limits. Bellini was a revelation at 45, but not so radically new after knowing some Rossini, Donizetti and Verdi. I will give a chance to formerly dismissed composers like Janacek, Poulenc, Strauss, but not much further than that.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

My experience is that classical listeners, especially the rabid collectors, are exploring new music well into senile old age. It's the people who listen to pop/rock whose tastes solidify around age 30 going into geezerhood still listening to the music that they did in high school and college years. Nostalgia is a funny thing. 

I personally still buy a lot of disks of new music knowing that I'm probably going to be disappointed or disgusted. But every now and then something amazing comes up.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Ask me in 12 years..


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> It's the people who listen to pop/rock whose tastes solidify around age 30 going into geezerhood still listening to the music that they did in high school and college years. Nostalgia is a funny thing.


I have a friend who is in his mid-40s who is spending every weekend going to concerts of rock bands from the '70s and '80s that he listened to, like Three Dog Night, Loverboy, and Journey. He was amazed that a lot of the people in the crowd had grey heads. It was a wake-up call to him, that he's no longer young and rebellious just because he listens to classic rock.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Shaughnessy said:


> Ask me in 12 years..


Are you 18?


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## advokat (Aug 16, 2020)

I have actually read "The Guardian" (brrr) article that OP references. It is about a situation when a young man or woman transitions into adulthood and misses the time when he/she used to be unattached, carefree and socialised around the latest mass-produced pop music. The author laments that he no longer feels the thrill, has little urge to follow the latest offerings and is unable to recreate the social milieu in his 30ies dotage. What does it have to do with maintaining a lively interest in CM as long as you live?


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

atsizat said:


> Are you 18?


Depending upon which year you would have asked me that question I would have said yes but this is not that year -

which is why I added the "wink" emoji but to have been mistaken for an 18 year old is a compliment which I will accept... 

as long as you weren't being sarcastic -


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Shaughnessy said:


> Depending upon which year you would have asked me that question I would have said yes but this is not that year - which is why I added the "wink" emoji.


We are in 2022, considering I asked you in 2022.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

atsizat said:


> We are in 2022, considering I asked you in 2022.


Thanks for clarifying which year we're in - I can see how that can come in kind of handy - but you might want to re-read the post above - I know that things get lost in translation but it's all right there.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Okay, I just skimmed the Guardian article, and now know it has nothing to do with my experience since I am not in my 30s and did not enter adulthood during the Internet age. Maybe those people are going through a period when music or new pop music is not important to them.

Do I care? Not really, since again this is not my generation and I often find there's not much I have in common with them. I do feel a little sorry for anyone who cannot muster the interest to listen to music, any music, new or old. I can't imagine that situation. 

And I _really_ can't identify with the people described in the article who have replaced music with podcasts. I can't imagine anything less interesting than a podcast. Listening to people talk is a gruesome experience for me and I avoid it as much as I can, which is pretty much all the time. I regularly mute baseball games when I watch - and never, NEVER, listen to podcasts.

Each week I look at the music magazines I follow, they cover different genres, and read about some new artist I've never heard of before, and check out their latest on Spotify. I often hear something I think is really good.

After reading this thread and that article I now know I have a lot to be grateful for.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I suspect the original article concerned mostly pop music and young people's social interest in being up to date with the latest hits. They grow out of that and those who enjoy music probably become more discerning in their choices. It can be hard for them to be aware of what is truly worthwhile within music that is very new.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Shaughnessy said:


> Thanks for clarifying which year we're in - I can see how that can come in kind of handy - but you might want to re-read the post above - I know that things get lost in translation but it's all right there.


You said "ask me in 12 years"

And I don't use a translate. What made you think so?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

atsizat said:


> And I don't use a translate. What made you think so?


The English expression 'lost in translation " does not refer to an internet translating site - it refers to the fact that most non-native English speakers tend to translate English text in their mid to their mother language. This phenomenon can easily lead to misunderstanding, in terms of actual content and/or context.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

atsizat said:


> You said "ask me in 12 years"
> 
> And I don't use a translate. What made you think so?


This is a discussion thread in which people are trying to express their thoughts on the subject matter - Respect needs to be shown to the participants.

I wrote one post which was intended to be a joke - One that fit in well with the concept of the topic - but this has to stop - I don't need help antagonizing everyone - I do that well enough on my own.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

If podcasts have replaced anything, I think it's "background" music, or music you'd listen to when doing other activities. You could say something like listening to NPR on long trips serves a similar purpose.


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Pushing 60 here. I listen to more "new to me" music, and new music, than ever before. (Classical, Opera, Rock/Pop/Metal/on and on). Quite literally, hours of it most nights. 

The YouTube age has made it incredibly easy. Whereas in the 70s, 80s, and 90s I was limited to what new music I could afford.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Of course there are exceptions of people well past the age of 30 still into discovering new music. But let's be clear, they are the exceptions.

But for most people, their tastes are set at around the age of 30 (some studies show 33 is the age).

I am in my 60's, and love discovering new music. In fact, I am in a constant search for new bands, musicians, and composers. I get almost as much joy out of new music now, as I did in my 20's.

I may be an unusual case, because I have almost zero feelings of nostalgia connected to music. If music from my youth does not meet the criteria I love in music, I no longer listen to it, no matter how great my youth was at the time.


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## janwillemvanaalst (5 mo ago)

For me, I've never considered any age too old to discover new music. I'm now in my fifties, and the past seven years I've discovered artists such as Sabaton, Wardruna, Cowboy Junkies, Richard Hawley, Hammock, Singh Kaur, Michael Danna, as well as many, many lesser-known classical composers that I had never heard of before, such as Palmgren, Striggio, Scharwenka (Philipp), Shvedov, Maunder, Vedel, Schoeck, Vogler, Kalinnikov, Gossec, Bouzignac, Lysenko, Gjeilo, Diepenbrock... the list could go on and on. I really don't see why I wouldn't be discovering new music ten or twenty years from now. There's so much beautiful stuff out there just waiting to be (re)discovered. The problem lies more in when I will find the time to sit down and take the time to listen to it.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I love finding new music. 30 my @rse!


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I'm in my late 30s, and while I am open to hearing new music, I spend less effort in seeking it out nowadays. New releases from artists I enjoy plus recommendations I have from this board will keep me going, plus I like to re-hear old favorites.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Simon Moon said:


> Of course there are exceptions of people well past the age of 30 still into discovering new music. But let's be clear, they are the exceptions.


How do we know that this is so (that the post-30s don't recover their interest in new music later in life) and that there are few exceptions?


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

I think there's a difference between listening to "new music" as in expanding one's horizons, and listening to "new music" as in trying to keep up with the latest aesthetic trends.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

janwillemvanaalst said:


> For me, I've never considered any age too old to discover new music. I'm now in my fifties, and the past seven years I've discovered artists such as Sabaton, Wardruna, Cowboy Junkies, Richard Hawley, Hammock, Singh Kaur, Michael Danna, as well as many, many lesser-known classical composers that I had never heard of before, such as Palmgren, Striggio, Scharwenka (Philipp), Shvedov, Maunder, Vedel, Schoeck, Vogler, Kalinnikov, Gossec, Bouzignac, Lysenko, Gjeilo, Diepenbrock... the list could go on and on. I really don't see why I wouldn't be discovering new music ten or twenty years from now. There's so much beautiful stuff out there just waiting to be (re)discovered. The problem lies more in when I will find the time to sit down and take the time to listen to it.





Merl said:


> I love finding new music. 30 my @rse!





bharbeke said:


> I'm in my late 30s, and while I am open to hearing new music, I spend less effort in seeking it out nowadays. New releases from artists I enjoy plus recommendations I have from this board will keep me going, plus I like to re-hear old favorites.


Of course responses like this are expected on a music forum dedicated to non-mainstream, non-pop, music genres.

We are not a random sample of average music listeners. We tend to look for different things in music, and listen in different ways, and have different expectations than mainstream pop, rock, hip hop, country listeners.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

All of us on this forum can exclude ourselves from the general rule people of a certain age stop listening to "music," and start reliving their youths. Classical music is off the beaten path to begin with.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I’m 73. The day I stop discovering new music is the day they switch on the oven in the crematorium! Two weeks on Friday I’m off to see Aldous Harding. Check out the video for Horizon on YouTube. That will give you an idea of what she’s like. 😎


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

NoCoPilot said:


> Bring that beat back: why are people in their 30s giving up on music?
> 
> 
> It would have been unimaginable in our 20s, but these days more and more friends are disengaging from a passion we once shared. Surely this is premature?
> ...


But fear not...



> Streaming music service Spotify has identified 42 as the age when many of its users rediscover the joys of current pop music, as part of research into how their tastes mature over time.


Huzzah!

Spotify data hints at a 'musical midlife crisis' for 42-year-old music fans | Spotify | The Guardian


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## Doulton (Nov 12, 2015)

30 is, for me, about the age I had two babies and was going to graduate school. I switched off the radio and got more deeply immursed in classical music. I decided to go with the new CD format and starting buying the great work on vinyl. I listened to the local University Radio (believe me, there was a time when campus radios were dedicated to classical music. I started following certain performers and reading music history. My best lessons were going to see events put on at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. I was in Kilburn Hall or other venues about 4 or 5 times a week. 
I would match my school assignments with appropriate music. I cannot tell you why Verdi's "Un Ballo....." seemed perfect for writing a paper on a thick novel, or why a Beethoven quartet seemed the perfect thing to get started on writing a close analysis of a sonnet. 

And I periodically listen to "new" playlists on streaming music. I felt like I was having a great reunion when Kate Bush's music started being played a lot recently.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

fbjim said:


> I think there's a difference between listening to "new music" as in expanding one's horizons, and listening to "new music" as in trying to keep up with the latest aesthetic trends.


It's known as neuroplasticity, or more specifically, the lack of.

People lose neuroplasticity in various parts of their brain as we age. 

And in general, people tend to lose their openness to new experiences as we age. Some people have an elevated level of openness to new experiences, and I expect those are the people that retain their ability to expand their tastes in music.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Forster said:


> Spotify data hints at a 'musical midlife crisis' for 42-year-old music fans | Spotify | The Guardian


I wonder if we should keep this new-found knowledge of music to ourselves. I was talking to an 18-year-old store clerk and quoted Billy Eilish's Bad Guy. I wonder how that came off, if she thought I had wide-ranging taste or if I were just desperately trying to stay relevant. (Hey, it's the first, but did she know that?)


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I sacrificed searching for new non-classical when I was in my mid-30s. I was finding it increasingly harder to weed out anything I liked so I decided to change tack completely and devote most of my time learning about classical and jazz. That was back in the late 1990s and it's probably the best move I could have made.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Manxfeeder said:


> I wonder if we should keep this new-found knowledge of music to ourselves. I was talking to an 18-year-old store clerk and quoted Billy Eilish's Bad Guy. I wonder how that came off, if she thought I had wide-ranging taste or if I were just desperately trying to stay relevant. (Hey, it's the first, but did she know that?)


I'm sure she thought you were dead cool! 😎

Well, I'm impressed anyway. 😁


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## N Fowleri (5 mo ago)

Forster said:


> I'm sure she thought you were dead cool! 😎
> 
> Well, I'm impressed anyway. 😁


I'm sure she thought, "Do I want corn or peas for dinner tonight...or maybe green beans?"


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Manxfeeder said:


> I wonder if we should keep this new-found knowledge of music to ourselves. *I was talking to an 18-year-old store clerk* and quoted Billy Eilish's Bad Guy. I* wonder how that came off,* if she thought I had wide-ranging taste or if I were just desperately trying to stay relevant. (Hey, it's the first, but did she know that?)


Poorly... I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess "poorly"...


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Barbebleu said:


> I’m 73. *The day I stop discovering new music is the day they switch on the oven in the crematorium!* Two weeks on Friday I’m off to see Aldous Harding. Check out the video for Horizon on YouTube. That will give you an idea of what she’s like. 😎


You're probably going to want to make sure that you're actually dead first... It's not like you can change your mind once you're in there...


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Shaughnessy said:


> You're probably going to want to make sure that you're actually dead first... It's not like you can change your mind once you're in there...


That is indeed going to be a problem. When I was sixteen I made a vow to myself that I was never going to die. So far, so good!🤣.

Death - natures way of telling you to slow down.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

This study confirms that your music taste doesn't really develop beyond your teen years


Surprised?




tonedeaf.thebrag.com




"a study from The New York Times shows that the music you cherished in that time, in fact, does have the most power when in comes to shaping your lifelong tastes."
"As revealed by the data, woman's musical “tastes are formed between the ages of 11 and 14, while an average man's music tastes are virtually cemented between the ages of 13 and 16”. It furthers states that exposure in individuals early 20s seem to be about as “half as influential” as exposure in our teens."


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> This study confirms that your music taste doesn't really develop beyond your teen years
> 
> 
> Surprised?
> ...


_"Even though streaming has made new music more accessible than ever, we all tend to gravitate to the music that soundtracked our formative years. "_

And like all such reports, based on a single approach to data, it neither tells the whole story, nor explains it. If we "tend" towards preferring music that we liked in our teens, what about those who don't tend? And does it mean that it is the exact songs, or the type of song that is "fixed" in this way? And why is this the case?

Three of the four bands I cherish the most do not come from my teen years.


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## Montarsolo (5 mo ago)

I once read: everything that is invented before the age of 15 is considered normal. You absolutely love new inventions between the ages of 15 and 35. After 35/40, all new inventions are ballast.

Perhaps the same is true for music. I still discover new composers etc. but maybe they don't count that as new music because it's still classical music. I must confess that I do tend to listen to what I already know.



hammeredklavier said:


> "As revealed by the data, woman's musical “tastes are formed between the ages of 11 and 14, while an average man's music tastes are virtually cemented between the ages of 13 and 16”. It furthers states that exposure in individuals early 20s seem to be about as “half as influential” as exposure in our teens."


I recognise it. During that period I got to know classical music. It made a huge impression and music from that time is full of memories, smells, associations, etc.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

It seems a very specific thesis mostly applicable to modern (streaming) media. (I have nothing against podcasts but they are hardly comparable to music; I listen to them for information, if I do.)

The more general thesis that many people have their taste in music (and maybe elsewhere?) formed to a large extent in their teenage years might also be true in general, at least for the generation since "the teenager" became a marketing objective in the 1950s (US, probably a bit later in Europe but certainly in the 1960s) and then (originally teenaged focused) pop culture totally dominant and acceptable for adults, even in middle age.
Obviously, it's more often not true for people strongly interested in music, especially those also interested in music that has little connection to current popular culture or of their teenage years. Because the "favorite songs of youth" are hardly ever for purely musical reasons. I never got into popular music as a kid, I was so clueless as a teenager that I only realized years later that Sam Cooke's "Don't know much about history" that had become popular because of some commercial in the 1980s was actually a song from ca. 1960...

It seems true and well documented that in the last ca. 20 years people "sort themselves" more into "bubbles", including entertainment. In the first age of modern mass media, esp. TV, from the late 1950s through the early 1990s, "everyone" (the broad majority) watched/listened at least to a cross section of the same shows/music/sport events. This has become really different with streaming.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Montarsolo said:


> I once read: everything that is invented before the age of 15 is considered normal. You absolutely love new inventions between the ages of 15 and 35. After 35/40, all new inventions are ballast.


That's very interesting. I liked computers and the internet I encountered between ca. 17 and 23. But I already didn't care for (and ignored for a long time) cellphones that appeared when I was in my mid-/late 20s... 



> Perhaps the same is true for music. I still discover new composers etc. but maybe they don't count that as new music because it's still classical music. I must confess that I do tend to listen to what I already know.


I think that some saturation is normal. Because of internet discussion forums I discovered a lot of lesser known music, roughly between 2005-15 (in my 30s) but eventually I came to the conclusion that I mostly enjoyed the music of mostly well known standard repertoire composers and a lot of the "dark horses" had been almost forgotten for good reasons, so I reduced this exploration. Also, 10-15 years ago, one really had to buy CDs of music one was interested in, so I still have a lot to digest, and nowadays one can usually just try out something on youtube etc.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

I honestly think we've stumbled onto something here that alot of performing musicians already know...most people really dont care about music. For me, it's my life's work, but not everybody on the planet is devoting their life to the art of music, as a performer or a listener, but some people do....those are your "exceptions"

for most people, music is just a backing track for whatever they are presently doing. Musicians have a saying, "its better to play the wrong notes in the right rhythm". The reason is that when you play wrong notes, only the other musicians are going to know the difference, but if you play the wrong rhythm, EVEYBODY notices. Musicians know that the general public wont ever hear a mistake as long as you don't interrupt the flow of the line.

I really do think that survey is true for most non musicians. But alot of the people here fall into the other category. Folks that, for some reason or another, see music as a vast ocean to explore


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## Patrick Murtha (Aug 1, 2016)

I’ll paint with a slightly broad brush here, but: It seems to me that if your relation to music (or anything else) is primarily SOCIOLOGICAL, then the thesis of the article will be true; but if your primary relation is AESTHETIC, then the opposite will probably hold.

By “sociological”, I mean that music is used as one tool among several to define yourself in relation to a same-aged (important!) peer group. Since our culture has established the teen years as the time when that happens, naturally the music, pop culture, sports references, etc, of a different time will not have as much pertinence.

I think that probably all of us experience this generational effect to some extent. When I meet someone who was born within a year or two of me on either side, communication seems automatic; we have lived through the same history at the same ages.

But aesthetic appreciation is different. Classical or jazz listeners, littérateurs or cinéphiles, don’t relate to each other on the basis of age, but of KNOWLEDGE and taste, developed painstakingly over time. A 75-year-old classical fan could have a lot to communicate with a 20-year-old one, and age might not factor in much.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Nate Miller said:


> I honestly think we've stumbled onto something here that alot of performing musicians already know...most people really dont care about music. For me, it's my life's work, but not everybody on the planet is devoting their life to the art of music, as a performer or a listener, but some people do....those are your "exceptions"
> 
> for most people, music is just a backing track for whatever they are presently doing. Musicians have a saying, "its better to play the wrong notes in the right rhythm". The reason is that when you play wrong notes, only the other musicians are going to know the difference, but if you play the wrong rhythm, EVEYBODY notices. Musicians know that the general public wont ever hear a mistake as long as you don't interrupt the flow of the line.
> 
> I really do think that survey is true for most non musicians. But alot of the people here fall into the other category. Folks that, for some reason or another, see music as a vast ocean to explore


I believe it was Beecham who said ‘There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a d**n what goes on in between.’ He was probably right for the majority of concert goers.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Since this thread is in the Non-Classical forum and the article describes non-classical listening habits, talk about classical music listeners would seem to be beside the point.


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## JimZipCode (Feb 16, 2021)

mbhaub said:


> It's the people who listen to pop/rock whose tastes solidify around age 30 going into geezerhood still listening to the music that they did in high school and college years. Nostalgia is a funny thing.


That seems to describe my dad. He even goes on music cruises with old rock legends; bands like the Moody Blues and the Zombies etc play shows, and you get to interact with the band members at off times.

I'm in my mid-50s, and somewhat-but-not-completely calcified.

On the one hand my comfort music is mostly rock from the 70s and New Wave from my high school years, ~1978 or 9 into the early '80s.
On the other hand, within the last ~5 years or so I've discovered some new-to-me favorites – I mean top-shelf favorites, that I would listen to any time or constantly – like Curtis Mayfield's greatest hits, and the song “Feel It Still” by the band Portugal The Man. Stretch back another couplefew years, and the band Metric goes on the list.
So: it's good that I'm still able to accumulate/assimilate “new favorites”; but I can't deny that I've got some old man / “popular music was better in MY day” tendencies.

My wife is a big fan of Hip Hop, and what she calls “foul-mouthed rap music”, so I get to hear new, contemporary, very rhythm-oriented stuff from time to time. I think it's good for me, regardless of anyone's opinions on rap.

In classical there's been a slow drift from “big” orchestral music like the Star Wars music and Holst's Planets in my teens, thru various overtures & classical symphonies in my 20s/30s, toward Bach and then toward chamber music like trios. String quartet music is a little “dry” for me, but add a piano or a wind instrument and I enjoy the texture.

I don't think I've added any new classical favorites in some years. That might be worth a little time investment.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

SanAntone said:


> Since this thread is in the Non-Classical forum and the article describes non-classical listening habits, talk about classical music listeners would seem to be beside the point.












Agreed, Counselor, but if it will please the court,... I was talking about people who actually care about music vs civilians. I was just following up on the idea of there being "exceptions" to the rule that we all stop listening to new music with both ears by age 30


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

mbhaub said:


> My experience is that *classical listeners*, especially the rabid collectors, are exploring new music well into senile old age. It's *the people who listen to pop/rock* whose tastes solidify around age 30 going into geezerhood still listening to the music that they did in high school and college years. Nostalgia is a funny thing.


I find these generalisations rather blunt tools to analyse listening habits, and I'm not sure what value they have to us. I can see they are useful for filling column inches in publications that have to find "news" 24/7 and the sellers of music might need it to identify the right demographic for their product.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Nate Miller said:


> Agreed, Counselor, but if it will please the court,... I was talking about people who actually care about music vs civilians. I was just following up on the idea of there being "exceptions" to the rule that we all stop listening to new music with both ears by age 30


IMO the premise of the article is based on questionable methodology and whatever conclusions are drawn from it are not representative of the reality. I know my own experience is nothing like what is described in the article. I have never not been interested in finding and listening to new music, from all genres.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

SanAntone said:


> IMO the premise of the article is based on questionable methodology and whatever conclusions are drawn from it are not representative of the reality. I know my own experience is nothing like what is described in the article. I have never not been interested in finding and listening to new music, from all genres.


absolutely. Very questionable methodology. I'm assuming that Spotify used their internal download metrics, so the sample is basically taken from people who use Spotify and then extrapolated out to all of humanity.

..but I've been watching way too much Perry Mason. They show him twice a day around here, and I think its starting to get to me


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Lost interest in rock / pop music in my late 20s, but that was in the late 90s when rock died, just had the godawful buttrock and nu metal take over. then in my early 30s discovered a few interesting new music - Michael Gira's Angels of Light and Swans reboot, Foals, Meshuggah, Opeth, Enslaved and a host of other metal bands - the 2000s were the best decade for metal IMO. Then its been hard getting into anything outside of metal, but metal seems to be retreading ground from the 2000s. My daughter got me into St Vincent, but I dont care for Grimes, Lana Del Rey and the other stuff she listens to


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I have tried to get into metal over the years, most recently earlier this year, but lose interest after about one minute. Mostly it is the vocals that turn me off. What band/album would you suggest as an introduction?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I'm exactly 30 and I've had some unexpected new phases of listening this year. That being said, I'm basically a teenager at heart these days. Perhaps going through some kind of belated period of self development. It's pretty great, I love it. I continue to build relationships with new for me music outside of classical music as well as within. A friend of mine recently told me I seem to be in my sponge phase. It's rarely if not never, too late.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> I have tried to get into metal over the years, most recently earlier this year, but lose interest after about one minute. Mostly it is the vocals that turn me off. What band/album would you suggest as an introduction?


Opeth is a great place to start - switches between clean and death growl, the death and black vocal styles work because doubling the riff gets old and it may be too fast and / or chromatic to sing. Helps to think of the voice as another percussion instrument

nice Opeth





not so nice Opeth






Meshuggah is another band popular with non-metal fans, works some crazy polyrhythms (here is the drum part to below


http://imgur.com/a/c1xWw

 ) into their music


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Barbebleu said:


> Death - natures way of telling you to slow down.


It's either that or *'We have had enough of your $h!t, buddy.'*


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

mbhaub said:


> My experience is that classical listeners, especially the rabid collectors, are exploring new music well into senile old age. It's the people who listen to pop/rock whose tastes solidify around age 30 going into geezerhood still listening to the music that they did in high school and college years. Nostalgia is a funny thing.


This is spot on, I think. You saved me the trouble of writing it.



Patrick Murtha said:


> I’ll paint with a slightly broad brush here, but: It seems to me that if your relation to music (or anything else) is primarily SOCIOLOGICAL, then the thesis of the article will be true; but if your primary relation is AESTHETIC, then the opposite will probably hold.


Makes sense to me too, but I would add SENTIMENTAL to SOCIOLOGICAL


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Opeth is a great place to start - switches between clean and death growl, the death and black vocal styles work because doubling the riff gets old and it may be too fast and / or chromatic to sing. Helps to think of the voice as another percussion instrument
> 
> nice Opeth
> 
> ...


That's truly awful.


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## Patrick Murtha (Aug 1, 2016)

A further point: From the beginning of the rock era on, part of the adolescent attachment to music has been, “This is MY music”, in opposition to parents and adults. So when you become an adult and perhaps a parent, there is bound to be cognitive dissonance.

First: The music you liked can’t be used for that oppositional purpose anymore. This may be why some people drift away from it for a while, before they can establish a new function for that same music as nostalgia. For many folks, this starts to happen in their 40s.

Second: It would feel weird to like the music that the kids like now, because it is in opposition to YOU.

Now, for even young aficionados of classical and jazz and various genres of what Robert Christgau in a useful formulation calls “semi-popular music”, these are not issues. You’re off in some other realm, maybe in partial opposition to mainstream culture, but not to parents and adults per se.

Autobiographical context: I was born in 1958, and when I was in high school I became an increasingly serious classical listener. I was not the only one in my school, either (admittedly, a very academically intense boys’ prep school). This enthusiasm for classical was something I SHARED with certain adults, such as my music appreciation teacher (yes, we had that class).

Jazz and pre-Beatles popular music came later, at university, and rock too but VERY selectively. I liked Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell, for example, and eventually became a bit of a Beatles scholar, but those tastes are pretty congruous with classical, aren’t they? I never went whole hog on contemporary popular music, though; grunge with its Romantic-poet affect is the last wave I could tell you anything about.

Music, like the other arts, has always been a really personal thing with me; I have been happy to know others who share my tastes, but this has never been about belonging or group membership at all. As a lone wolf, I would disdain that.


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## Patrick Murtha (Aug 1, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> Makes sense to me too, but I would add SENTIMENTAL to SOCIOLOGICAL


Certainly, “sentimental” fits as well.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Opeth is a great place to start - switches between clean and death growl, the death and black vocal styles work because doubling the riff gets old and it may be too fast and / or chromatic to sing. Helps to think of the voice as another percussion instrument
> 
> Meshuggah is another band popular with non-metal fans, works some crazy polyrhythms into their music


Thanks. I listened to some Meshuggah (parts of Nothing, I, ObZen) and read the lyrics. I can appreciate the musicianship, creativity, and quality and will listen to more. I will also check out Opeth.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

The survey result makes sense to me. For most, music listening is a habit. Just as one might sign one's name the same way and brush one's teeth the same way starting somewhere in early adulthood, one may have music listening habits that become increasingly settled.

That doesn't describe me, but I understand it.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

fluteman said:


> The survey result makes sense to me. For most, music listening is a habit. Just as one might sign one's name the same way and brush one's teeth the same way starting somewhere in early adulthood, one may have music listening habits that become increasingly settled.
> 
> That doesn't describe me, but I understand it.



I am with you on this with one adding, take the survey every 5 years now we are talking about 7 years ago.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Patrick Murtha said:


> A further point: From the beginning of the rock era on, part of the adolescent attachment to music has been, “This is MY music”, in opposition to parents and adults.


I think that happened in every human generation since we first drilled holes in bamboo reeds, actually


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## Abstract Landscape (Jun 24, 2014)

SanAntone said:


> I have tried to get into metal over the years, most recently earlier this year, but lose interest after about one minute. Mostly it is the vocals that turn me off. What band/album would you suggest as an introduction?


This deserves it's own thread, and maybe there is one, but here's some info. More than just Heavy Metal

Psych Rock:
SLIFT - Ummon Levitation Sessions

Cosmic Psych Rock, long instrumental heavy jams:
Mythic Sunship - Ophidian Rising

Garage Fuzz
L.A. Witch - Firestarter
(amazing live)

Heavy Metal 
Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
(youtube reviewer reviewed it as "this album is so heavy I had to take it home from the music store in my truck.")

Old Gems found anew
Atomic Rooster - Head in the Sky

Soul Jazz Feel good music
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio I told you so


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## Patrick Murtha (Aug 1, 2016)

Nate Miller said:


> I honestly think we've stumbled onto something here that alot of performing musicians already know...most people really dont care about music. For me, it's my life's work, but not everybody on the planet is devoting their life to the art of music, as a performer or a listener, but some people do....those are your "exceptions"
> 
> for most people, music is just a backing track for whatever they are presently doing. Musicians have a saying, "its better to play the wrong notes in the right rhythm". The reason is that when you play wrong notes, only the other musicians are going to know the difference, but if you play the wrong rhythm, EVEYBODY notices. Musicians know that the general public wont ever hear a mistake as long as you don't interrupt the flow of the line.
> 
> I really do think that survey is true for most non musicians. But alot of the people here fall into the other category. Folks that, for some reason or another, see music as a vast ocean to explore


I keep thinking about this excellent post, in part because it has much broader application than music. In fact, it is a through-line in my own life, this constant (re-)discovery that no matter what it is that I care deeply about, the percentage of other people who do likewise is vanishingly small. Of course this is just another way of saying that I have niche rather mainstream tastes. But that has a pretty big impact on one’s life. For some of us at least, it cuts way down on the number of people we can or want to communicate meaningfully with. And that’s just for starters.

For example, in the countries that I have lived in outside the United States, South Korea and Mexico, I spent years teaching English to university-educated, professional adults, and I never had a single student who was extensively familiar with the literature or history of their own country. No knock on those nations or students specifically. It is just a very rare attainment.

Well-developed interest in and knowledge of ANYTHING cultural or intellectual is almost impossible to find “live” anywhere except (a) professions related to those concerns, (b) certain high-level university campuses, or (c) a few declining pockets in the biggest cities. The rest of us have to go online to locate such people. It is the only option.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I was 30 in 1992 and I remember buying a lot of new music at the time. The latest releases by Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, John Scofield, Frank Zappa, Bela Fleck, and many others. I still had a very small classical collection. It wasn't until 18 years later in 2010 that I discovered this forum and as a result my modern orchestral and chamber music collection expanded at an alarming rate thanks to all the fanatics here who turned me on to dozens of composers.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

I don't hold with the breathtaking assumption that people who, say, still listen to and expand their awareness of music of the '60's and '70's are doing it out of "nostalgia." Or that people who were into music in their twenties but not in their thirties are dropping music because of the "responsibilities of life." How did we become so judgmental, and start speaking in marketing clichés? People can find at any point in life that they don't have time for music, but that is about time management not the revelation of profound certainties and eternal truths. In my lifetime, patronizing and pernicious dismissal of the arts has never been more widespread and deeply embedded than it is now.


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## Otis B. Driftwood (4 mo ago)

I'm in that age group, and I haven't magically stopped listening to new things yet. Classical music keeps me very busy. Always something new to discover, something new to learn.


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