#22

Me too! Well apart from their song on the OC Christmas album

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#23

Even if it irrational there’s still a bit of a thrill in finding something you love that is also new and undiscovered. There’s also an (entirely rational) excitement in looking forward to seeing how a new band will develop. The unexpected failures can be as interesting as the glorious blossomings in fact.

Finding ‘old’ music you haven’t heard before is great too though, especially if there’s a big back catalogue you can work through without having to wait a year for the next album as you would with a new band.

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#24

absolutely this. With new bands there’s also an element of the “collective” too - everyone is hearing stuff for the first time altogether vs discovering at different times. This feeds into it i think

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#25

I do find new stuff exciting in that it shows how an artist is operating RIGHT NOW (or about 6 months ago, depending on the release cycle stuff). But I’m a few years late to most stuff and also spend a fair bit of time diving into 60/70s stuff and weird wormholes

#26

I exclusively listen to music made by newborn babies.

#27

I generally can’t be arsed with old bands (especially if they’ve got a big back catalogue) that I don’t already know and follow, even if they’re still active and releasing new albums. Generally, if they’ve stopped producing music, or if they have already previously released 3 or more albums before I “discover” them, I just lose all interest. Something about the prospect of going back through the back catalogue just puts me off, like it’d be a bit of a chore, and that I’ve missed the boat, so to speak.

So in that sense I prefer new bands, though I have no real investment in being first or even in seeing them develop. It’s purely a laziness thing, since I know I’d feel obliged to dig into the back catalogue, if I did decide to listen to (and like) an album by a well established artist that I hadn’t ever listened to previously.

Don’t care if that’s irrational or closed-minded, or it means that I’m missing out on a wealth of great music, or it makes me a hipster or NME-teeny-bopper, or whatever.

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#28

I know of a couple of bands who’ve changed their name prior to releasing a new album in order to be able to leverage that “hot new artist” branding. Sometimes it coincides with a significant change in sound (I think The 1975 might have done this??) and at least one more who probably would have had much more success if they’d done the same thing…

I’m not consciously fussed personally, although for bands with more than 2 or 3 albums it does sometimes feel like a barrier to getting properly into them depending on how much they vary their live sets.

#29

Well, as long as you don’t care.

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#30

i think this kind of thing is fair enough, particularly if they sound radically different to the previous output

#31

I’m not bothered if the artist is still active or even alive, or if I’m late to the party. Obviously when I do get into a band, it’s a bonus if I have a chance of seeing them live, looking forward to the next album, and watching them develop. But if I like the music, it’s not a dealbreaker if they vanished without trace in 1973, or broke up after a critically reviled third album last year.

Although you say you’ve noticed it lately, I reckon that clamour for new music must have peaked in the era of the blog ten years ago. Then, it seemed there were indie points to be gained by being the first to draw someone’s attention to a band who had a couple of demos to their name. Now, no-one is that impressed.

#32

I find new bands less exciting now - Black Midi last night really hammered that home - a room full of people going wild and I really struggled to make any kind of connection with them. Think that, along with comparing every newish band I hear with a band I listened to in my teens / early twenties, is a symptom of becoming a fully fledged old man.

#33

So to answer the original question.

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#34

I want new bands and I want good stuff from old bands. I am 46 and do not like 1) people of my age saying “there’s no good music anymore” and 2) people of my age going to see bands from “their” era and going to the bar if they play new stuff.

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#35

The principal thing that’s always guided how I listen to music is what a particular band sounds like, I’m not reaallllyyy bothered about how long they’ve been around for although I suppose I do try and keep up with new artists.

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#36

good thread this.

it’s a weird one - being a new band has its advantages for sure, and blogs/ mags LOVE to use it as an angle for hype, etc. but as you age (and I speak as someone who’s band has been around for 13 years), your audience kinda ages with you, and even though you won’t get a lot of hot press for anything, you’ll catch people who might be either fed up of the music biz churn of relentless new bands, or who just don’t have much time for music discovery these days and latch onto stuff that might be a bit older, or not so ‘popular’.

so it’s swings and roundabouts I guess. also very much depends on how old you are.

#38

this is kinda what i was getting at, i’ve noticed it massively with my own/friend’s bands that some sites/magazines will be all over you for your first release then absolutely don’t want to know about the follow up, unless you’ve somehow gone stratospheric in the interim

#39

yeah, that’s basically it in a nutshell. the trick is getting whatever you can out of the biz machine whilst you’re new and try to keep hold of it as you get older!

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#40

Bugger, accidentally ‘flagged’ this post when trying to click heart. Not sure how to unflagging? Moderators, please ignore…

#41

I like a new band because the gigs tend to be in small venues and cheap. Always like hearing something fresh.

Also noticed that I keep buying albums by bands I have liked for ages where the album is touted as ‘a return to form’ or their best since ‘seminal album x’ and it so very rarely is - that irks me.

I love it all really, I guess I do favour fresh newbs a tad. Sometimes with a band who have a big back catalogue I don’t want to be poorly informed or come across as a dabbler if anyone ever strikes up a conversation with me about a band; this never happens anyway.

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#42

Got into Prefab Sprout in 2013 (age 25) thanks to the old boards, they’ve remained in my top 10 favourite bands ever since.

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