Mate no one wants to hear their new stuff theyll crack that tour out
1 Like
Yeah i used to exclusively consume new music and rarely dove backward. Especially once i established which established musicians i liked. Now it’s more free flowing i go in my time machine as and when i choose and go back and forward willy nillly based onood
1 Like
I think the distributive medium is a big influence on your connection to music too. If music changed in a way that left the old standard of records and singles behind in some way, or songs got drastically shorter to fit on social media or something- I could see myself being less enthusiastic about new stuff.
But if that happened there’d be a backlash / traditionalist movement of musicians doing the opposite too.
1 Like
The personal aspects of the article in the OP certainly resonated with me. I’m 43, and I find I have fewer and fewer people to go to gigs with. Over the next couple of months I have two tickets to see each of Midwife, Widowspeak, Japanese Breakfast and Press Club, and I’m pretty doubtful of finding somone to accompany me to any of those.
Partly it’'s because a lot of my friends have kids and go out a lot less. I have two kids, and can only make it to those gigs because they’re all near my house and I can make it to them after putting one of my kids to bed, so as not to leave my wife with both to deal with for a random gig (as opposed to a friend’s birthday or something).
As for listening, time is surely a big factor. I try to fit my new listening in where I can, but my work is mostly meetings, and my three year old isn’t too keen on the latest postmetal release, and often tells me to turn off whatever I’m listening to! Plus there’s the time to read about what you might want to listen to.
I don’t think my friends have become less curious, I just think their curiosity is being sated by other means - most prominently podcasts. I find I just don’t have the listening time to fit both podcasts and music into my life. I choose albums, but have to demure whenever the conversation turns to favouite podcasts. It’s not a big deal, but it can occasionally feel a bit like being the person who says ‘oh, I don’t read’ when peope are talking about novels. My wife goes for podcasts and not music mostly, and as a result knows a lot of stuff about a lot of things that I have no idea about, which can make me feel a little intellectually deficient occassionally!
4 Likes
Also honestly as much as I still love a lot of what I liked as a teenager, I simply can’t listen to that stuff with the same ears these days. So I’ve found it harder and harder to really get into that thing of “old faves being sacred” or whatever
2 Likes
I had largely terrible taste as a teenager, and I think my horizons only really started opening in my 20s.
Almost 40 now and although time constraints mean I listen to less music, what I do listen to tends to be more adventurous. Certainly more so than when I was listening to whatever Pitchfork told me to in the early to mid 2000’s
2 Likes
Music really isn’t very different now to when I was growing up, everything still sounds like it’s from the 80s or the 90s. Eventually you’ve heard all the ways music can sound so it’s understandable that the novelty fades.
Up and down with it all.
Sometimes I think I’ve really heard it all before and go off listening to anything other than Radio 3 or ‘This Is Mendelssohn’ on Spotify or whatever as I’m so sick of anything even vaguely 6 Music-adjacent.
But then something fires me up again and I suddenly feel there’s plenty to get excited about.
This probably says as much about me as it does about anyone else tho 
1 Like
Im 41 and haven’t given up yet. I certainly don’t consume on a level like some of the new release folks on here who seem to listen to an incredible amount but i still buy 7 inches, LPS, splits etc from new bands. Not sure many are popular per-se but i keep an eye on the broad genres that still interest me. I have no interest in keeping up with popular stuff, and walking round with kids or my headphones on means i don’t absorb it so i am incredibly ignorant to a lot of mainstream stuff - more so than when i was a snob as a yoof probably.
This place is great just to pick up some recommendations at pretty much anytime, and then i have the more specialised places i go to find out about stuff, and with the internet generally, spotify and bandcamp it’s not ‘hard’ at all.
I guess it’s just when you get older you have less time/energy to do everything. When i was younger as well as music i loved films, comics, games, football etc almost as much, and ‘kept up’ accordingly. Now i am still interested in all of them and keep up but not in the same way as i do music. I follow arsenal closely but can’t keep up with football as much generally, i read new comics but pretty much stick to recommendations on here etc etc. Music however i’ll still seek out zines and read about screamo bands from the arse end of nowhere and will disappear down wormholes of nonsense music when i have a free hour.
Energy is a thing though. Still consume lots at home but i have missed local gigs i never thought i would 20 years ago which is a shame.
Depends what’s defined as popular music I suppose. I followed the top 40 up until I was around 30, but I didn’t buy or listen to much that got in there beyond 16.
I try to keep an eye on what’s getting played on BBC6 still, but I reached the point of going “who?” whenever a Radio 1 event is advertised a long, long time ago.
1 Like
Remember seeing black midi a few years ago and being quite aware that I was twice the age most of the audience, thats okay - I’ll still keep listening to that garbage.
7 Likes
absolutely fuck late night clubbing though. I’m usually tucked up in bed for well before midnight, cant be arsed with a headliner coming on at 4am 
2 Likes
I’m nearly 38 and I’ve listened to more new music in the last year than at any point of my 30s. That’s partly to do with now having a job that means I can but also have refound my enthusiasm for it. And I think it’s to do with the fact that it’s so much easier to listen to stuff. In my 20s I had to read about something on here or in a magazine or whatever then either buy it or download it rather than streaming. Now I can just sit at my desk and try something out, if I don’t like it then move on to the next thing.
I don’t suffer from not having anyone to talk to about it cause the 2 or 3 people I did chat to irl about these things are still pretty interested and the rest of my conversations are on here. I’ll level with you though, the thought of going to see anyone live leaves me absolutely cold these days. Other people, out past 11pm, expensive pints; no thank you.
4 Likes
oh, and that Reading line up made me realise i am totally clueless - so many names high up the bill didn’t even ring a bell of recognition!
(i mean, rage against the machine!?! what kind of name is that!?!)
and also listening to Soul Glo made you realise new music can be good again!
Do you know what, I’m going to try it again right now.
1 Like
Maybe more casual music listeners actually end up listening to more new music? If you just listen to radio or playlists as background and always have you just have a general idea of new music (in a fairly limited and mainstream way obviously).
Having kids means you end up listening to new music as well.
If you are more passionately engaged with music maybe there is more of a tendency to create your own golden age of music.
Personally think I’ve reached an ok balance of being engaged with new and new to me stuff without endlessly listening to things I don’t actually like due to fomo.
2 Likes
I still yearn to find out new music and sounds, but I find I am much more discerning about what I like/don’t like than when I was a teen, mostly due to time constraints (I’m in my late 30s now).
Now I kind of realise what kinds of sounds I like and I’m more focused towards discovering new stuff within that set of sounds/genres. Fortunately, that’s still such a wide range of genres that I have no problem discovering new stuff.
What I do find difficult is to choosing which albums to buy so I can give them enough attention. However, this year I’ve bought albums by Low, Pyrithe, and Soul Glo for example, and all of those albums have rewarded repeated listens, so I feel I’m doing something right.
As for ‘Popular’ Music- I’ve never really kept track of it and sought it out, but if something I really like comes out, I’ll check it out (like Little Simz and CRJ). And I always find it laughable when people say pop has gone downhill- almost all pop music, no matter how good it is, was never designed to last. I would venture to say very little pop music of what was released in the 60s/70s is listened to much nowadays, outside of a few dedicated fans (and more power to them).
It’s growing on me tbh. Probably won’t listen to it again but I don’t hate it like I did on first listen. Ironically, given the thread we’re in, I’d have fucking loved this at about 17.
1 Like
I don’t know about “giving up” per se but that defining moment where there are more acts on the Reading & Leeds lineup that I haven’t heard of than that I have came several years ago for me.
That said I can definitely relate to this, from the article:
Sometimes when I speak to people about going to gigs, festivals or raves, I see an almost pitying look wash over their face: “Really? You’re still doing that? Bless.” As if clinging on represents some childish refusal to let go of youth, the equivalent of a balding mod refusing to shave off their depleting feather cut.
My mum asked my wife and I whether we’d ever “grow out” of going to gigs and I had to explain that, barring mobility issues, live music is our main shared hobby and that we won’t “grow out” of it any more than one grows out of going to the cinema. (ironically, something my dad used to love, and that we shared, but never does any more as he enters his Grumpy Old Man phase)
and this, particularly as more and more of my friends have kids:
“what are you listening to?” is seemingly replaced permanently by “what are you watching?”
but then again my closest friends and I have always had quite different tastes in music so this is just somewhere we’re more likely to find common ground. Doubly true with my parents, I think every single conversation I have with them ends up drifting into a TV show or movie recommendation. It’s just finding common ground isn’t it? And the fact is most people, outside of the DiS forums, above a certain age, just aren’t seeking out new music.
This is so true. I have a music journalist friend in his mid-40s who thinks the 90s were the best time for music and will never be bettered; I fell hook, line, and sinker for the 1999-2006 emo explosion and there will probably never be a two-year run with more albums that I fall in love with than 2002-3, but I’ve made peace with that. I engaged with music on a level at that age that it’s just not possible (or, arguably, healthy) to do so as a fully grown adult.
Final thought: I’m reading 'Nothing Feels Good: Teenagers, Punk Rock, and Emo" by Andy Greenwald and it discusses bands I love/loved, contemporaneously, in a way that makes me understand why a lot of the “same” music these days leaves me cold. It largely comes down to this:
There’s a very good reason why pop-punk/emo kids in their 30s have gravitated towards bands like The Menzingers and Spanish Love Songs, who write the music we’ve always loved but with lyrics that are relatable to ageing millennials.
4 Likes