[HN Gopher] When do we stop finding new music?
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       When do we stop finding new music?
        
       Author : commons-tragedy
       Score  : 133 points
       Date   : 2024-04-24 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.statsignificant.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.statsignificant.com)
        
       | 082349872349872 wrote:
       | Listening to the music of one's childhood time from other
       | countries is a way to find comfort-genre but new-to-you pieces.
       | 
       | Sometimes there are nice surprises: for instance, "My Way" (1969)
       | and "Comme D'Habitude" (1967) share a tune but are very different
       | songs.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FEwW0W9AvA (did Sid influence
       | this interpretation?)
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeTn56-lahg
        
       | nkotov wrote:
       | I loved this article. I have about 4k songs saved in my "liked"
       | playlist on Spotify, majority of them were from when I was 20 to
       | 24, then it tapered off a lot. I turned 30 this year and I still
       | like to discover new music but not as much as I did in my early
       | 20s.
        
         | reactordev wrote:
         | This is why folks in their 40s+ end up still listening to the
         | same stuff. lol. The article was right about that.
         | 
         | Acts like Greta Fleet help bridge those gaps between old school
         | sounds and new music. Electronica has never been easier to get
         | into as well and there's a nostalgia for those old school
         | synthwave vibes.
         | 
         | Like all things, there's an ebb and flow to music and musical
         | taste over time. You'll find as you understand music more,
         | you'll be listening to classical on a Thursday morning just as
         | much as you'll listen to pop, rock, or jazz.
         | 
         | By the time you reach 60, your musical tastes _should_ be broad
         | enough to appreciate all music, hopefully. Obviously some will
         | reach that point faster than others. Musicians tend to be the
         | fastest since they are students of music.
         | 
         | I still have a rock playlist I created in my late 20s on
         | Spotify that I listen to this day. Mostly started as a digital
         | version of my in-car CD collection.
        
         | swozey wrote:
         | I like to go through my Liked songs list that's probably 10+
         | years old on Spotify and it's basically like a journal of my
         | life.
         | 
         | I'll see months where I clearly started dating a new person,
         | incorporated their new-to-me music into my playlists, then when
         | I start to see Lord Huron etc I'm probably going through
         | another breakup. Then glowing up which for me is usually a
         | metal/hardcore/rap 3-6 months in the gym until I meet someone
         | and cycle again. lol.
         | 
         | My Spotify Remix in 2020 was pretty much all depression music.
        
         | evanletz wrote:
         | Agreed. I'm 27 and still save a lot of new music. But I've
         | looked back at my older playlists from college and was probably
         | saving 10x more songs back then. Full-time job definitely
         | affected that
        
       | jonathankoren wrote:
       | As a middle aged guy, I've used TikTok to find new music.
       | 
       | Spotify recommendations are kind of crap after a bit. It's a
       | fundamental problem with similarity based recommendations and
       | people getting stagnant. I don't want to listen to the greatest
       | bands of the 90s and 00s. I want to listen to new bands that were
       | _influenced_ by those bands.
        
         | andoando wrote:
         | I have a similar issue with Spotify too. Everywhere on my page
         | is stuff I am completely bored of listening to, but since its
         | the only thing I can easily access, I end up listening to the
         | same things and Spotify thinks I want more of it.
         | 
         | Instagram has the same issue. I watch a few horse videos and
         | all of a sudden my feed is horses for months.
        
       | tombert wrote:
       | I haven't read the article, but I know the answer pretty
       | definitively for me: the second I stopped listening to the radio,
       | which happened in 2008 (when I was 17), because my favorite radio
       | station in Orlando that used to carry a lot of punk rock music
       | got rebranded to music for the 50+ demographic. I'm not even
       | going to pretend that I know the reasons why they did that, but
       | it was the only station I was listening to regularly, and pretty
       | much my only source for new music as a result.
       | 
       | Gradually I stopped seeking out new music, instead just focusing
       | on buying CDs for bands I already knew until I got Spotify in
       | 2012, and that just kind of became an echo chamber.
       | 
       | I have a SiriusXM account now, and I do try and seek out new
       | music that way occasionally via their phone app, but it's been a
       | bit difficult since I don't drive since I moved to NYC. My car
       | was probably 80+% of my music-listening time and now I don't
       | really have that anymore. I can't really listen to music with
       | lyrics while working (way too distracting for me), so the only
       | music I listen to during most of the day is video game music from
       | the 90's: stuff that's meant to be pleasant to listen to, but
       | also easy to tune out by design.
        
         | dr-smooth wrote:
         | I also have that problem with lyrics in music while I'm
         | working. That pushed me toward more electronic music during the
         | workday. Got into various forms of house that way.
        
           | 082349872349872 wrote:
           | lyrics in a language you don't speak are much less
           | distracting
           | 
           | (every now and then I get tempted to translate whatever word
           | I think I keep hearing in every song; it often turns out to
           | be either "love" or "heart")
        
       | injidup wrote:
       | Finding "new" music is a concept that the music industry has
       | marketed to you like being skinny or that cola is a lifestyle. In
       | times past people were happy with one genre or slight variations
       | of that genre for millennia. Now we are spoiled for choice but
       | are yet still made to feel ashamed if we are not consuming the
       | newest and discarding the oldest. As if there is sickness to be
       | found in enjoying something old and well worn.
        
         | tombert wrote:
         | Yeah, I agree.
         | 
         | I think it's easy to sit and judge someone as being
         | "uncultured" because they listen to music that was popular when
         | they were a teenager, but fundamentally it's not like they're
         | hurting anyone. I listen to mostly late-90's-early-2000's punk
         | rock even still, and I don't think it's a moral failing that I
         | don't listen to the latest stuff all the time, just like I
         | don't think it's a moral failing for my mom to mostly listen to
         | The Beegees.
         | 
         | Music is, first and foremost, a means of entertainment, and
         | it's not like it really buys you anything to be up to date in
         | music for most careers. If your job is, I don't know, marketing
         | director of a company, then sure, maybe you should keep up to
         | date with the latest trends all the time, but most of us have
         | pretty utilitarian jobs where it doesn't really matter _what_
         | we like.
         | 
         | I think where it gets harmful is acting like "the stuff I
         | listened to as a teenager is _objectively_ better than what the
         | kids listen to now ", which I will admit is a mentality that I
         | sometimes have to actively fight against. I think it can
         | sometimes be a proxy for shitting on the next generation of
         | humans, and I am very actively against needlessly divisive and
         | reductive stuff like that.
        
           | ElFitz wrote:
           | > and I don't think it's a moral failing that I don't listen
           | to the latest stuff all the time
           | 
           | I've personally enjoyed going the other way and exploring
           | earlier and earlier singers and genres.
           | 
           | Quite fun.
           | 
           | For those interested, there's also "Excavated Shellac"[0]. I
           | can't say I've liked or even enjoyed most of it, but it's
           | been an intriguing and interesting discovery nonetheless.
           | 
           | [0]: https://excavatedshellac.com/2020/12/13/excavated-
           | shellac-an...
        
             | tombert wrote:
             | Yeah, I've done something like the theme of Excavated
             | Shellac with old CDs a couple times. I will buy a bundle of
             | 100 random CDs on eBay and go through and rip anything that
             | seems remotely interesting. Occasionally I've found stuff
             | from obscure artists that I end up liking, and even stuff
             | that never made it to Spotify.
             | 
             | It's time consuming and I probably won't do it again but it
             | was fun to do a few times.
        
           | floxy wrote:
           | >I think it's easy to sit and judge someone as being
           | "uncultured" because they listen to music that was popular
           | when they were a teenager
           | 
           | Pretty funny, especially since I just attended a sold-out
           | performance of Mozart's Requiem last month. Back when I was
           | younger, I think the dominant perception was that classical
           | music was "cultured" and popular / current music was lacking
           | in refinement
        
             | tombert wrote:
             | I think it kind of goes both ways?
             | 
             | Maybe the word "uncultured" isn't right, but I feel like
             | when I say "I don't really listen to much that was written
             | in the last fifteen years", people kind of act like I'm
             | some kind of luddite. I also think a lot of people feel
             | like the _smartest_ people go way back and listen to the
             | classical stuff. Personally, I 've never really been able
             | to get into classical music outside of movie soundtracks,
             | and for awhile I was kind of embarrassed by that fact, but
             | I'm not really anymore. As I said, music is about
             | _entertainment_ , and you like what you like.
             | 
             | Kind of related, when I was a teenager, I liked to read a
             | lot, but I didn't have any money. I discovered Project
             | Gutenberg and started reading a lot of public domain stuff
             | (a lot of Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Dickens, etc),
             | purely out of cheapness. Teachers would think I'm smarter
             | than I actually was because I knew obscure literary
             | references from old books in my essays and when I would
             | answer questions in class, despite the fact that it doesn't
             | really require a 10,000 IQ to download a PDF file from the
             | internet and read it.
        
           | reducesuffering wrote:
           | > I think it's easy to sit and judge someone as being
           | "uncultured" because they listen to music that was popular
           | when they were a teenager, but fundamentally it's not like
           | they're hurting anyone.
           | 
           | I think the antagonism usually goes in the other way. Most
           | people get crystallized music tastes pretty soon into their
           | life and the second the new generation comes up with
           | something different, it's all "music is crap these days,
           | silly kids, back in my day the 90s had the best music." There
           | are several examples in this thread without a hint of the
           | irony of this article.
        
             | 082349872349872 wrote:
             | Old foreign language books had translations for phrases
             | along the lines of "the lobster makes a good salad" and "my
             | husband is unwell, can you call a doctor?"
             | 
             | If I were to use YouTube for a corpus, I could probably
             | write contemporary translation books for many languages, as
             | long as the phrases were along the lines of "still
             | listening in ${YEAR}" and "new ${GENRE} isn't this good"
        
               | reducesuffering wrote:
               | I don't even blame them, clearly the article shows
               | there's a biological or cultural phenomenon to it. It's
               | just unfortunate when you're the 2% outlier that thinks
               | music is progressing, as you can't share with others the
               | appreciation that sounds are actually getting better.
        
               | 082349872349872 wrote:
               | > _a biological or cultural phenomenom to it_
               | 
               | Puberty?
               | 
               | (much folk music has ambiguous lyrics; I wonder if
               | starting to blush at all the traditional village songs
               | used to be a social milestone?)
        
         | gwill wrote:
         | i feel like a majority of people don't seek out "new" music, so
         | i see how you apply that to the music industry as a marketing
         | concept. with whatever app, if you get people listening to more
         | new stuff, you can get them engaged longer etc.
         | 
         | however, i've sought new music since i was young. its something
         | i share with my father who would purposely grab new records or
         | cassette based on trivial things (title, art, price..) and then
         | listen to the album several times. i love exploring different
         | cultures and music is a great reflection of that. at the same
         | time, i often go back to the old and well worn music i grew up
         | with, and even that my parents or their parents grew up with. i
         | think there's a lot of beauty out there and it's a shame to
         | shun something new because you feel it falls within an
         | industries agenda.
        
         | maerF0x0 wrote:
         | > Now we are spoiled for choice but are yet still made to feel
         | ashamed if we are not consuming the newest and discarding the
         | oldest. As
         | 
         | Actually I've found Gen-z's to have surprisingly wide listening
         | patterns. As a few datapoints I was surprised that my friend's
         | teenager could actually name several Nirvana songs, knew who
         | the Smashing pumpkins were, and also the Talking Heads. (all
         | rose and fell from fame before her birth)
        
           | kyllo wrote:
           | My friend (who's the same age as me) has a 14 year old son
           | who's learning guitar and he asked me for a lesson. The first
           | thing he wanted me to show him was some riffs from AC/DC
           | songs that came out before _I_ was born.
        
       | fancymcpoopoo wrote:
       | Very difficult with streaming. Rdio used to have a slider to
       | recommend more unusual music. No other service has this that I've
       | found. They keep playing the same songs and artist forever.
        
         | the_gastropod wrote:
         | I still mourn the loss of Rdio. It was far and away better than
         | any other option. It's such a bummer it lost out to Spotify.
        
         | pavon wrote:
         | Pandora has introduced different tunings that help a bit with
         | this. Not a continuous slider but provides some presets to
         | indicate how wide a net to cast in different dimensions.
         | Normal, Crowd Favorites, Deep Cuts, Discovery, Newly Release.
        
       | thefaux wrote:
       | The author seems to be describing what happens when one's primary
       | relationship with music is one of consumption. It is easy (for me
       | at least) to find new music when you are looking for inspiration
       | in your own practice of making music. Most people don't make
       | music though so I'd imagine it's easy to get stuck in that rut.
        
         | andrewmthomas87 wrote:
         | I see what you're saying in terms of additional motivation to
         | find new music.
         | 
         | But, is your average person's relationship with music "one of
         | consumption" in such a way that causes stagnation? This comes
         | off as gatekeepy. People may not make their own music, but I
         | imagine many people listen to music as a form of inspiration.
        
         | reducesuffering wrote:
         | Ya, I'm positive that familiarity with creating music skews
         | listening preferences towards new music. Which is funny because
         | then people that shit on modern, new music are statistically
         | the ones not being able to create and not as deeply familiar
         | with music.
        
       | aidenn0 wrote:
       | I remember reading a headline that _Despacito_ had been displaced
       | from the #1 position on Billboard after a 16 week run, while I
       | had never heard the song. At that point I became a bit more
       | intentional about trying to find new music.
        
         | 082349872349872 wrote:
         | you obviously weren't watching enough _Sesame Street_ at the
         | time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS6e3ZTuxC8
         | 
         | Lagniappe: Landlercito
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSwQ1icECNg
        
         | StuffMaster wrote:
         | I know what you mean but at that point I started blaming the
         | system! I still don't know that song.
        
       | flerchin wrote:
       | You stop when you want to stop. I picked up an affinity for K-pop
       | in my 30s. Currently exploring a few other genres and also
       | enjoying music that my kids are finding.
        
         | ralphc wrote:
         | Me, but I found K-pop in my 50s. Add to that Doom Metal & EBM.
         | I also discovered Nu Metal 20 years after the fact. You stop
         | when you want to stop.
        
       | supportengineer wrote:
       | Thanks to Shazam, I find new music all the time. Often times in
       | hip places like hotel lobbies and restaurants.
        
       | artemonster wrote:
       | the biggest reason I pay for Spotify is to enjoy each Monday my
       | "discover weekly" playlist :)
        
         | Flatcircle wrote:
         | agree with this
        
         | msephton wrote:
         | Same, but with Apple Music which does a personalised New Music
         | Mix on Fridays.
        
       | office_drone wrote:
       | > This study identifies 33 as the tipping point for sonic
       | stagnation, an age where artistic taste calcifies, increasingly
       | deviating from contemporary works
       | 
       | In the time since I turned 33 I've experienced an almost-complete
       | switchover in genre preference, from pop/rock/light metal to
       | country. Almost all of it has been found through Spotify's Daily
       | Mix N, where n >= 2.
        
         | meowtimemania wrote:
         | Are spotify daily mixes ordered in some way?
        
           | office_drone wrote:
           | As best I can figure #1 is your 'guaranteed hits' - songs
           | that you have listened to the most. As you go higher it may
           | be your most-loved music of a different genre or the 1st
           | genre again but with more new-to-you music.
        
       | andrewmthomas87 wrote:
       | Interesting article. I expect today's streaming tech will drive
       | some change in these patterns, between easy access to a massive
       | library and recommendation features.
       | 
       | Much of my music discovery is aided by Spotify - some automated
       | (radio, "Made For You"), some more manual ("Fans also like"
       | related artists). However, as I continue to use Spotify, some of
       | these features seem less effective. It's like I'm filling in
       | interconnected regions of Spotify's graph of music and there are
       | less edges to unvisited nodes.
        
       | qzx_pierri wrote:
       | Spotify has financial incentive to obfuscate their UI to tilt
       | people toward mindlessly consuming playlists. This is because
       | labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on large playlists, and
       | Spotify knows playlists are a good habit to push onto their
       | users.
       | 
       | Radio was used to discover new music decades ago, but paying a
       | radio station (directly) to play a song is illegal (payola), so
       | DJs had to break new songs, styles, and have a wide array of
       | music offered (within the theme of the station).
       | 
       | Spotify now has the ability to engage in a legal version of
       | "digital" payola, so their handcrafted group of artists by major
       | labels are peppered into their hundreds of in-house playlists,
       | disguising this business practice as a wide array of music
       | selection.
       | 
       | This is detrimental to music discovery, because discovering a
       | song is a lot less meaningful than discovering a new album and
       | consuming the project as a whole and appreciating its
       | composition.
       | 
       | So you're discovering new music, but none of it is memorable,
       | because listening to music in 2024 (for a lot of people) is often
       | a wall of slightly groovy background noise, with the occasional
       | standout track that you probably toss into your own personal
       | playlist.
       | 
       | How I fixed this:
       | 
       | 1. Disable the 'autoplay' feature
       | 
       | 2. Don't use playlists and listen to albums (except for when I'm
       | in a pinch or hosting a party)
       | 
       | 3. Intentionally discover a new genre every few months and go
       | down a rabbit hole. My current new genre is South African
       | Amapiano. Excellent stuff.
       | 
       | 4. Discover music across different genres and time periods using
       | RateYourMusic.
        
         | ryandrake wrote:
         | > So you're discovering new music, but none of it is memorable,
         | because listening to music in 2024 (for a lot of people) is
         | often a wall of slightly groovy background noise, with the
         | occasional standout track that you probably toss into your own
         | personal playlist.
         | 
         | Yea, I tried streaming for a while, and found exactly that.
         | When I play some genre-specific stream with a goal of
         | discovering new music, I find it's basically full of
         | unremarkable, generic musak, punctuated by maybe 0.1%
         | memorable, great tracks that I'm motivated to bookmark for
         | later. Are these few needles worth slogging through hours of
         | haystack? After a few years I have sadly concluded "no."
         | 
         | Not sure why this is. Has it always been this way (0.1% great
         | stuff in a sea of mediocre?) or are "content creators" of today
         | just more focused on churning out quantity than artists of the
         | past?
        
           | jonathankoren wrote:
           | You've discovered the Pareto Principle. It's true about
           | literally everything.
        
             | qwertox wrote:
             | So now I was on the German and the English Wikipedia entry
             | of the Principle and noticed a noteworthy difference:
             | 
             | English: While it is common to refer to pareto as "80/20"
             | rule, under the assumption that, in all situations, 20% of
             | causes determine 80% of problems, this ratio is merely a
             | convenient rule of thumb and is not, nor should it be
             | considered, an immutable law of nature.
             | 
             | German: The 80-20 distribution in the Pareto principle
             | often leads to the false assumption that a sum of 100 is
             | mandatory. In fact, however, any other distribution is
             | possible, in which, for example, 50 % of the efforts lead
             | to 90 % of the effect, and again 50 % of the efforts lead
             | to the remaining 10 % of the effect. This is easy to see in
             | the trivial case that 100% of the efforts are the cause of
             | 100% of the success. [0]
             | 
             | It's interesting how this explanatory information is
             | lacking in the English version. Should be a cool project
             | for an LLM to transfer information between the different
             | language versions of a Wikipedia entry.
             | 
             | [0] Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
        
             | listenallyall wrote:
             | It's "true", yes, for almost everything, but there is a lot
             | to gain from recognizing the difference between 80/20 and
             | 90/10 or even 99/1, etc. Just like 99%, 99.9% and 99.99%
             | uptime are VERY different promises to meet, while looking
             | virtually identical to a layman.
        
         | mattpallissard wrote:
         | I'll add one more
         | 
         | 5. Once you find a band you like, pull their tour dates. See
         | who they're opening for or who their openers are.
        
           | horsh1 wrote:
           | 6. Go to whosampled.com and figure out the originals. Whom do
           | they cover, whom do they sample.
        
         | zer00eyz wrote:
         | >> labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on large playlists
         | 
         | What are you talking about. IM going to need you to back this
         | one up with some proof.
         | 
         | 1. The labels have a giant back catalog that remains popular.
         | It does not need promotion. Huge long tail profits there.
         | 
         | 2. The labels dont have a lot to sell any more. The big artists
         | tend to get out of the system (and make money on tours) and
         | small artists get nothing. And lots of artists have bought back
         | their catalogs, again long tail.
         | 
         | The album, as a vehicle is mostly dead. Hell songs are mostly
         | dead, if you cant hook someone in the time of a ticktock video
         | your going to have a lot of trouble getting them. And there you
         | need to be "background music" with a groove.
        
           | noah_buddy wrote:
           | Anecdotal, but I was close friends with someone who managed a
           | niche (but popular) artist's social media and streaming
           | service presence. We discussed this fact and this person
           | mentioned it could be $10k+ to be on some playlists 1st song
           | spot for just a few days. I doubt it's only Spotify official
           | playlists.
        
             | zer00eyz wrote:
             | Or, you know, Spotify lists suck because they dont want you
             | consuming.
             | 
             | The optimal state for Netflix, Spotify, any other bandwidth
             | intensive fixed price service is for you to PAY for it and
             | NOT USE IT.
             | 
             | These services are optimized for maintaining subscription
             | numbers, not your enjoyment.
        
         | harles wrote:
         | I've wondered for a while if Spotify skews playlists in favor
         | of cheaper songs. I have no evidence of this, but it'd make
         | business sense to use the equivalent of store brand music (even
         | if that just means outsourced to a cheap agency) for generic
         | study music playlists and such.
        
           | Euphorbium wrote:
           | I think they tend to play what is cached locally, to save on
           | streaming costs.
        
             | harles wrote:
             | That's certainly possible, but I'd expect licensing costs
             | to dwarf bandwidth costs.
        
               | dotancohen wrote:
               | You have no idea how little artists make from selling
               | music on platforms. The money is in the live performances
               | and merchandise.
        
           | resource_waste wrote:
           | I noticed Google Play do this with Soundcloud Rap.
           | 
           | Their amorality has caused me to enjoy SoundCloud Rap at a
           | formidable age, now I cannot shake it. My kids listen to it,
           | swear amorally, and the cycle continues.
           | 
           | All because Google Play didn't want to shell out an extra 60
           | cents per year for paid Rappers.
        
             | tripdout wrote:
             | What???
        
           | re wrote:
           | > it'd make business sense to use the equivalent of store
           | brand music
           | 
           | They've been accused of almost exactly this:
           | https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-
           | creating-i...
           | 
           | Spotify denies doing this but you can google to find a lot of
           | controversy over fake artists on Spotify.
           | 
           | A more recent variation on the theme:
           | https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/19/swedish-
           | comp...
        
         | doublepg23 wrote:
         | > so DJs had to break new songs, styles, and have a wide array
         | of music offered (within the theme of the station).
         | 
         | I'm an older Zoomer and this was never the case for radio in my
         | lifetime [1]. I heard "college radio stations" being a bastion
         | of this but I've never listened to one myself.
         | 
         | One of the earliest internet services I remember loving was
         | Pandora because it recommended me artists I never heard on the
         | radio and was the start of my love of music.
         | 
         | [1] I'm guessing it was related to all radio stations being
         | owned by the same companies.
        
           | dmd wrote:
           | Correct - this sort of thing was basically over-and-done by
           | the mid 90s.
        
           | TehCorwiz wrote:
           | Late Gen-X/Early Millennial here; there was a time before the
           | consolidation of radio stations and invasion of iHeartMedia
           | (at the time named Clear Channel) where DJs had the final
           | word in what got played and most were quite good at
           | introducing new music. Here's my experience form the outside
           | of the industry: once consolidation started there was a push
           | to use canned (pre-recorded) intros, outros, and interstitial
           | announcements to reduce costs. Stations often kept some talk
           | shows, but few kept real DJs. This let stations use a small
           | number of voice actors for a large number of stations.
           | Combined with centrally controlled playlists they were able
           | to push the costs down and increase profits to the point that
           | older style stations with bespoke DJs couldn't compete
           | financially and either adopted the same model or they sold
           | out.
           | 
           | EDIT: I may be misremembering, but there used to be a limit
           | on how many stations a company could own in a given market.
        
             | StuffMaster wrote:
             | Yep. I recall this happening. Let's all praise DEREGULATION
             | and the dollars it brought us.
        
             | joshmarinacci wrote:
             | You are correct. There used to be a limit. Radio was
             | deregulated in the 90s and by the early 2000s local DJ
             | selected music was essentially gone.
        
           | bee_rider wrote:
           | I recently switched off Amazon Music and went back to Pandora
           | (must have started using it in like 2010 and then gone on a
           | 13 or so year long diversion into the on-demand streaming
           | services).
           | 
           | I guess it isn't surprising because it is their core value
           | proposition, but the Pandora discovery algorithm seems _so
           | much_ better than the competition, at least to my ears.
           | 
           | I miss the ability to hyper-focus and play an album over and
           | over, but on the other hand, it is probably better not to
           | burn out on an album, and anyway, if I really want to, I can
           | buy the album I guess.
           | 
           | Pandora + Bandcamp reminds me of what the internet looked
           | like it could be. Sad that Amazon and their ilk have to silo
           | everything.
           | 
           | Last.fm was pretty good too. I wonder how they are holding
           | up...
        
             | jrussino wrote:
             | Pandora was my go-to circa 2007-2009 and I haven't thought
             | about it in years. Looking back, I discovered a
             | disproportionate amount of the music I like in that
             | timeframe... I'm honestly kind of surprised they're still
             | around (and, if I'm reading your comment correctly, haven't
             | morphed into something entirely unrecognizable in the
             | meantime?)
        
               | bee_rider wrote:
               | I don't know much about their business model under the
               | hood, but from my point of view they seem pretty similar
               | to back then.
               | 
               | It was funny to log in and see all my old stations from a
               | decade plus ago, still working.
        
               | bdw5204 wrote:
               | I use Pandora and subscribe to Premium which allows me to
               | listen to albums on demand. When I started out as a free
               | user after I gave up on Youtube in the background apps, I
               | didn't like Spotify because it kept forcing me to listen
               | to awful songs that it pushes on everybody instead of
               | what I actually wanted to listen to. Pandora was a much
               | better experience as a free user because their "radio"
               | plays music similar to what you've already told it you
               | like.
        
               | MattJ100 wrote:
               | How does Spotify "force" you to listen to stuff? I have a
               | very different experience. Pandora (many years ago when I
               | tried it) did not let you choose what you wanted to play
               | (e.g. am album) and Spotify did (and still does). I have
               | hundreds of my own playlists on Spotify, and my listening
               | time is split between those, Spotify's "daily mix"
               | playlists (generated from your personal music tastes) and
               | occasionally "discover weekly" (one way I discover new
               | music). I like choosing what music I listen to.
        
         | Kiro wrote:
         | > This is because labels pay Spotify to put certain songs on
         | large playlists
         | 
         | Source? This is what Spotify says about it themselves:
         | 
         | "We want to make something crystal clear: no one can pay to be
         | added to one of Spotify's editorial playlists."
         | 
         | https://community.spotify.com/t5/FAQs/How-to-get-your-music-...
         | 
         | Sure, they could be lying but then all the labels and their
         | employees would need to be in on the lie as well.
        
           | qzx_pierri wrote:
           | This is the same defense used in radio. Note the wording ...
           | "no one can pay". Favors and indirect payment are used
           | excessively in the music industry. Note that I also said that
           | payola was the act of "direct payment".
           | 
           | An example of indirect payment in radio would be the record
           | label gifting a set of expensive tickets to the station.
           | 
           | Remember those contests in the 2000s where the radio station
           | would play a collection of songs over the course of a few
           | hours, and if you could call in and be caller number 15 and
           | name all the songs, you could win free concert tickets?
           | 
           | The record label didn't pay the radio station with money -
           | The tickets were gifted to the station for free. But as a
           | result, the radio station played [insert band name]'s songs
           | for 2 hours straight (and possibly other artists on the same
           | label).
           | 
           | This is a win-win, because a ton of people talk about this
           | contest with their family and friends, so the station gets
           | free promo, and the artist gets exposure.
           | 
           | I don't know how Spotify is doing this in the digital era,
           | but ask anyone connected to the music industry. This 100%
           | happens.
           | 
           | For a lot of casual listeners, Spotify editorial playlists
           | are the new radio station.
        
         | onion2k wrote:
         | _mindlessly_
         | 
         | Or mindfully.
         | 
         | You have no idea why people choose what they listen to, and
         | suggesting they're doing it without thinking is just your
         | snobbery showing.
        
           | qzx_pierri wrote:
           | Read my comment again. If you're listening to a playlist,
           | you're not mindfully choosing each song. There's nothing
           | wrong with playlists, but my point was to describe how
           | listening to music from Spotify's playlists often isn't a
           | mindful experience (excluding when your attention is grabbed
           | the occasional standout track).
           | 
           | A GOOD playlist can keep your attention, and those are often
           | handcrafted by other users. Just look at some of the other
           | responses in this thread. Plenty of people have the same
           | experience.
           | 
           | I also said that music from playlists is often (not always)
           | groovy background noise - This isn't a mindful experience -
           | And that's okay.
        
         | domador wrote:
         | I'm listening to some Amapiano now... and loving it.
         | 
         | Care to share some of the other genres you've tried before this
         | one?
        
           | qzx_pierri wrote:
           | My previous genres were dozens of Techno subgenres. Check out
           | the 2023 Coachella lineup. That year had a strong focus on
           | 'World Music'. I went last year and that's how I discovered
           | Amapiano.
           | 
           | If you like Amapiano, check out a song titled 'Ungowami' by
           | Sha Sha
           | 
           | Check out 'Big Flexa' by Costa Titch. Awesome music video
           | too. Huge dance culture in South Africa.
           | 
           | Also check out 'Abo Mvelo' by Daliwonga (this song gets me
           | hype during workouts)
           | 
           | And check out Uncle Waffles' Boiler Room mix. Truly awesome
           | performance.
        
         | jncfhnb wrote:
         | > This is detrimental to music discovery, because discovering a
         | song is a lot less meaningful than discovering a new album and
         | consuming the project as a whole and appreciating its
         | composition.
         | 
         | This is a very silly statement. As someone who prefers to
         | listen the full albums and does so 95% of the time and
         | basically never seek to play a specific single; I'm definitely
         | not going to listen to an entire albums of new artists at a
         | time.
         | 
         | I look at the discover weekly / release radar. If I like a
         | song, I'll listen to the album. If it I like the album, I'll
         | listen to the discography.
         | 
         | Most music is not great, but it's easy to sample and dive
         | deeper.
        
           | qzx_pierri wrote:
           | >If I like a song, I'll listen to the album. If it I like the
           | album, I'll listen to the discography.
           | 
           | Not everyone wants to put forth that much effort. Design
           | decisions are often, if not always, centered around the path
           | of least resistance. [1]
           | 
           | 1: https://www.usertesting.com/blog/why-users-wont-go-where-
           | you...
        
             | bheadmaster wrote:
             | > Not everyone wants to put forth that much effort.
             | 
             | How is that more effort than listening whole albums?
             | 
             | I personally do my Spotify discovery exactly that way - I
             | listen to "discover weekly", and when a song stands out, I
             | just click on the artist and listen more. I can't imagine
             | any way of putting _less_ effort than that into discovering
             | new music.
        
               | qzx_pierri wrote:
               | Albums aren't what Spotify recommends. Path of least
               | resistance. See my comment above.
        
         | tptacek wrote:
         | I don't know about the Spotify analysis here, but certainly
         | cosign RateYourMusic, which I just learned about this last
         | weekend and am now a little bit obsessed with. It's like IMDB
         | crossed with Pinboard, and the list of new stuff I have to
         | listen to now is _long_ and intricately connected to what I
         | already listen to. It 's a pretty amazing resource, even if
         | everyone there is wrong about Uncle Tupelo's "Anodyne".
        
           | raffraffraff wrote:
           | I pay for it because it's dirt cheap and you get track
           | ratings. If I discover an artist I use RYM to get the best 3
           | songs of their best 3 albums on YouTube. if I still like the
           | band after that I'll buy the highest rated album.
        
         | divbzero wrote:
         | The old school way still works too:
         | 
         | 5. Listen to the radio.
        
           | masklinn wrote:
           | Nah, most people only have consolidated radio stations, they
           | play national playlists of soup.
           | 
           | If you still have independent stations which pay actual radio
           | DJs empowered to craft their sets, cherish them.
        
             | BLKNSLVR wrote:
             | Three D Radio, local independent radio station in Adelaide,
             | South Australia is the source of most of my discovery.
             | 
             | They play a lot of styles, and there's a lot I don't like,
             | but there's a very high chance you haven't heard it before
             | - and that counts for something.
             | 
             | https://www.threedradio.com
        
         | nemothekid wrote:
         | > _My current new genre is South African Amapiano._
         | 
         | How did you discover Amapiano? I ask because Tyla has become
         | massively popular in the last year and I'm wondering if the
         | discovery was truly coincidental or undercover marketing?
        
           | qzx_pierri wrote:
           | Uncle Waffles @ Coachella 2023
        
         | rsanheim wrote:
         | Also - just don't use Spotify. It has a UX that is just
         | consistently opposed to album-centric listening. Or any sort of
         | focused listening, really.
         | 
         | There are alternatives. Apple music is fine. Tidal + Roon is
         | also pretty good.
         | 
         | For discovering music, Roon provides a much more album-centric
         | way to browse and learn about different albums and genres. I
         | use that combined with subreddits for particular genres and
         | good old fashioned album reviews and artist interviews.
        
         | gaudystead wrote:
         | Since I'm not seeing anybody mention it yet but it's one of my
         | favorite ways to find new genres, I'd highly recommend everyone
         | check out everynoise.com because they seem to have scraped
         | Spotify's genres (you'll need Spotify to listen to more than 30
         | second samples, but probably still useful even if you don't use
         | Spotify). The number of genres they have listed in the
         | THOUSANDS, and I guarantee they will have something you've
         | never heard of, but it's a great rabbit hole to go down when
         | looking for new music. If you like a genre, they'll already
         | have multiple playlists for it, and if you like a particular
         | artist, they'll have those too. I am not affiliated with the
         | website, but try to turn everyone I know onto it because
         | there's just so much out there to discover that I wouldn't have
         | otherwise.
         | 
         | (everynoise.com developer, if you're reading this, I love you
         | <3)
        
         | hboon wrote:
         | I see this in https://everynoise.com/#updates
         | 
         | > 2024-01-05 status update: With my layoff from Spotify on
         | 2023-12-04, I lost the internal data-access required for
         | ongoing updates to many parts of this site. Most of this, as a
         | result, is now a static snapshot of what, for now, will be the
         | final state from the site's 10-year history and evolution,
         | hosted on my own server. Some pieces may get disabled and
         | reenabled over time, and some that only made sense with current
         | data may never return. But we'll see.
        
         | cm2012 wrote:
         | Strongly disagree with your take on albums. I'm a music lover,
         | spotify wrapped always puts me in the top 5% for most artists.
         | I _never_ search by album, always song, and if it 's great I'll
         | click in to check to see if the album is to my taste.
         | 
         | I have discovered so much musix on spotify. I'm not going to
         | listen to a whole album to see if I like a new artist, lol.
        
       | bigirondba wrote:
       | I'm not convinced that we stop finding new music, we just become
       | less zealous or outward about it as we get older. When I was
       | young, I was all about talking music, having the right DJ list
       | for roadtrips, etc, etc and now? I just hit play and don't think
       | too much about it. Probably because it's harder to attend shows,
       | less relevant to my social life, etc. I've also found as I've
       | gotten older that I just care less about the specifics of what
       | the song or artist is. I'll anchor to a song I really like and
       | then let Apple's infinite play loop take it from there.
        
         | monksy wrote:
         | The artists have made it harder. They've pushed for aggressive
         | one sided fan behavior policies (phone less), they've increased
         | aggressively with the prices, the quality has gone down with
         | many established bands, pushed large shows without building a
         | performance with the space, and they've done a ton of things
         | that don't help their product.
         | 
         | It feels more like greed in the business than an experience.
         | 
         | That being said I'm still sitting on the idea of paying 123$
         | for cage the elephant show on an album I haven't heard yet.
        
           | coldtea wrote:
           | > _They 've pushed for aggressive one sided fan behavior
           | policies (phone less)_
           | 
           | That's the best thing they could do for fans.
        
           | kennyadam wrote:
           | I am 100% onboard with the phone bans. There's nothing worse
           | than hundreds of phone screens glowing in your face while
           | you're trying to enjoy a live act. I can't imagine how weird
           | it must feel for the performer(s) too. To go from people
           | looking at you, making eye contact, engaging with the
           | performance, to suddenly seeing a sea of phones pointed at
           | you, with everyone watching you indirectly via their phone
           | screen.
        
             | monksy wrote:
             | There are far better ways to address people holding up
             | their phones to record than to outright ban them from
             | everyone. There are strong reasons (Bataclan) to need and
             | have those there.
             | 
             | What's with the sympathy for the performer? It's hard for
             | them to even see the audience. Most of the light is focused
             | on them and the audience is in the dark.
        
             | ryandrake wrote:
             | Yea, the whole "I want to watch the concert through my
             | phone" thing I don't get at all. If you just want to watch
             | it on your phone, why not just stay home and watch a
             | professionally-produced concert video? Are they actually
             | recording it for later (and are actually going to watch
             | their low-quality recording later), or do they simply need
             | to frame everything they experience inside a phone bezel?
        
               | jfdbcv wrote:
               | I think humans have a natural instinct to share what they
               | find cool / interesting.
               | 
               | Before this was mostly done through in person
               | communicate, now this is primarily done through smart
               | phones.
        
               | Contax wrote:
               | They just want to brag about it, I guess. Like with
               | photos of their meals and... well, lots of things. To
               | each their own, but I stopped attending most shows mainly
               | because of the annoying seas of phones in front of me.
        
               | jdminhbg wrote:
               | > Are they actually recording it for later (and are
               | actually going to watch their low-quality recording
               | later)
               | 
               | What's wild is how much the "low-quality recording" on a
               | modern smartphone looks and sounds way better than
               | bootlegs I listened to (or, god forbid, watched) in the
               | 90s.
               | 
               | I don't film entire concerts but I will usually try to
               | get a nice clip from one of my favorite songs. It's fun
               | to revisit. I'd love it if I had short clips from shows I
               | saw when I was 20, especially ones of bands who blew up
               | later or fell off the face of the earth.
        
             | conradfr wrote:
             | Also, why can't phones have a "concert mode" where you can
             | film with the screen off?
        
           | riffic wrote:
           | perhaps it's ill-behaved fans enjoying the art the wrong way?
           | do we suppose the audience should be talking during a set
           | too?
        
         | coldtea wrote:
         | > _I'm not convinced that we stop finding new music, we just
         | become less zealous or outward about it as we get older. When I
         | was young, I was all about talking music, having the right DJ
         | list for roadtrips, etc, etc and now? I just hit play and don't
         | think too much about it. Probably because it's harder to attend
         | shows, less relevant to my social life, etc._
         | 
         | Well, older people (40, 50, even 60+) more passionate about
         | music, they still do all of those (going to concerts,
         | discussing music, crafting the right playlist for roadtrips),
         | not unlike like they did in their 20s.
         | 
         | So, yes: most people do care less about music and stop finding
         | new music.
        
         | cchi_co wrote:
         | I am an adult but still love to make right DJ list for
         | roadtrips
        
         | grujicd wrote:
         | > Probably because it's harder to attend shows
         | 
         | This is maybe true if we talk about superstar kind of show. But
         | I think it's now easier than ever to find out about little
         | gigs, which were hard to find before social networks.
         | 
         | I live in medium size capital city (Belgrade), there are
         | options to listen to live music every single day. Sometimes
         | it's just classic music, sometimes there are cover bands, but
         | quite often there's a chance to listen to original music. And
         | these small gigs are quite cheap or even free. I very often
         | listen a song or two (Spotify or youtube really help with
         | this!), then if it looks promising I listen to some more while
         | walking to the show.
         | 
         | Sure, sometimes it's not good. But very often I like it a lot
         | and you can bet I listen to it much more focused then if that
         | same music came on autoplay at home.
         | 
         | If you're in big enough city or have something bigger nearby -
         | find a way to discover new gigs, follow venues, event
         | organizers, local cultural institutions, festivals, etc. That's
         | my main use of Facebook.
        
       | karaterobot wrote:
       | I can't buy an argument about there being too many options. If
       | there were a lot of options, and you liked a lot of them, you
       | could just randomly sample new albums, or listen to whatever
       | Spotify told you to listen to, and there would be no problem
       | finding new music. I suspect the issue is there's a lot of music
       | out there and none of it sounds like what you want.
       | 
       | Note that this isn't saying music today is bad, it's got nothing
       | to do with that.
       | 
       | At a certain point, changing trends in music cause it to drift
       | too far from your internal model (developed in youth) for what a
       | song should be, and it becomes hard to take, decreasing returns
       | with increasing effort, and you say "fuck it, I'll just listen to
       | what I already like for the rest of my life".
        
       | maerF0x0 wrote:
       | I would guess there's a strong correlation with trait openness to
       | someones ability to integrate new music into their collection.
       | IDK if its a lot, but I listened to 90 genres in 2023. I do find
       | myself frequently liking music that is about 10 years old, but I
       | think that's a function of discovering it, not of a willingness
       | to try new sounds on for taste.
        
       | riffic wrote:
       | I'm still finding new music (look at my account creation date if
       | you want an indication what my real world age is).
       | 
       | Go crate digging or something, I don't know what the secret
       | formula is.
       | 
       | Spotify's robot dj just plays the same stuff over and over
       | without much of a discovery component to it.
        
         | czbond wrote:
         | My best Spotify discovery method is the channel for the style I
         | enjoy - and it is always news songs.
         | 
         | I only listen to hard rock. All the songs are new & recently
         | added with a fairly new artist mix.
        
       | adamgravitis wrote:
       | Other than the opportunity for a misplaced pun on the term
       | "spiral", why would you take an otherwise linear-in-time graph
       | and make it radial? Why would age 0 to 50 be somehow cyclical?
        
       | kristopolous wrote:
       | I've got a rather wonky way of doing this.
       | https://github.com/kristopolous/music-explorer
       | 
       | I've been building systems to find new music for 18 years or so.
       | This latest one I've been using since early 2020.
       | 
       | It's really for just me so sorry if the documentation is a little
       | scattered. I'm certainly doing some minor ToS violations all over
       | the place with this thing so I don't want it to get _too_ popular
       | but I 'll be happy to clean up the documentation if there's
       | interest
        
         | dimask wrote:
         | Thank you for sharing this! Looking forward to try it, seems
         | like an interesting idea. My strategy on bandcamp is
         | conceptually similar, albeit manually.
        
         | jddj wrote:
         | Ah this is very cool.
        
       | havblue wrote:
       | It doesn't seem like the article makes much of a distinction
       | between newly released music and music that you haven't listened
       | to yet. Personally, as I get older I've lost the ability to
       | listen to the same Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd etc albums for the
       | 100th time. I cringe every time I hear the opening of Don't Stop
       | Believing. So I've kept trying to get deeper into prog and other
       | genres lately as I'm just burnt out on the old (good) stuff.
        
         | 082349872349872 wrote:
         | > _Pink Floyd etc albums for the 100th time_
         | 
         | If you can risk a 101st time, have you tried "Dark Side of the
         | Moonshine" (2009) yet?
        
           | grujicd wrote:
           | I really like Roger Waters recently released Dark Side of the
           | Moon Redux.
        
           | eterm wrote:
           | Dub side of the moon (2003) is an absolute masterpiece of
           | alternative covers.
           | 
           | Sometimes I forget their version of Breathe isn't the
           | original.
        
             | jddj wrote:
             | I also listened to so much of this in my late teens that
             | hearing the original sounds strange.
        
         | jonathankoren wrote:
         | I still like Nirvana, and think they defined a moment, but
         | let's be honest here. Dave Grohl has had a longer career with
         | Foo Fighters, and Cobain hasn't put out new stuff since 1994.
         | 
         | I'm not really interested in reliving that time.
        
         | nocman wrote:
         | Just pulled up "Don't Stop Believing" as a test.
         | 
         | Even on crappy old junk headphones, still an awesome song that
         | I don't think I'll ever get tired of.
         | 
         | Granted, I don't generally let services make a playlist for me,
         | and I don't beat the old songs to death. I like more variety
         | than that.
         | 
         | I _have_ however, rolled my eyes when listening to services
         | that have an  "80's rock" or "top 90's songs" only to have them
         | play the _exact_ same dozen-or-so songs that they did the last
         | time I visited that channel. No thanks!
         | 
         | That's also probably one of the reasons I rarely listen using a
         | service-generated playlist/channel. I think they are maximized
         | for the service's profit, not for the listener's enjoyment.
        
         | UniverseHacker wrote:
         | To me it depends a lot on the music... if it's more complex, or
         | has more emotional depth I can usually continue to enjoy it
         | almost indefinitely and get something new out of it each time.
         | 
         | I'm sad to admit Led Zeppelin has lost some of it's charm after
         | many listening, which makes me sad because I enjoyed it so much
         | in the past. I've found a lot of Pink Floyd stuff is complex
         | enough that I'm still enjoying it and noticing new things after
         | many decades of listening to it. Watching videos of Floyd
         | playing live also opened up a whole new appreciation for the
         | music.
         | 
         | Lots of the music I enjoyed as a kid/teenager had themes I can
         | only now understand in my late 30s, and didn't really
         | appreciate or fully grasp back then.
         | 
         | Overall, a lot of prog really seems to have enough complexity
         | to remain interesting for a long time. Most of Tools albums, I
         | seem to not enjoy much at first, but enjoy more, and notice
         | more things each time I listen, even after hundreds of listens.
         | 
         | The same music that is complex enough to remain interesting
         | over time, usually doesn't compress well and is really damaged
         | as a low bitrate MP3. I've found those same albums I listen to
         | most year after year are the ones I sought out lossless
         | versions of.
        
         | HDThoreaun wrote:
         | Prog is making a bit of a comeback. Black Midi brought it back
         | to the limelight for critics I think and the london scene is
         | kind of all in on the sound.
        
       | nerdjon wrote:
       | I have to wonder how much of this is societal expectations as you
       | age? or "Being an adult".
       | 
       | The idea that once you reach a certain age, you settle down, get
       | into a routine, doing less new things, etc.
       | 
       | While yeah, a music streaming service could introduce you to new
       | music. Maybe you will just find yourself in less situations where
       | you will experience new music?
       | 
       | Listening to a new song on your phone is a drastically different
       | experience to overhearing it while traveling, with friends,
       | whatever.
       | 
       | I know I have a number of songs that bring up an emotional
       | response due to certain events tied to them. And some of them are
       | genres I would not have normally found myself listening too.
        
       | blakesterz wrote:
       | There's a great episode of the Ongoing History of New Music on
       | this topic
       | 
       | What A Drag It Is Getting Old (Musically)
       | 
       | https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/what-a-drag-it-is-gett...
       | "Ah...there it was again: an example of how someone's musical
       | tastes evolve with age... it's just something that happens with
       | most people... most of take that as a given...not me,
       | though...this is something that's always fascinated me...there
       | has to be some science behind why we listen to different types
       | and styles of music as we go through life... So I tracked down
       | this science and I have some answers...we'll call this episode
       | "what a drag it is getting old--musically"..."
        
       | murmansk wrote:
       | Never! It gets just gets harder with time to find what you like,
       | as your taste ossifies, and music evolves.
        
       | ergonaught wrote:
       | Well I'm in my 50s, and I mostly stopped finding new music when
       | record labels, streaming, and social media destroyed the
       | prospects for people who would otherwise make that new music for
       | me to find.
       | 
       | New stuff still arrives (you're not going to predict that me-
       | at-15-loving-Megadeth will much later also love Billie Eilish or
       | Gin Wigmore or Mirel Wagner or ...) but most "new music" is
       | garbage by the standards set by about 50 years of music (much of
       | that before I was alive and thus well before my "peak
       | influence").
       | 
       | I suspect the "findings" of the article suffer from environmental
       | effects that weren't considered/controlled.
        
         | ryandrake wrote:
         | I'm closing in on 50s, and what I miss the most out of the
         | music I grew up with are actual cohesive albums that work as a
         | single artistic unit. I think the 70s were the golden age of
         | albums, and then slowly we moved towards the world of albums
         | being just random collections of tracks, with one or two good
         | ones and the rest "filler." Now, do many modern musicians even
         | bother to release albums anymore? Seems like it's just track
         | after track now.
        
           | xoac wrote:
           | I mean depends on what you are listening to. PLENTY of albums
           | are being made.
        
         | andrewmthomas87 wrote:
         | > but most "new music" is garbage by the standards set by about
         | 50 years of music
         | 
         | How so? What are these standards?
        
           | coldtea wrote:
           | Infantilized lyrics, melodies, and harmonies, for starters.
        
             | gwill wrote:
             | i think defining what "new" means would help clarity this.
             | perhaps what you said is true with new mainstream music
             | from large labels, but none of that applies to "new" music
             | that i listen to, at least that i'm aware of.
        
               | coldtea wrote:
               | New popular music.
               | 
               | The mainstream went from quite decent to crap within the
               | last 20 years or so.
               | 
               | One could always find stuff to listen to their personal
               | echo bubble, but not as much in the wider shared pop
               | culture space.
        
         | doublepg23 wrote:
         | Have you tried adapting to newer discovery methods like
         | http://rateyourmusic.com/ or http://last.fm/ or subreddits like
         | reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic , reddit.com/r/IndieHeads ,
         | reddit.com/r/HipHopHeads ?
         | 
         | Perhaps even "4chan /mu/ charts"?
        
       | BenFranklin100 wrote:
       | There's something biological going here I would think. 30 is
       | about the age where fluid intelligence peaks but crystallized
       | intelligence continues to grow for a few more decades. Also, 30
       | is about the age where a lot of us come into our own as the
       | person we will more or less be for the rest of our lives. I know
       | for myself that in my teens and twenties, music was part of the
       | process of defining myself. By my early thirties, I had grown out
       | of that phase and mine or someone else's taste in music was
       | irrelevant to how we viewed each other. Interestingly, like many
       | men, I have not touched a video game since the age of thirty even
       | though I've had the time.
        
         | monksy wrote:
         | Buy a Nintendo switch, and breath of the wild
         | 
         | Come back in 9 months after you start that.
        
         | DEADMEAT wrote:
         | I'm curious about your experience with older men not playing
         | video games? I'm in my mid-thirties and I would say that the
         | overwhelming majority of my male friends and co-workers play
         | video games recreationally. Video games are more popular and
         | accessible than ever, so I guess I'm confused about why someone
         | would age-out of the hobby?
        
       | ctoth wrote:
       | Related, though not so much to the question in the article which
       | more applies to individuals but societally:
       | 
       | Melancholy Elephants:
       | http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html
        
       | noashavit wrote:
       | I think that it really depends on your relationship with music.
       | I'm no longer in my 30s and still find new music all the time.
       | 
       | I wonder why parents consistently listening to older music than
       | their childless peers
        
         | coldtea wrote:
         | New-new music, or just new acts in the same genres that you
         | liked in your early 20s?
        
           | reducesuffering wrote:
           | Maybe I missed this in the article but I agree this is a
           | major consideration. I find a lot of people might like "new"
           | music but it's very much a slight riff on stuff they liked a
           | long time ago. As a 30yo, good luck introducing anyone in the
           | 25+ category to new albums that actually experiment into
           | novel sounds and become the music of the current 20yo
           | generation.
           | 
           | It's a little sad too because the internet unlocked so much
           | "bedroom producer" potential from the entire world where
           | before you had to be musically trained or get a lot more
           | lucky. There's actually a talent explosion right now.
        
             | dublinben wrote:
             | >good luck introducing anyone in the 25+ category to new
             | albums that actually experiment into novel sounds and
             | become the music of the current 20yo generation
             | 
             | Both here and in the article there's a conflation of "new
             | music" with "contemporary mainstream popular" which seems
             | invalid. Is the Billboard Hot 100 any more or less
             | innovative in 2024 than it was in 2004, or 1974? I think
             | that most "mainstream" music is precisely "a slight riff on
             | stuff [written] a long time ago." You have to go outside of
             | the mainstream to find music and artists that are
             | experimenting with novel sounds, just like you did in
             | decades past.
             | 
             | As you say, there's been an explosion of independent
             | creativity, thanks to the Internet. There's no reason for
             | anyone who is interested in music to listen to the same old
             | mainstream dreck.
        
           | chx wrote:
           | This rapidly becomes an exercise in classifying music which I
           | always felt a bit silly. Try to put God Is an Astronaut in a
           | genre, I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.
           | https://youtu.be/ZmWYCIZhBgk at one time Wikipedia had them
           | as "Post-rock, electronica, ambient, Space rock" then just
           | gave up and labelled them as post-rock.
           | 
           | My brother and I, less than two years apart in age, when we
           | were 18 years old listened to the same music, power metal,
           | mostly. By now, some three decades later he have veered off
           | in a direction of high BPM while I am deep in folk metal land
           | sometimes leaving metal behind. Where does folk metal end and
           | where does (neo)folk rock start? I do not know and I couldn't
           | care less if I tried. I simply enjoy
           | https://youtu.be/mQWmryiIcxY a lot without trying to label
           | it.
        
         | bojan wrote:
         | From the perspective of this parent - toddlers are loud. They
         | make so much noise, continuously, either by playing or talking
         | or, more often, both at the same time, that when I get a moment
         | of silence I don't want to ruin it by playing music. I just
         | want to hear nothing for a while, or chat with my partner in
         | peace.
         | 
         | Only in the last few months, with the youngest being almost 5,
         | do I feel the urge to listen to the music again - and I have a
         | 10 year gap to catch up with.
        
           | floxy wrote:
           | ...And you are listening to music for them. Although "C is
           | for Conifers" (by They Might Be Giants) is pretty good by
           | toddler-music-genre standards.
        
         | theodpHN wrote:
         | Wonder if this has gotten worse as music listening has become
         | more of a private thing (solitary ipod/iphone listening). prior
         | to that, i think many parents (myself included) found
         | themselves exposed to lots of new music simply because it was
         | hard to avoid not hearing whatever their children/spouses were
         | listening to at home or in the car.
        
       | tmountain wrote:
       | Age has affected my taste in music, but I continue to discover
       | new music as I reach my mid 40s. As a teenager, I wanted to
       | listen to grunge, punk, and metal. In my 20s, I had a strong
       | preference for indie music. In my 30s, I got into blues and
       | American folk music. Now, I'm in a jazz phase and appreciating
       | classic guitarists from the 1950s and 1960s. I have always loved
       | classical music, and I still appreciate a lot of the music from
       | my past decades of development, but I hear a lot of it filtered
       | through nostalgia and historical experiences more than from an
       | angle of objective enjoyment.
        
         | cchi_co wrote:
         | > Age has affected my taste in music, but I continue to
         | discover new music
         | 
         | Same here... And I became really into the ganre World Music
        
           | tmountain wrote:
           | I also like World Music a lot, and West African blues. Check
           | out Bombino if you haven't already heard him.
        
       | aimor wrote:
       | I've been using http://somafm.com and it's really the only thing
       | that got me back into listening to music. ( https://radio.garden
       | is also interesting )
        
       | kyllo wrote:
       | When I lived in South Korea, one of the things that struck me was
       | how much "flatter" the generations there were in terms of pop
       | culture and music taste and awareness, compared to the US. I
       | worked in an office with a bunch of suit-and-tie businessmen who
       | were mostly in their 40s to 60s, and if you were to ask them
       | about any current K-pop group, they all knew their hit songs.
        
       | greyface- wrote:
       | Possible confounding factor: they only studied Spotify and Deezer
       | users. This is like studying Kindle users for insights on readers
       | at large. I would not be surprised if there were a correlation
       | between using streaming services (or not) and openness to new
       | music. Study, say, Bandcamp users, and I bet you get a different
       | picture.
        
         | 082349872349872 wrote:
         | Wasn't there already a "Tom the Dancing Bug" about the 13-14
         | thing over a decade ago?
        
         | crtasm wrote:
         | I love opening the bandcamp homepage and seeing the live
         | purchases scroll past, people all over the world buying music
         | I've (mostly) not yet discovered!
        
       | treflop wrote:
       | my thought is that music is a hobby and people mislead themselves
       | into themselves into thinking that it's their hobby or that
       | everyone has music has a hobby. I think music is just a phase for
       | most people, as have been most things I've personally tried but
       | wasn't really into
       | 
       | but I'm in my 30s, am still into finding my music, and I can't
       | see that ever going away.
       | 
       | and I know people love listening to music from their formative
       | years and don't get me wrong, I too was obsessed into 2010's
       | indie rock and pop punk too, but I think it's just people
       | reliving the phase.
       | 
       | personally I will only pretty much listen to 2020's indie rock
       | and pop punk from new bands if I do. you will rarely catch me
       | listening to music that I used to listen to. it was good then.
       | now it's tired and boring.
        
         | floxy wrote:
         | >it was good then. now it's tired and boring.
         | 
         | It might be worth revisiting that music in a decade or two. My
         | wife recently found an old Michael Jackson CD cleaning out an
         | box of something in the garage. That sparked a let-me-listen to
         | some more 70's and 80's music. Lot's of great "timeless"
         | Michael Jackson songs. Not so much for Madonna for some reason.
         | The Carpenter's and select ABBA gets a thumb's up from me as
         | well.
        
           | doublepg23 wrote:
           | I love listening to pop-ier 80s acts that were sampled by
           | vaporwave artists and my GenX dad (huge grunge guy) is
           | puzzled why I like the dreck.
        
       | tracerbulletx wrote:
       | The trend towards flatting the curve with the preferred decade of
       | music for each generation is cool to see. I had assumed this was
       | happening anecdotally, but it looks like a pretty large effect
       | here.
        
       | TheTon wrote:
       | From the article:
       | 
       | "But 'American Idiot' wasn't a true act of revolution. In fact,
       | the album was produced and promoted by a multinational
       | conglomerate with the intent of packaging seemingly transgressive
       | pop-punk acts for my exact demographic."
       | 
       | This is sort of beside the point of the article, but I was just
       | reading an interview[1] with Billie Joe Armstrong about this
       | album and it doesn't sound like their process was anywhere as
       | cynical as this take.
       | 
       | On another note, I find Elton John's Rocket Hour on Apple Music
       | to be refreshing in terms of how earnestly he approaches new
       | music and new artists. If you haven't heard it, it's nothing like
       | what you might expect based on the title. It's not "Elton plays
       | songs from his back catalog and talks about them," but rather
       | "Elton plays new songs you haven't heard by artists you haven't
       | heard of yet, and interviews them as his peers."
       | 
       | [1] https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/green-day-billie-joe-
       | ar...
        
         | cess11 wrote:
         | A video essay about the social impact of American Idiot and
         | similar records from that period:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehbgAGlrVKE
         | 
         | Been a while but I thought it was pretty interesting when I
         | watched it, coming from a black metal and punk background that
         | was too underground when that pop cultural thing happened to
         | notice.
        
       | kleiba wrote:
       | When I was in my teens, I really had nothing to do. Not that I
       | was a loner - I was in a sports club and I had a pretty active
       | social life. But the thing is - compared to having a job, the
       | time I spent at school each day left me with so much more spare
       | time than today [1], you gotta do _something_ with that. And my
       | knowledge of music was still pretty limited, so of course
       | exploring new styles of music and new bands was exciting! Plus,
       | everyone of my friends was doing the same, and at that age, doing
       | what the peer group does was very important...
       | 
       | [1] By which I mean, having a day job, commuting back and forth,
       | oh, and having a family with little kids, which basically means
       | zero spare time.
        
       | usrusr wrote:
       | Very interesting to see these things observed in numbers.
       | Impressive 80ies peak among us gen X!
       | 
       | My music taste brain was initially formatted by that 1990ies idea
       | of MTV mainstream vs independent (which paradoxically, also
       | defined itself through existing on MTV, just in different
       | niches), and from there it had been a slippery slope towards ever
       | nichyer niche. Stuff where the big hits now have accumulated
       | total Spotify plays in four-digit range, if they do exist there.
       | When eventually I realized that winning at niche one-upmanship is
       | a lonely celebration, what followed was mostly silence.
        
       | chaosprint wrote:
       | I feel like the more I listen to it, the less new patterns I
       | find. In addition to auditory sensory stimulation, spiritual
       | identification is also increasingly important, and the latter is
       | not easy to be constantly fond of the new and dislike the old.
        
       | UniverseHacker wrote:
       | As a teenager it really bothered me that adults seemed to have
       | lost the ability to appreciate good music simply because it was
       | new- I vowed to make a point of regularly trying new music with
       | an open mind as I grew older, and not to grow up like that. My
       | own parents who loved good music when they were younger, and
       | whose music tastes I could appreciate well, literally heard my
       | music as basically random noise, and couldn't even process it...
       | stuff that was deeply inspiring and meaningful to me. It seemed
       | like such a loss and a shame that they were incapable of enjoying
       | it.
       | 
       | Overall, in my late 30s, I would say it's worked pretty well. I
       | try to spend a decent amount of time sampling new music, and my
       | music tastes have evolved a lot over time. In just the last two
       | years I came to appreciate two entire new genre of music I had
       | never really paid attention to, and listen to them a lot.
       | Although, I will admit that most of my overall favorite music is
       | still the same stuff I liked as a teenager.
       | 
       | I think a lot of it is simply taking the time to sample new
       | music, and to develop the mental pathways to process new music
       | styles. Old people can do it just as well as young people, but
       | generally, older people have less time and interest in doing so.
       | Kids generally don't understand what its like to be a parent with
       | a job, and how little free time adults have, and how precious it
       | is to them.
       | 
       | Also- regarding the author's comments on "American Idiot." I've
       | always found it amusing how American capitalism loves to
       | unironically sell people whatever they are willing to buy,
       | especially including rebellious and anti-capitalist products and
       | services, which are a big business overall. Reddit is currently
       | worth 7 billion, and caters largely to people that like to
       | complain to one another about how evil they feel capitalism is,
       | and especially how evil Reddit in particular is.
        
         | logtempo wrote:
         | I think the same. And tbh, if music variations are finite, I'm
         | quite sure it's big enough to fill my entire life with new
         | song, sounds, arrangement, voices, lyrics...Also music is not
         | only sound, but also performances.
        
           | UniverseHacker wrote:
           | Completely agree on performances... I've had a renewed
           | appreciation for a lot of music after seeing it performed
           | live (even on video), and/or hearing live album versions.
        
       | _virtu wrote:
       | On the other hand, I'm listening to a new album at least three
       | times a week. Using tools like last.fm and some private trackers
       | helps to keep things fresh. Never give up on finding that next
       | tune!
        
         | cchi_co wrote:
         | And the feeling when you find something...
        
       | UrineSqueegee wrote:
       | most likely never is the answer.
        
       | amanaplanacanal wrote:
       | I must be some sort of freak.
       | 
       | I grew up in the 60's and 70's listening to classic rock, and a
       | lot of it I can't even stand any more due to the incredibly small
       | playlists that most classic rock stations use.
       | 
       | In my 20's I started listening to a lot of classical and then
       | jazz. In the 90's a lot of grunge which's I still love. After
       | that was trance in the 2000's, then ambient, techno and IDM after
       | that. I still listen to all of these genres today depending on my
       | mood.
        
         | Zancarius wrote:
         | I don't think you're completely alone, but you're probably
         | statistically insignificant (don't worry, I'm right there with
         | you).
         | 
         | Like you, I can't stand the music I grew up with all that much
         | (maybe a few songs here and there), but I went through the
         | trance/electronic fixation in the 2000s. Now it's almost
         | anything that I enjoy, which probably doesn't say much, but I'm
         | presently listening to some chillstep and was listening to
         | metal covers of the sea shanties "Santiana" and "Roll the Old
         | Chariot Along." A few weeks ago, I was listening to Norse-
         | inspired works by Einar Selvik.
         | 
         | I can't imagine we're that statistically significant or if
         | streaming may have some impact on availability and interest.
         | I'm unwilling to believe it's a personality trait, for
         | instance. (For another data point, I was born in the early
         | 80s.)
        
           | doublerabbit wrote:
           | Anecdotally for me it's that music is now more complex the
           | simplicity of older music just doesn't please the senses as
           | it did back then.
           | 
           | Kind of the same feeling where you upgrade to two monitors
           | and if you have to use a workstation with one just isn't the
           | same.
        
           | RIMR wrote:
           | I actually wonder if staying receptive to new music into or
           | past middle age is enhanced by autism. I am a male on the
           | spectrum, in my late 30's, and absolutely nothing about this
           | article rings true to me. I generally operate on a 5 year
           | cycle where I completely reinvent my musical interests, stop
           | enjoying lots of tracks that I used to love (I hate just
           | about eveything I loved at 14), and hang onto a handful of
           | tracks that I consider timeless.
           | 
           | I am already feeling myself reach the end of one of these
           | cycles where I am digging through netlabels and indie
           | internet radio stations looking for the next niche subgenre
           | to become addicted to.
        
         | downWidOutaFite wrote:
         | Im much the same, but today I'm constantly in the search for
         | anything new, anything in any genre that breaks the well-worn
         | formulae and surprises me, but it's honestly hard to find,
         | everything is derivative.
        
           | cchi_co wrote:
           | I go through periods like that
        
         | winternett wrote:
         | I listen to anything new I can get my hands on without a bunch
         | of ads disrupting the vibe.. YouTube is my favorite music
         | resource these days, as the videos are better in telling me
         | more about whether an artist is genuine (non Ai, and non-
         | industry-plant).
         | 
         | The genre is not really defining in most cases for me, because
         | so much is mislabeled, or not even labeled at all, and I've
         | found in searching music by genre, that most of the
         | recommendations are flooded with SEO spam, and typically never
         | the best music within the genre to begin with...
         | 
         | Ai recommendations will also primarily be based on what makes
         | platforms and their partners the most money, which is often
         | coincidentally the generic sounding pop drivel we're all so
         | used to being played in every retail outlet around us, the best
         | music I've noticed is often hidden below 10k views or less.
        
         | bigthymer wrote:
         | I think we have the same taste from the 2000s on. If you had to
         | recommend one artist\track I probably haven't heard of yet,
         | which would it be?
        
           | patchorang wrote:
           | I have a very similar history as well, so jumping in. You've
           | probably heard of the artist, John Frusciante. But probably
           | not the album, Maya.
           | 
           | The guitarist for RHCP is making the best modern IDM.
        
         | readingnews wrote:
         | I find this very interesting, as my path is nearly identical,
         | with the added note (like some other replies) that I just can
         | not stand 60s-70s rock any longer... but I find my musical
         | interests are much wider, and I am listening to more new music
         | than ever before (trance, IDM, experimental, jazz, classical).
         | 
         | I do know people who turn on some streaming service and
         | basically listen to the same genre all day long. I am not sure
         | how they do it. Maybe we are in some small demographic that
         | goes nuts if we do not discover new music?
        
         | bsder wrote:
         | > I can't even stand any more due to the incredibly small
         | playlists that most classic rock stations use.
         | 
         | That's _every bloody station_ nowadays. It doesn 't matter if
         | its radio, SiriusXM, Spotify, or whatever they _all_ degenerate
         | into a small number of repeated songs.
         | 
         | I _loathe_ this pigeonholing. It makes finding something new
         | you might like _REALLY_ hard.
         | 
         | For example, I don't want an "80s station" with the same old
         | crap. How about a station that plays all the songs released
         | since 1990 by those 80s artists? Nope. Nada.
         | 
         | Or, how about just the _other tracks_ from the same albums.
         | Sure, you 've heard "Faithfully" from Journey's "Frontiers"
         | album a zillion times and hate it. Have you heard "Chain
         | Reaction", "Edge of the Blade" or "Frontiers" from the album?
         | Bet you haven't and if you hate their sappy ballads you're
         | likely to enjoy those tracks.
         | 
         | Or, God forbid, brand new artists that sound like what you
         | want. Try coughing up Blossoms from liking 80s. You might get
         | there if you really work by starting from the very specific
         | "jangle pop" angle.
         | 
         | Ever heard _anything_ from  "Blackstar" out in public? I know I
         | sure haven't.
         | 
         | However, I would also argue that music is simply a _LOT_ less
         | important to today 's youth. It's background noise while doing
         | some other activity and not an activity in and unto itself.
        
           | 48864w6ui wrote:
           | The local oldies station plays 1950-2004 (now-20) and does
           | seem to delve a little past top 40 from time to time.
        
       | tayo42 wrote:
       | Why's the writer listening to james blunt still, that your
       | beautiful song sucked when it came out too lol
       | 
       | I used to be really into music, writing, releasing, curating
       | everything. But yeah around my 30s idk, i lost interest i guess
       | like any other hobby. I listen to podcasts now when I drive. In
       | my 20s finding music was like hard work. I went through a lot
       | music all the time.
       | 
       | One thing I think is interesting is older music seems to be
       | sticking around more. Like maybe in the 60s and on more timeless
       | music was written? like in 2000, Idk anyone that listened to 40s
       | or really 50s music, music that would be 50-60 years old at the
       | time. But in the 2020s, 1960s, 70s, 80s music is still around. I
       | think still has a lot of cultural relevancy. Or maybe the kids
       | today don't care about the beatles or jimi hendrix? I find that
       | hard to believe though. In 20 more years are we going to say
       | Queen and ACDC sucked and never listen to it again?
       | 
       | What do rebelious kids and angsty teens listen to now? Who are
       | the red hot chili peppers, and weezers and blink182s right now.
        
       | latentcall wrote:
       | My old process (still the same) was going on RateYourMusic and
       | looking at the user lists. If a list has a title that resonates
       | with me I tend to find some really cool albums in there. I'll
       | listen to a sample on YT and grab it on Soulseek, and if I really
       | like the album I buy it on vinyl.
       | 
       | I used Spotify for 10 years or so and it never seemed good at
       | recommending me music. Within the last two years I cancelled my
       | subscription and have returned to the old ways.
       | 
       | The sad thing is, life is too short to hear all the amazing music
       | out there!
        
       | _whiteCaps_ wrote:
       | I was looking forward to my kids introducing me to new music as
       | I've stagnated. Their favourites?
       | 
       | - Nirvana - Weezer - Blink 182 - Jimmy Eat World
       | 
       | :-/
       | 
       | (although my new favourite band is The Beaches)
        
       | cchi_co wrote:
       | Overall, music plays its own specific role for each person. For
       | some, music is a significant part of life, almost like a whole
       | life, while for others, it's simply meant to be in the
       | background.
        
       | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
       | My music tastes were pretty much static since highschool until I
       | started using Spotify 5 years ago
        
       | TedHerman wrote:
       | Not being a user of Spotify nor other services, I can only say
       | that I continue to find new music in each decade. And I like much
       | of newer music better than the old classics (which is saying
       | something because I started listening in the 1960s). Thus what
       | Parris says doesn't speak to me.
        
       | llsf wrote:
       | Funny, when I was maybe 10yo, I got scared when I realized that
       | given the number of notes is finite, the number of different
       | melodies would be too, and so we would have one day to put new
       | lyrics on old melodies.
        
         | m463 wrote:
         | I wonder... that was about the age when I found out:
         | 
         | "twinkle twinkle little star" = "abc song"
        
         | vundercind wrote:
         | A story especially for you:
         | 
         | http://spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html
        
         | esafak wrote:
         | Since song have no time limit, and notes can be combined in
         | numerous ways to form chords, there is no limit to the number
         | of melodies. And that's before you consider musical
         | temperaments.
        
       | javajosh wrote:
       | For those interested in finding new music, let me strongly
       | recommend some good radio station youtube channels. KEXP and KCRW
       | both come time mind. In that vein, sometimes you can find good
       | new music through labels. For example, 4AD. I'm not sure why, but
       | YouTube often suggests good stuff seemingly at random, especially
       | in the electronica genre. Radio stations have music only streams
       | on their websites, too. I've often found artists I like going to
       | local shows and paying attention to who _they_ like. YMMV
       | 
       | It also helps to pay attention to the bands you like and where
       | they end up. For example, the band Marriages split up and Emma
       | Ruth Rundle went solo and the guitarist started Drab Majesty.
        
       | tzs wrote:
       | For people in their mid-30s and beyond I think a big factor in
       | them commonly perceiving that today's popular music sucks
       | compared to the popular music of their teens and twenties is that
       | when they listen to music from their younger days _now_ it is a
       | small subset of what they were actually listening to back then.
       | 
       | For example my teens and twenties were in the '70s and '80s. If I
       | decide I want to listen to music from those times now I would
       | probably mostly listen to Cat Stevens, Neil Young, The Who, The
       | Ramones, The Dickies, The B-52s, Devo, Queen, The Urban Verbs,
       | The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, The Grateful
       | Dead, The Moody Blues, Kansas, The Clash, The Dead Kennedys, Kate
       | Bush, Synergy, Jean-Michel Jarre, Talking Heads, and a few I'm
       | forgetting.
       | 
       | If I decide I want to listen to some current popular music I
       | might listen to something the the Billboard Hot 100 playlist on
       | Spotify.
       | 
       | Of course I'm going to find that nearly everything on there is
       | not nearly as good as the music from artists listed above.
       | 
       | But I'd find the same thing if instead of today's Billboard Hot
       | 100 I listened to a playlist of a Billboard Hot 100 list from the
       | '70s or '80s, or listened to a recording of a random day's
       | broadcast of a '70s or '80s popular music radio station.
       | 
       | And I'm sure that in 2040 if I ask someone who is 37 to make me a
       | playlist of music from 2024 (when they were 21) that playlist is
       | going to sound a lot better to me than the 2024 music I hear now
       | when I decide to check out current music.
       | 
       | Just like my list above is the '70-80s artists that I'm still
       | listening to 50 years later, that 37 year old's playlist will be
       | the 2024 music that he's still listening to 16 years later.
        
         | listenallyall wrote:
         | The more time passes, the fewer relics from earlier eras
         | survive and stay relevant, like a funnel.
        
         | 48864w6ui wrote:
         | Are you including Tom Tom Club in Talking Heads?
        
         | LegitShady wrote:
         | a lot of this is your choices. You may be choosing to engage
         | less with new music.
         | 
         | I spend at least an hour each week doing something that I can
         | also listen to new music at the same time, and I add it to my
         | favorites, so that those dark AI recommendations start adding
         | similar recommendations to my listening mixes. I don't listen
         | to top 100 because by and large I don't like it. In modern
         | music my taste has shifted away from prog rock and classic into
         | techno/psytrance/etc. All it took was spending a bit of time
         | looking, every week, to enrich my taste in music and make sure
         | I wasn't repeating the stuff I heard on the radio growing up
         | forever.
         | 
         | It's up to you to do it. It's your choice to make.
        
       | PaulHoule wrote:
       | I listened to the radio and watched music videos (Boston had an
       | OTA channel that was like MTV) as a teen, and was the public
       | relations officer and then engineer at the KTEK college radio
       | station, which exposed me to more music.
       | 
       | In my 20s though I was in grad school and monomaniacally focused
       | on my work and I avoided mass culture almost completely. Around
       | the time I turned 30 I got interested in new music again and it
       | was first east coast hip hop (KRS One, M.F. Doom) then
       | psychedelia and classic rock adjacent music (by that time I was
       | really sick and tired of overplayed classic rock, one time I was
       | tripping on acid at 2 am and called up the local college station
       | to complain about the Doobie Brothers song they played that is on
       | a twice a day during drive time and the program manager picked
       | up, I told him to play what he thought was good music and he put
       | on Miles Davis.)
       | 
       | Since then I have had pulses of being interested in "new" (to me)
       | music but it's usually been a bit old. The last round has been
       | the Super Furry Animals (Mwng for the win!) and similar UK bands
       | like The Charlatans. I just found out that I like some of Cyndi
       | Lauper's later albums. Before that it was early Japanese
       | electronica like Yellow Magic Orchestra and Isao Tomita. Before
       | that _Synthesizer_ by Information Society was a revelation.
       | 
       | Recently my son got into the big hits of Fleetwood Mac but I was
       | amazed that they made a lot of music before they hit it big and
       | some of it I like.
       | 
       | I don't listen to a lot of "new" music in the sense of "released
       | in the last few years" and I'd be inclined to blame the
       | prevalence of auto-tune for that. People I know in the music
       | industry make all sorts of excuses ("Don't you like the vocoders
       | on Daft Punk?", "... look I like the vocoders in Laurie
       | Anderson's work and in Neil Young's *Trans&", "Isn't T-Pain
       | talented?", "... I got no problem with T-Pain, I've got a problem
       | with all the other rappers who sound like T-Pain") but if I hear
       | something on the radio that is auto-tuned I'm pretty quick to
       | change the channel.
       | 
       | My next project is to learn something about traditional and
       | contemporary Chinese music.
        
       | lapcat wrote:
       | I find it interesting that GenZ and Millennials show a much
       | smaller preference for their own decade's music.
       | https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...
       | 
       | The 1980s are still doing quite well among all but the oldest
       | generation.
       | 
       | Is it possible that music may actually be getting worse?
       | Corporatized, consolidated, computerized.
       | 
       | Look at Hollywood now too: everything is a sequel, prequel,
       | remake, reboot, or adaptation. There's hardly anything original
       | anymore.
        
         | redwall_hp wrote:
         | Music has become more stratified. The 90s through the present
         | have been an ongoing escalation of music being democratized
         | more and more, from the rise of the DAW in the late 90s to
         | iTunes and P2P sharing to YouTube and music streaming. So there
         | is vastly more music now, and people have more opportunity to
         | find things that suit their tastes.
         | 
         | People listen to a wider variety of music and the same
         | Billboard notion of popularity doesn't really paint a useful
         | picture anymore. What plays on the radio or in TV ads is the
         | lowest common denominator corporate waffle, and is played
         | heavily, but it doesn't represent what people listen to
         | overall.
         | 
         | I have personal playlists of everything from House music and
         | 90s Eurodance to all kinds of J-Pop to 19th century folk music
         | to early 2000s rock to 80s synth pop to orchestral music. I
         | couldn't name a single Taylor Swift song offhand, but
         | apparently she's pretty big.
        
           | detourdog wrote:
           | This seems like a really good take on the situation. I
           | usually disagree that discoverability as a problem.
           | Discoverability could be why my tastes have stagnated.
        
         | detourdog wrote:
         | I certainly have plenty of biased but late 70s early 80s seems
         | like a really good era. Especially because it was so diverse
         | and not dominated by a single sound.
        
       | r1b wrote:
       | Outlier here (musician, spend hours per week trying to find new
       | music) - some thoughts:
       | 
       | - The search space for music is really large and noisy. Most of
       | the stuff out there isn't very good, and the stuff that is good
       | isn't always discoverable with a single strategy - The best
       | strategies almost always exploit human connections
       | 
       | Some strategies I use:
       | 
       | - Spatial locality, who is performing with or near artists that I
       | like? - Publishing locality, who is on the same label as an
       | artist that I like? - Artist locality, what other projects has an
       | artist I like contributed to? - Fan locality, what other artists
       | does a fan of an artist that I like enjoy?
       | 
       | ----
       | 
       | Note that none of these strategies are as effective as
       | "relinquish control". For example, there is a freeform radio
       | station near me that I listen to all day at work. I have a rule
       | that I won't turn the radio off in the middle of a DJs set, even
       | if I don't like a song. This has helped me "break through" to
       | interesting artists I wouldn't have discovered otherwise.
       | 
       | To the article's question, I think the main factor here doesn't
       | have much to do with music. Cultural production has exploded, and
       | it's really hard to navigate any cultural space in a non-
       | obsessive way.
       | 
       | I thought it was interesting that the effect of "generational
       | preference for music released when teenaged" seemed to wane
       | around Gen Z. I wonder if this is just exhaustion, perhaps with
       | tendencies towards pastiche as a consequence.
        
       | esafak wrote:
       | A good reminder for parents to push beyond their comfort zones
       | when playing music with their children, otherwise they will take
       | the path of least resistance: popular music.
        
       | haunter wrote:
       | I've only been listening to the BBC Essential Mix since ~2005.
       | Pretty much nothing else, it's always about the latest music and
       | trends (especially if it's something from the UK like dubstep,
       | grim etc.). 2x2 hour episodes are absolutely perfect for a week
       | (there's a Classic show where they play the old ones again)
        
       | garrickvanburen wrote:
       | There was a time when SXSW released one track from each featured
       | artist on a massive torrent. That kept me going on new music for
       | nearly the entire year. Repeat.
        
       | brcmthrowaway wrote:
       | FOllow Professor Skye's Music rewview.
        
       | davidw wrote:
       | That Say Anything scene... originally was going to use a Fishbone
       | song, because Cusack is apparently a big fan. It didn't really
       | work for the scene though.
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say_Anything...#Cultural_influ...
       | 
       | Coincidentally, Fishbone was part of the wave of awesome music in
       | the early 1990ies when I was finding new music because there was
       | good music and before music started not being quite so good any
       | more.
       | 
       | It's such an amazing coincidence that they made the good music
       | right when I was young. I got lucky, I guess.
        
       | Yaggo wrote:
       | My #1 source for finding new music: teen-aged daughter
        
       | thom wrote:
       | I listened to a lot of Apple Music recommendations while getting
       | my three kids to sleep over the years. I would say that in my 40s
       | I'm discovering more new music, and music I genuinely love, than
       | I did in all my teens. I don't get to go to a lot of gigs, but I
       | go to one big festival a year and it's the bands in a tiny font
       | that I get excited about. Yeah most stuff is shit, but there's
       | just so much of everything.
        
         | dools wrote:
         | Yeah I'm more open minded now than I was when I was younger.
         | All my taste seems to stem from the same roots (for example I
         | like a wide variety of electronic music but the common thread
         | is sounds and/or harmonies rooted in funk/soul/jazz/blues) but
         | when I was a teenager I was only interested in rap music.
        
       | JansjoFromIkea wrote:
       | I don't believe music was better in my day but I do think the
       | older you get the harder it is to find things that sound truly
       | fresh (e.g. someone like black midi would probably blow me away
       | if I was 16 now but instead they just keep reminding me of
       | various acts I've heard before years ago)
       | 
       | Similarly I find myself being a lot more interested in competent
       | but not especially ambitious late period albums by acts where
       | their comfort with knowing what their sound is and how to play
       | with it can be the main source of interest.
        
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