People stop listening to new music at age 33.

I'm 27 and the only new music I listen to tends to be by artists I listened to when I was younger. Most of what I listen to is from the late '80s or '90s.

Xelebes said:

From NME



So if you are over 33, do you still hunt for new music or do throw the pillow at futurestep, new wave revival, moombahton, chanson nouveau and what not or do you find yourself falling back?

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i continue to explore a wide variety of new music.

ManInBlack said:

I'm 27 and the only new music I listen to tends to be by artists I listened to when I was younger. Most of what I listen to is from the late '80s or '90s.

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Imagine growing up with this, sort of a latter-day do-wop song: (Paul Anka, "Put Your Head On My Shoulder," 1963):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4uxdAt4-M

.. and just four short decades later he has a new album, he goes backwards to swing style (think Frank Sinatra), and covers 80s rock hits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inxDJVAhOGU

Ha, I think that Paul Anka thing really works. (the band don't hurt) Also, he's singing pretty well at his ripe age. He looks young! Must have a magical sunlamp.

Okay, just saw this, and it's hilarious:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/being-a-music-fan-in-your-twenties-vs-your-thirties#.rrr1mBA0o4

And true, IMO.

I'm 37 and still listen to new music, but I go out of my way to find indie non-pop music. I've disliked the material we're bombard with on the radio since I was 16.

What I've been really getting into lately is instrumental rock like Jakob and Russian Circle, and This Will Destroy You.

Alpha Echo said:

Okay, just saw this, and it's hilarious:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/being-a-music-fan-in-your-twenties-vs-your-thirties#.rrr1mBA0o4

And true, IMO.

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Haha! Awesome! Although I'm aging in reverse. I'm more likely to go out to a late-night show now in my 40s than I was 20 years ago, although it's more likely to be a small club venue than a massively crowded stadium.

I still seek out new music, and it's easier than ever. I find most of my new music on Noisetrade (great for indie singer/songwriters) and college stations with a good online presence like WXPN, KEXP and WFMU. There is also FreeMusicArchive, which has exposed me to tons of great stuff I wouldn't have encountered otherwise.

The premise of the article is nonsense, and the resulting conclusions are insulting if not totally ignorant.

Other than that, it's right on... 57 and listening to new music as I type this...

I review jazz music for a website and I receive new albums all the time. Some good, some bad, most unmemorable. Jazz isn't being heard, but its still being made if anyone cares. As for pop music, the little I hear all sounds Auto Tuned/Pro Tooled into little more than anonymous background noise playing overhead in a sports bar.

I won't say rock is exactly dead, but I'll put it this way: the last two albums I played were Van Halen's A Different Kind of Truth, the first album from the band in 14 years and the first with David Lee Roth in 28 years and Metallica's Master of Puppets which is 29 years old.

Geezer rock kicks ass!

The idea I need to constantly seek out new artists when I've already found my favorites seems like Desperately Seeking Hipness to me. I'm over that.

Gee, there's enough OLD music that I just haven't gotten to yet. Or stuff that I bypassed ages ago, and I'm encountering for the first time now. Or even stuff that I used to hate, and might change my mind about if I hear it again.

And live music is a different thing altogether - not part of this study. Every time I go to a music festival, I find that the most fun I have is with the bands I haven't heard of before. (And I almost always buy their music, as I did when I saw Dave & Phil Alvin [ex-Blasters] - and the opening act. Bought four discs on the spot.)

I don't use Spotify or Pandora to listen to music I already know; I'm more likely to use it find new music.

But, moreover, I don't seek out genres or labels. So, while, I might be interested to know what makes, oh, Delta blues different from Chicago blues, or dubstep different from jungle, I really don't care to go and listen to one specific thing like that.

Having said that, I just scratched one thirty-year itch two nights ago: I went to see Morrissey. I knew five of the songs he performed, and realised that I hadn't heard anything he'd done in the last, oh, twenty years. But it was delightful.

Sunday, I'll get another one: I've got tickets to Grace Jones. I HAVE heard her most recent album, and... she's still brilliant.

eta: I couldn't stand Top 40 radio when I was a kid, and that hasn't changed at all. One thing that HAS changed is that I will admit to appreciating some music now that I cursed at before. Part of it is nostalgia; most of it is being more open-minded; the fact that a band is popular isn't as much of a negative to me anymore.

I was about to agree with the OP (33? Most people I know think music peaked when they left high school!), but then I read the article and found the study very, very flawed. The authors seem to associate "new" with "what's poular today" rather than "what's new today".

I, for one, have had a healthy (and sometimes unhealthy) distaste for contemporary pop since I was 14. The act of aiming for charts success and the compromises you have to make to achieve it renders a lot of music meaningless and generic, no matter when. (Although they seem to have got better at doing that, and only that, with the result that today's pop only ever seems to make sense from a charts perspectiveand is getting ever more incestual. Aggressive commercialism used to be funny, back when the Pet Shop Boys did it...) [/rant] I like modern sounds much more than the material the companies choose to dress in it. So there's always a chance I'll like something if it's not just commercial. (Lily Allen, the Ting Tings, Lady Gaga come to mind.)

That said, you can find exciting new stuff all over the place if you just stop looking for it on the radio. Most of my favorite musicians these days are Bandcamp discoveries from the last two years. Okay, maybe not most because my record collection is big and has a lot of names in it. But a lot.

But I'm not average people. Average people don't seem to love music, they love the memories that come with music. They like music enough to have it around them most of the time, but not enough to actively seek it out. Me, I haven't been nostalgic about music since I was old enough to experience nostalgia (or not experience it) and have always got bored with too much replay. I wanted to move on, not circle back. (With the exception of Blues. Blues gets away with a lot of stuff I don't usually like. Maybe because it has stirred that trusty homely feeeling in me that a lot of people seek in their old music, but done so ever since I first heard it.)

I'm 36, and I've recently gotten into metal, especially the indie stuff. I'm also listening to a lot of really experimental music, some new and some old, but all of it new to me.

The last concert I went to was a couple months ago. I went to see Swans, a band I discovered and fell in love with during the last year. I've found that as I've gotten older, my musical tastes have dramatically expanded. I listen to classical and jazz, but I also listen to raucous, screaming metal. I enjoy classic rock, but also acoustic guitar. Irish folk music, but also highly experimental stuff like Swans and The Residents. I can get into Pretty Lights, or radio pop music. When I listen to rap, it's usually with ironic amusement, but reggae and ska are so much fun that I just have to love them. About the only genres I consistently don't enjoy are country and Tejano - probably because my father absolutely hated them and because I've lived my whole life in Texas. Even then, there are exceptional songs in those genres that I can actually enjoy.

The last song I listened to tonight was Angry Johnny by Poe, but earlier I was listening to a friend of mine's new experimental project - an extremely different sound - and loving every second of it.

All this was brought on by my realizing that while I could listen to a lot of different genres, when someone asked me for a band that I truly loved, I couldn't name one that I could feel 100% about. So, at 35, I asked two friends (23 and 21, one of whom a musician,) to start introducing me to new music. Since then, I've been consuming new music like a woman starved and enjoying every note.

That's a real shame, if so.

There's so much fantastic new music that is forever coming out - especially of late.

Truly sublime !

40 and a half, but I still listen to SiriusXM radio's Hits now channel, as well as 80s on 8 and 90s on 9. Plus country and Rock and Alt-rock, and and and...

Yeah, I listen to almost everything.

Once you're outside the target marketing range, you're free to delve into other unfashionable genres. Tastes develop, and peer pressure diminishes. You're less bothered what others might think. That widens the possibilities, and classical, folk, jazz, and the avant garde opens up. There's so much out there beyond the rock and pop re-treads. I'm with Paul Morley on this.

I think I find a new artist to listen to every couple of weeks. I can't imagine I'm going to stop past my 33rd birthday.

I'm thirty-two, and tend to find new artists not through the radio, but through my library's collection. I don't use Spotify or Pandora. I put *entire albums* into the CD player in my car and listen to them on my commute. It still weirds me out that a lot of people don't do that--listen to an entire album from start to finish. For me, I feel like I'm selling the artist short, whoever they are, if I don't listen to the entire package, at least the first time I'm hearing it. I read all the liner notes, too. (Although...not in the car.)

Having said that, the number of "new" bands I've found this way is probably kinda small. New to me, yeah, but how often they've actually been around varies. The only current radio-popular artist I'm super into right now is Taylor Swift. (People are always surprised when I tell them this--yes, I really love Taylor Swift. Like, a lot.) But the band I've been listening to the most lately is Lacuna Coil, and they've been out since 1994.

And having said that, I have a core group of Top 4 Always that doesn't change. My Top 4 has been my Top 4 pretty much since college. It's that No. 5 spot that changes and rotates when I discover new people.

I wonder, how many of those who only listen to bands they liked when they were younger, seek out their new stuff? And how many will only listen to their old stuff?

I like the old stuff and new stuff by old bands I like, and I like the new stuff by new bands I like as well. Why limit myself? Not that I'm criticising anyone else's tastes. There's more than enough music to go around for everyone. Yay, music!

Well, I turned 33. And I accidentally listened to some new music today! And it's growing on me! Help!!!

This 34 year old is always up for hearing something new!

ManInBlack said:

I'm 27 and the only new music I listen to tends to be by artists I listened to when I was younger. Most of what I listen to is from the late '80s or '90s.

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I'd be miserable if I were you. All I can deduce is that you are indifferent to music as an art and only use it as a backdrop to your life. That's perfectly legitimate, mind you. Some people treat paintings as wall decorations, to others it's more than that. Ultimately, we're all made from the same flesh and blood.

Thank you for sharing.

Woh.

My dad is nearly sixty and still actively seeks out new-to-him/different music as well as other experiences and ideas. Some personalities are just like that. Others like the stability of what's familiar and I would imagine have usually figured out what that is by their early 30s.



Edit: Dang, forgot to check the dates on this thing. Fooled again!

draosz said:

I'd be miserable if I were you. All I can deduce is that you are indifferent to music as an art and only use it as a backdrop to your life. That's perfectly legitimate, mind you. Some people treat paintings as wall decorations, to others it's more than that. Ultimately, we're all made from the same flesh and blood.

Thank you for sharing.

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You can't know this is their attitude. Maybe draosz really likes and listens closely to the music they enjoy, even if it's the same stuff they've preferred since they were a teen. I saw this behavior in my parents. They stopped listening to new stuff in the the early 70s, and after the late 70s, most of what they listened to was far older--classical, jazz, folk tunes. But they definitely enjoyed and listened to music deliberately.

Having said this, I've made a point of continuing to seek out new music as I've aged. If I hear a clip of something I like being reviewed on public radio, for instance, I'll make a point of buying it. I have a couple of stations that play newer music programmed into my car radio, and again, if I hear something new (or new to me, at least), I make a note of it. If I really like a song, I'll buy it and program it into my ipod writing mix. I also make a point of listening to some of my favorite "albums" from the old days from time to time. In addition to popular and rock, I listen to classical music too. I wouldn't call myself a music connoisseur, and sometimes I do just have it "in the background while I'm doing something else." But I enjoy it.

Albedo said:

I wonder, how many of those who only listen to bands they liked when they were younger, seek out their new stuff? And how many will only listen to their old stuff?

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Most of the groups I liked when I was younger stopped making new stuff years and years ago. It is interesting that most "classic rock" stations stopped playing newer music, including new stuff from classic bands, some time during the 90s. That's the dark ages for you whippersnappers, but I'd be pretty bored by now if I never listened to anything new.