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Experimental music is never popular
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So true, as my recent attempts to get my father, and a couple of my sisters, interested in AC can attest to.
What's interesting is, my sisters at least, are all big Yes fans. At one point Yes used to be considered fairly experimental art rock. But now that they've become so familiar I don't think people think of them as experimental anymore - or, if they do, the familiarity of their music has blunted the edge of their experimental-ness. This makes me wonder if AC will be more accepted and liked in 20-30 years than they are now, as people get increasingly accustomed to the musical style.
There is certainly a generational thing going on, too (my sisters and I are all in our mid-late 40's). Maybe someone here can tell me, but if you go to an AC, or even a Grizzly Bear, concert, are there many people there over the age of about 35-40? I almost wonder if younger people have actually gotten more accustomed to complex and abstract music than people 20+ years older than them, despite the pretensions of the Baby Boomers that their music was musically superior.
My first hint of this was when I tried to play AC to my father a couple months ago (he is 80). Here is a guy who spent most of his life listening to Beethoven, Shostakovich, Mahler and other classical music composers. This is supposed to be complex music - right? But when I played AC for him, he simply couldn't stand it, told me it was much too busy, and insisted I keep the sound way down. Go figure. Though I also got the impression from him that a combination of hearing issues and crankiness of advanced age lowers one's tolerance for something like that, so that's probably a factor as well.