Getting older, tastes changing
 

I know for a fact, that if 20-something years old me had been asked whether I thought my musical tastes would "quiet down" as I got older, I would have scoffed at the idea.

But here I am, 36 years old and with a CD collection full of things the past version of me would have found unbearably boring.

More or less since I crossed the 30 year threshold, I've been getting progressively more interested in quieter music, like singer-songwriter material (think Tori Amos, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega), classical and a bunch of fairly down to earth pop/electronic artists.

Not that I don't still listen to all sorts of metal and whatever, but increasingly, I find myself appreciating quieter music.

So what do you guys think? Are your tastes likely to change as you get older or do you feel like you're exempt from this tendency?

Or if you're already an old fart, do you remember how your tastes changed over the years?

It's not even those questions in specific. This topic just interests me in general.

Getting older is simply about refining your tastes until you can enjoy listening to whatever the **** you want without the thought of your peer group's judgement entering your mind.

That's one thing for sure. It's pointless to stay in that teenage mindset of wanting to be cool or rebellious in your music choices, or just wanting to fit in.

Even more than that it's being able to find the utmost joy in any sound that catches your ear without any ounce of interference.

I feel like I've reached that point. Just listening to new music and let my judgment of it come from inside.

Ironically, the only voices of disapproval I have to ignore to enjoy my music are on this forum of open minded* music geeks :laughing:




*: in theory at least

That's because stagnation is boring and so is being openminded.

I think trying to be open minded is the most interesting thing about life, in a way.

But what I really ought to say is that I don't understand what the hell you're getting at :laughing:

As you age novelty becomes less novel so you have to smoke a little weed to relubricate the novelty appreciation neurons in your noggin. Weed recreates that 20 year old perspective on new music (unless you smoke it all the time)

It’s not fair to dismiss a record unless you put a little buzz on if you’re old

My tastes have expanded as I've gotten older, but they haven't quieted down. I like both quiet and loud music. If anything, loud music has been a bigger portion of what I listen to in my 30s and 40s. I certainly listen to a lot more dissonant music than I did in my 20s.

I never liked grindcore before my late 20s and now I don't even want to touch power metal which used to be a staple for me.

<3

Getting closer to my level every day!

28 and still going strong with muh yachts. Change my mind.

You have done your fair share of complaining in the Album Club 2017. So don't act like your the only one who is open minded while everyone isn't. :finger:

I can never make a joke without you getting angry at me, can I?

I thought you were like 50 or 60.

Same.

I'm probably the exception to the rule. I never listened to music to "be cool" (I never was, and never will be, cool) or to fit in; I listened to music I liked. I still like that music. Though I've expanded my tastes in the last ten years or so, I still listen to all of the music I used to, and in fact I'm coming more to an appreciation of the music I turned my nose up at, mostly pop/chart stuff like PSB, Duran Duran and Depeche Mode.

Of course, my taste sucks anyway, so there is that.

How did you manage to fasten sheets of paper together with power metal??

I don't think you're the exception to the rule. I think that's how most people here are.

If I'm listening to music in order to seem cool, I'm doing a piss poor job of it.

:laughing:

I'm doing a brilliant job. It's everyone else who're uncool plebes.

I have 128 different artists in my current music library and multiple albums from most of them. Random sampling:

Alex Machacek
Andrew York
Anika Niles
Ayreon
The Chasm
Chris Poland
Damian Murdoch Trio
David Sylvain & Robert Fripp
Doom
Enchant
Chopin*
Gun
Haken
Jaco Pastorius*
Jing Chi
John Abercrombie
Karizma
Little Feat*
Max Webster*
Midlake
Nachur
Nguyen Le
Omphrey
The Parlor Mob
Pat Metheny*
Plankton
Project Z
Return to Forever*
Rodrigo Y Gabriela
Saigon Kick
Seventh Key
Stravinsky*
Tauk
This Town Needs Guns
Tim Miller
Tony Williams*
Transatlantic
Tribel Tech
Weather Report*
The Winery Dogs

* Stuff I was aware of in my 20s. Everything else has been new in the last 10-15 years.

Doom as in MF Doom?

I think it's Doom the Japanese metal band.

Plankton but no JTC? What's Frownland, chop liver?

I didn't see Led Zeppelin with an *. Did you discover them after your 20s?

I omitted all the usual suspects. Haven't listened to Zeppelin in maybe a year except for if it comes on the radio. Still my fave band of all time though.

Plankton is awesome. Dual guitars playing nothing but vintage Strats into vintage non master volume Marshalls.

Great cover of Take 5 which really starts to smoke around the 2 minute mark.

Yeah he's awesome. What year are those strats? Strats made in the early 90s are now considered vintage - tempus fugit. Cool if he can afford 60s Strats though.

Definitely 50s and 60s. Same with the amps. Their first album had a great picture of their gear inside but I can't find it online. Looked all beat to **** but sounds incredible.

We talking about "Plankton" the MB member/mod, right?

Plankton the band out of Sweden.

Oh, my bad. I thought you meant our very own Music Banter Plankton. :shycouch:

edit: if I ever write out a list of new bands and artists I recently discovered I'm sure I will add the real Plankton from MB to it.

So is Doom the Japanese band or the American rapper?

Maybe Chula misspelled The Doors?

Japanese band. I think Batty turned me on to them.

I'll take that as a compliment.

Over the past fifteen years I've gone through multiple phases. Where I am now is the inevitable end result of getting bored by the extreme music I adored as a teen. My literal starting point at 11 was from my uncle's stash (The Fall, Velvet Underground, all of Cale's solo stuff) and ballooned outwards from there into post-punk, some glitch-hop, grind and RIO.

I could see that happening for me as well. Even just these last few weeks, I haven't really felt like listening to any sort of extreme metal. I feel like I'm going to move away from metal in general over time, but I don't know for sure, of course. But it seems likely that at least the extreme stuff with harsh vocals is going to diminish.

RIO?

http://cdn6.rockinrio.com/usa/wp-con...BLOG-FOGOS.jpg

I feel ya bruh. Extreme metal is a mood thing for me at this point rather than my base setting.

I still love a lot of the post-punk that's my foundation, but the big turning point for me was discovering bands like Ambrosia and Toto, who were very pop oriented but at the same time had highly technical grasps on composition, melody etc. And I discovered I appreciated that element in a lot of progressive rock that I dug into when I was about midway through college.

I hardly have anything in common musically with my friends from way back when today (most of them started musically where I did and just stopped looking for new stuff once they got into college). But if you started listening to The Fall or Swans like I did at 11 but twenty years later you think nobody can do better than them, then that's fine too.

EDIT: RIO stands for Rock In Opposition. I adored that **** for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_in_Opposition