Is Old Music Killing New Music?

@jssmith 

I don't know of or have heard of anyone middle age or older in my local sphere, at work, at the gym, or really anywhere except the Web who listens to new artists.

Very interesting. I had not thought of this before you made this comment. I find myself agreeing with your observation with the people I know in my age group. No one I know (except my wife) actually listens to anything outside of what they listened to in high school. Even when I suggest new music to my friends/coworkers they look at me like I am crazy and keep listening to the same 12 albums.

I constantly search for new artists/music and my wife will add them to her playlists much to the surprise of her students. I have always been told I have eclectic taste and maybe that is why I am now listening to groups like Morcheeba, Darkside, Monophonics, Ikebe Shakedown, and others. 

I wonder if this also affects how we select the equipment in our systems? Something else to consider. 

I was only playing around. My comment is likely do to that of which I hear coming from the garage, my son and his other band members. C’mon guys, y’all have a gig around the corner… pace and timing please lol.

@dabel  Without PRAT, there is no music.  Could be a tone or a note, but with PRAT, one has music.   

@jssmith I doubt I’m a Sigma with my low creativity and average I.Q. However, I’m self-taught on computer since the mid-80s DOS, have a JD as well as having taken science courses at UCLA along with my history and political science BAs. Became a top commercial real estate appraiser for 28 years after 5 year stint as a residential property manager (hands on repairs too)/contractor for tract homes and apartments. Funny thing is that I’m mostly self-taught since school and prefer independent pursuits rather than group activities (other than choir for 51 years). I'm probably an anomaly compared to most people who are stuck in a rut both in life and work.

I can’t do anything artistic but appreciate and know art history. I can’t compose and play piano slowly yet I am quite knowledgeable on music history (especially opera and ethnic musicology). I don’t know how to create computer programs but am able to learn how to use them with minimal instruction. My learning ability accelerates with age, possibly due to earlier knowledge compounding with new subject matter.

As to bitcoin, I don’t like it. As to blockchain, yes, I can see myself using it just as I learned to switch from a slide rule to a calculator to a computer.

I will always want to listen to music on records and CDs. Streaming just doesn’t have much of the music I want or will probably never have (ethnic, out of print on esoteric music on formats of LP, 78, RR and CD). Note that streaming music is rarely accompanied with extensive recording, composer and artist notes whereas my Marston, Romophone, Biddulph, etc. CDs have sizable booklets of notes.

@jjsmith

@limomangus

I dont believe the statement that buy age 30 your set in your musical choice

I do. I’ll go so far as to say by age 22 or so. I think you and I are outliers. I don’t know of or have heard of anyone middle age or older in my local sphere, at work, at the gym, or really anywhere except the Web who listens to new artists.

--------

By 22 I was already into the Beatles, Elvis, Dylan and was happy checking out the LPs featured in Paul Gambaccini’s book Critics Choice Top 200 albums (first ed 1978) as well as The NME Rock Encyclopedia (1978) as well as listening to the regular Top 40 charts.

All the bands I enjoyed listening to that came later eg Joy Division, The Pogues, The Smiths, U2, R.E.M. etc were basically a continuation of what had gone before.

I have never made any effort to check out any different music unless there was something catchy in the music. For example I only got into classical after hearing an old tape of Murray Perahia playing Mozart’s PC 21.

I did get into jazz for a while but it seemed a little claustrophobic after a while.

As far as patience goes, I never had much back then, Sinatra seemed so so slow. Somehow he seemed to have improved by the time I got into my 30s.

In one sense, all of the music I listen to can be put under the same umbrella of being called popular.

There is an untold amount of music that I will never get to listen to, nor do I want to.

It’s that hook, buzz, kick, heartmelt that I look for in music, and most of the current stuff I hear on the car radio just doesn’t do it for me. These kids of today just seem too knowing, just too professional in their career aspirations.

They don’t sound for real.

At least that’s my take.

PRAT ... Pace, Rhythm, and Timing. Listed earlier in the thread ;-)

Is it all about the rhythm?   Interesting question from above it certainly ignited certain feelings in the listener and most likely increased procreation...!

Music of the 70's dominates today cause it is standing the passage of time. Too soon to see if it will conquer Bach and Beethoven, though not likely. Garcia made the comment that the Dead was just a dance band. Is it all about the rhythm? 

Coming back to Op's title, with benefit of hindsight I am not surprised that old music is more prevalent than new music simply because there is far less original material in new music (its all been done before).  Early indicators of this trend is when some time ago a few 'Rap' artists would use old hits to put in their own lyrics (or is it speech?), obviously no new originality.  There was 'Grunge Rock' which really was a poor man's version of Rock, I have more regard to Punk which tried to be more 'to the point' music without the frills, but the Punk artists fell in the trend of the time of trying to be offensive, bad boys and totally radical (sadly just an act).  There is a lot of modern 'good' music about, not original but certainly musical gems.  However music companies trying to nurture and invest in young talent have long gone.  Now focus is on more 'what will make it go viral' on internet.  Think of a tune which will 'hook' the listener on first time because otherwise listener will be instantly bored and has the instant access to other tunes.  Also there is a growing trend of artists just doing their own websites selling their own music without any band involvement eg Justin Johnson.  He is very talented guitarists but eventually the listener will get bored just listening him on his own doing eg remake of Stairways To heaven.  On rare situations when he does play in the band; musically it gets far more interesting!

@limomangus 

I dont believe the statement that buy age 30 your set in your musical choice

I do. I'll go so far as to say by age 22 or so. I think you and I are outliers. I don't know of or have heard of anyone middle age or older in my local sphere, at work, at the gym, or really anywhere except the Web who listens to new artists.

There was a thread here recently called "Share albums where EVERY SINGLE song is good". I commented that almost every album mentioned was 45-50 years old. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.

Occasionally you'll see audiophiles scoot into some other genre on a temporary adventure, but it doesn't suddenly displace their favorites. You rarely see experimentation with non-audiophiles.

You also see "getting stuck" as I call it, in the guitar community. You'll see guitarists consistently stuck playing songs from a 5-7 year period that aligns with their late teens and early twenties.

This isn't just about music. Look at technology. How many people over 40 outside the computer profession (and even inside)  understand things like cryptocurrency or the internal workings of blockchain? Blockchain is the future. Eventually all immutable documents will be stored on a blockchain. All your contracts, your deed, your loan agreements, etc. will be on a blockchain. Yet no one over 30 outside work knows what the heck I'm talking about. At most they think blockchain is Bitcoin.

One of my theories for "getting stuck" in the music of your youth is personality type. Without getting too deep into clinical terms or study citations, it's well known that some personality types are more curious than others. For instance, Sigmas have a very strong curiosity trait. Elon Musk is probably the most famous Sigma. No surprise there. Sigmas will do stuff like start new technology companies, dream up high-speed tunnels, commercial space travel and even have the cojones (or naivete, or both) to think he could start a successful car company where all others had failed. But Sigmas only make up 6% of the population.

Is breaking out of "getting stuck" in the music of your youth only limited to Sigmas? Could Sigmas be the outlier in this regard?  Or might it have something to do with people who work in professions that require constant change develop an immunity to fear of change? Or something else? I don't know. But I do know that I've tested as a Sigma and I'm one of those people who never got stuck.

Yes, I've sold 18,000 records in the past 35 years.   I have a rule for myself, if I don't potentially want to listen to a recording 3 times a year, out it goes (except for ethnic music which I have 3,500 records/78s/cds).  I have about 5,000 LPs to listen to still and decide to keep or toss.  I stopped purchasing 78s (except ethnic music) 20 years ago.   So many of the vocal, violin and piano recordings have been wonderfully remastered by Ward Marston, Obert-Thorn and Andreas Meyer to CD.

@fleschler 

 (I have 28,500 LPs, 7,000 78s and 7,000 CDs with all these types of music)

Wow! That is an impressive collection. Especially the 78s. 

Perhaps a many bad things in our world can be blamed on the greed & short sightedness of my (boomer) generation. But we can also proudly take the credit for by far the best rock music ever! It’s not even close.

it’s survival of the fittest!  How many new rock bands have come out in the past 25 years that will still be remembered & listened to often in 25 more years? Very few because most have little talent & creativity. The Dead, the Stones, cream, Allmans & course the Beatles etc. live on because of the quality of their music & their innate artistic talents. Everything eventually seeks its own level & the auto tuned junk will & has wound up near the bottom. 

@beasmooth1 Yes, patience is required to listen to music.  The most important factor in music is rhythm, the timing of music (even one note repeated in time can be considered music).  Streaming and earpod listening to music on phones does not convey the full character and experience of concentrating on music using more elaborate sonic setting (although there are some excellent quality earpods/phones but listening while exercising is not paying attention in my opinion and doesn't convey the full listening experience).   As Type A personality that I borderline on, I take time out each day to listen/envelop myself into listening to music.  

@hilde45  Why don't you just delete your first posting.  It is lacking in context and appears to be an equity play for young people versus boomers.   Equal opportunity is available to young people.   They spearhead technological innovations today, not boomers (and sometimes get rich doing so).  Unfortunately, our public education system is dumbing down young people.  They are dumber and tend to be less capable of taking care of themselves.  Also, how often do they read a book or newspaper?   I'm sure you are all in for equity, not equal opportunity and probably think books (those old things written by dead people mostly) are passe.   WRONG!  

@mike_in_nc  I was into 50's rock and roll, pop music from the 20's to 50's, classical and opera as a child.  At about 30, I became interested in jazz from the 20's to the 60's, then in my 60's in hard bop and fusion.  My wife brought me into 60's to 80's rock after we met when I was 41.   I am open minded and find new horizons in music.  (I have 28,500 LPs, 7,000 78s and 7,000 CDs with all these types of music).   I dislike rap, hip hop and the genre that spawned them.   They are antithetical to my moral beliefs.

I dont believe the statement that buy age 30 your set in your musical choice.Im 70and a boomer ,I'm not a rich bitch.My music tates change all the time.So do my buying habits.For years in my car all I would listen to was music from Sirius Radio,no commercials,just mysic.Now I like FM music stations with the commercials because it like the radio stations I remember as a kid and teenager, the old time Djs....I like everything and I have an open mind.But no Rappa Crappa ,Crap...talking about killing people ,beating women and fighting....Funny there Parents and Grandparents like Jazz,Rhythm and Blues and Soul..when did the Crazy stuff start....I guess just when Disco was dieding.....

I just have to laugh at that thread title, yes I remember the album bins too, and the 8 tracks, cassettes and reel to reels, but thats equipment.

First remembered listening to older jazz and 16 2/3 records, and 78's and of course 45's as well. especially Buck Owens doing Truck Driven Man on an old RCA with tubes.

One thing I also remember in High School was a class called Music Appreciation, lots of different kinds of music and something that today I guess is a bit of a dinosaur like me.

 Albums are different, you listened to one song after another by the same artist, one song might actually blend right into another.

Now we have streaming, pick and choose anything you want. But there's something missing, its called patience. Taking long enough to appreciate what an artist has to say musically. But its not about them, its about us. What we want to hear , not what they want us to hear.

Isn't it easier to skip around streaming all sorts of different music, than to actually sitting down and listening to an entire album ?

 In that Music Appreciation class, the teacher thought that classical music would get listened to less and less, and it came true, I really don't think its really appreciated as much as it used to be.

 But most classical pieces tend to be longer and you need that patience again to really listen to them.

Maybe all it really takes is time, something that most of us today, just don't have enough of.

Man, finding new artist and music has never been easier. And such a huge variety. While I fondly remember sifting through album bins for half a day in my younger years the fact is, and while I still enjoy it, I just don't have that kind of time anymore. So I find having a few minutes to read through threads like this makes it easy to find new artist and music...read post, select highlight, Command C, Qobuz, search bar, Command V, enter, new artist, click the Heart and my next listening session is set.

@yyzsantabarbara

I’m a boomer that grew up in New York and was a fan of WNEW FM and got to see all the great concerts.   I got interested in Jazz while still in High School. 
Fast forward to 2002, I started taking my daughters to the Baker Street concerts every Friday night in Atlanta. 
it gave me a whole new appreciation for Alternative Rock so I’ve managed to maintain an appreciation for many eras. 

Bottom line for me is that I enjoy several genres of music and try to keep current using Sirrus XM. 

As the parent of a 20-something year old musician, my son says if there is a music industry, it's nothing like it was when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s.  FM radio was king.  If your music was played on the radio, people went out and bought the physical media.  That meant that a few executives decided what new music people heard.  There are tens of thousands of hours of new music uploaded to the internet every week.  How do you listen to all that and say there are "no good musicians" anymore?  That's not true.  There are so many who never get championed by someone already famous to promote them. If you want your music heard, you pay big money for your music to get promoted.  Also, young people rarely listen to the FM radio.  My son doesn't listen to FM radio.

+1 @jssmith  An insightful post.

@femoore12

Well ... one could always become the next Vanilla Ice without the cream with a one hitter ;-)

@tgilb 

Top 40 music may be controlled and commercialized but I wouldn’t say that about the music out of the mainstream.

Agree. With the ease of recording nowadays, the selection is gargantuan. The problem is sifting through all the crap. It requires work to find them. As always, the Top whatever lists drive the marketing. Those don't require sifting and are therefore favored by people less obsessed with music. Just go to the Spotify Top Ten and hit Play.

Speaking to your "out of the mainstream", metal has seen a similar negative shift in quality. If you go to Spotify's top lists the metal is either unoriginal, unimaginative, monotonous or not metal. There's even a song called Call Me Little Sunshine. Can you imagine a metal song being called that? Even worse, it has never-ending repetitive lyrics just like pop.

You will never walk alone
You can always reach me
You will never ever walk alone
You will never walk alone
You can always reach me
You will never ever walk alone
You will never walk alone
You can always reach me
You will never ever walk alone

And the even more out of the mainstream extreme metal has gone from having groove and melody to favoring dissonance. It's like they're doing the opposite of pop and trying to be so different that they've left the realm of listenable. So the quality issue may be generational and not limited to pop.

@dabel That is a great experience. The talent is absolutely out there. I love that they did a tribute to Prince. Phenomenal musician.  

@wolf_garcia life as a musician is a tough gig.  My brother used to tour the country as an Opera singer. He loved it, but it was a rough life being on the road almost all year.  

I listen to jazz and classical mostly but otherwise have been part of the music biz for over five decades as a musician (not jazz, I'm not that smart) and (more recent decades) a live sound mixer. The music biz has never been a good idea for a career (I was lucky for many years), and neither have any of the other arts. Period. Touring always sucked for all but the very few, record companies pretty much consistently ripped everyone off in any way possible, and for 99.9% of musicians...well...get a gig in the local bar scene? What's that? Be a solo artist and practice your ass off and get VERY good, and do the "coffee house" thing. Play French Horn in Les Miz. Otherwise it's DJ or zip. Get good but don't expect financial success and you might not go insane.

There's lots of great new stuff from all over the world for the tiny minority of jazz freaks like me, and streaming has turned me on to some amazing music I likely never would have stumbled on otherwise. Modern Pop music...mostly just don't care about it with a couple of exceptions...but really...meh...

@femoore12, I tend to agree.

Parents and schools just don’t push their kids into the arts (music, theater, art, etc.) like they used to do decades ago.

Though this brings back a very vivid fond memory. During the summer of 2016 I attended a High School Musical performance in Carriere Mississippi and was just flabbergasted by these young performers. I’m talking one right after thee other. But check this out ... finishing act, just two tracks laid down by a 5 piece band in tribute of Prince and his passing earlier in the year. My mood shifted from flabbergasted to gobsmacked instantly, for they totally nailed it and were firing on all cylinders. What we would call, PRAT ;-)

I always have hope ....

Those tracks ... Let’s Go Crazy and Purple Rain

Top 40 music may be controlled and commercialized but I wouldn’t say that about the music out of the mainstream.

I’m speaking about rock music now but I’m not sure if the artists like Jim James, Conor Oberst, and Les Claypool would go for their music being dumbed down.

@jssmith 

It's very formulaic. Songs are now written by committee, so they're dumbed down to a common denominator.

I am quoting just a snip of your excellent comment. This is I think is the most accurate analysis of what "popular" new music has now become. Record companies have always been in pursuit of commoditizing music into a simple consumable product. Everyone sounds and looks the same. Just like vanilla ice cream.  

If one is not streaming they'll have a difficult time discovering new music today. I quit listening to mass consumption music after early 70's, only place to hear more ambitious music was the underground/freeform fm and university stations. After undergound/freeform stations went away, left to university stations and a few specialty shows on commercial fm for this up until I discovered streaming.

While I have at least 2500 cd's and 3,000 albums from all eras and most genres I was losing interest in music constantly rotating the usual suspects of collections. Streaming is like having unlimited underground fm and university stations, and I get to be the DJ!

Going to see Beach House this weekend with my older brother and his son. The typical concert I go these days pretty much devoid of boomers.

I find Agon to be a major source of discovering music and artists both old and new that I am not familiar with and am appreciative to the folks that share their thoughts. 

Enjoying the thoughts on this thread and many others. 

Rayland. Baxter!!!!

Bucky Baxters son

very good new era artist.  
Check him out!!!

I think that theBeatles have some "genius" for sure....

Anyone negating that is deaf....I apologize to you for my post if i was appearing  to  suggest the opposite...

But genius is a big word in a small world....Or a small word in a big world...

This is also like the marvellous Beatles genius, a true genius craftmanship:

@mahgister 

By speaking of the Beatles I was not implying that they were over and above Dylan or any of the classical, jazz, or artists from any other genre. And was not comparing them to Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Miles Davis, etc.

I found the article by Rick Ruben interesting and I would say that he knows quite a bit about the artists of today. 

With that said I do think the Beatles were genius in their own right.

Maybe not enough "new" music is "good" music. When something is appealing, people find it without it being spoon fed to them by a music executive. Take a minute to listen to what is now defined as R&B. Over processed tunes that muffle good vocals trying to sing poor lyrics. Maybe if artists... focused on making good music and not scoring likes on Tik Tok or IG, there might be stuff people would gravitate to. One thing this article inadvertently proves... good music never goes old ... even after 18 months!!! 

+1 @mahgister .

The Beatles were a very nice and popular band.

Bach was a genius.

If the Beatles are geniuses because of thirteen albums in few years what about Bob Dylan productions? He was alone and it is certainly comparable productions...

Anyway who know the 6 thousand works Telemann output?

The 500 hundred Vivaldi concertos?

And his more than one hundred operas?

People call genius anybody they like...

I prefer to call genius some others ....

I will call Bach a genius for example....

Sorry for the Beatles, i like them very much anyway....They will be the first astounded by the ignorance of their fans....

😁😊

@cd318

Well said but in defense of my favorite Beatle from my youth I think his musically unproductive years were more like from 1975 through 1980. He did release four albums from the time the Beatles broke up in 1969 through 1974. Three more albums than most artists today release in the same period of time. Of course artists like Ryan Adams and others are the exception.

Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, Mind Games, and Walls And Bridges were nothing to sneeze at in that four year period. And the song Imagine is potentially one of the most powerful songs ever written.

And the artists during the 60’s like the Beatles and Stones were pressured from their record companies to release two or more albums in a year while also touring. Not an easy task.

Making it in the music industry is for only the few but for those that do make it I’d say they have an easier task in the world of streaming and not being pressured to cut an album every year or three.

I enjoy a lot of the new artists that I can hear through streaming but I’m not simpathetic if I still enjoy the music of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.

@tgilb 

For producer Rick Rubin, The Beatles' recorded achievements are akin to a miracle.

He's not the only one who thinks that way today.

However back in the mid 60s Lennon said, as he sat at his home in Weybridge, staring (stoned?) into the distance for hours and hours doing nothing (much like like later on in the Dakota) that he must be the laziest man in Britain.

Just goes to show how times and sensibilities have changed.

From Please Please Me to Abbey Road in 7 years is one hell of a journey.

You could argue that they were lucky in that a lot of things fell for them - Epstein, Martin, EMI, the emergence of the LP as a serious art form, the kaleidoscopic background of the 1960s, but nevertheless it still looks rather miraculous.

is this old or new?

I dont give a damn....

It sound pretty much near the "eternal feminine soul " to me....How about Eve in the garden?

A thousand years old tradition sang nowadays how do we called that?

It is "jazz" from India to my ears....Not less beautiful than Ella Fitzgerald for sure....

Hypnotically beautiful ....

For this thread , i will change the title for: "old ears" listening always the same tunes are killing the eternally new.... 😁😊

By the way the population of India is : 1.38 billions, 4 times de US....

They have some musicians and some unknown instruments that are among the finest instruments ever created by mankind.......

How many americans confuse the simple veena, the rudra veena and the vichitra veena and the chitra veena , the sitar and the sarod?

Who know the hypnotical power of the sarangi?

I can goes on here about many thousand years old Indian "jazz" musicians.....

Dont upgrade, buy some "new" music.....😁😊

Check out the radio broadcast "Extra Eclectic" for new, exciting music.

If you dare.

@hilde45 ...chill Brah...

@glennewdick..spot on

@recluse...WORD!

@deadhead1000 .. Right on Man!

@jssmith 

+ 1, you hit the nail on the head with adjectives: "monotony, simplistic and formulaic." Most of the so-called new music sounds like everyone involved was following some type of recipe. Poor songwriting is bad enough; but, there is a serious lack of stellar musicianship that could lift the poor songwriting above the level of mundane muzak or sonic wallpaper.

This is a complicated subject with no easy answers. Someone once said: "there is nothing new under the sun," which is another way of saying it's a copycat world that we live in. The thing that worries me the most about this subject is that I don't sense the kind of non-conformity by young musicians or listeners that is needed to shake things up and create something new or transcendent.  I hope to be proven wrong on that one. 

Distinction between old and new has not much meaning, save if we speak about money going in the pocket of living musicians for their living...

There is only great and greatest music, not old and new for me....

I had way too much absolute masterpieces to listen to non stop to search for the "new"...

I search for masterpices , old or new, the date make no differences...Nor the country or culture of origin....

Drum machines, keyboards with all sorts of memory and settings, autotune...

It's a tough world out there.

Good music stands the test of time.  Most of what is new doesn't, but some of it does.  

Don't let others tell you what to believe.  Enjoy it for yourself.

hilde45

"Every generation, blames the one before" - Mike and the Mechanics, The Living Years.

Could it be that the generations younger than the boomers have had it too easy when they were raised and just aren't willing to work hard enough to get their share? There are plenty of opportunities for the younger generations to become doctors, lawyers, and other high paying careers, but it takes a lot of work to make it in those careers. There are a lot of good kids out there, but are they determined enough to put in the effort? This thing about living in their parent's basement is not just a stereotype, it's actually true. They're addicted to social media which can be a distraction to the concentration needed to get ahead in the more difficult fields. Last but not least, I find their music somewhat lazy too, all thumping beat but no melody or orchestration. Hell, even Led Zeppelin used strings in some of their songs. They should watch The Beatles: Get Back and learn where true genius combined with hard work can take people.

Technology has made making music easier and more accessible to the masses. Not everyone in the masses should be making music. There is more new music than ever before but the number of real musicians, people that can play instruments, is likely not that much greater than in the past.

I read 2 instances of articles on this subject and heard a report on NPR. My take was that NEW MUSIC was classified as something at most 2 years old.

"New music is killing new music" is my thought as well.

I primarily look for music coming from new Blues artists who re-interpret the classics and come up with new tunes.

To me, "pop" music is still pop music; commercially driven crap that is put out there for world consumption.

I have a nephew who plays alternative rock and has his own band. He writes his own music which he labels as "original". Honestly, most of it sounds really bad. He complains that only a few can appreciate his original music. His point of view is if you don't like his music then you must be an idiot.

To each his own, but to me musicianship is paramount regardless of the genre. Autotuned, drum machined pop music is not what I am looking for.

@aewarren 

New music is killing new music.

My first thought too. 

The monotony. The simplicity. The same three chords over and over again. The way almost all cars look the same because of aerodynamics for gas mileage regulations, and SUVs and trucks all look the same for utility is the way music has become. It's very formulaic. Songs are now written by committee, so they're dumbed down to a common denominator. It amazes me that you need seven writers to come up with the same old three minutes of "boots and cats" computer-generated rhythm overlaid with fake auto-tuned vocals. And don't get me started about rap, which is much more literature than music, and even more monotonous.

@yyzsantabarbara ,

Thanks!  I’m still not into streaming yet, but I still enjoy hearing new and new to me music.

All the best.

JD