Why do we stop listening to new music as we get older?

For a stimulating workout of your brain, give Bach’s Concerto For 4 Harpsichords And Orchestra a listen. Each harpsichord plays a separate melody (the form of the Fugue, employing a lot of counterpoint), all following the chord progressions, modulations, etc. played by the orchestra. But it’s not just an intellectual challenge, it’s also a thrilling musical ride!

For the enlargement of your soul, listen to any of his Passions.

@bdp24

Believe me, I have listened to a lot of Bach’s music. I still own a fair amount of Bach recordings. Same goes with Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Handel, etc, etc, etc.

Bottom line, I am just not a fan of the "Common Practice" eras of classical music. Tonal classical music bores me tor the most part.

With regards to classical music, I only like: atonal, serial, avant-garde, 12 tone, and other forms of 20th and 21st century music. I only tend to like ’challenging’ and ’thorny’ sounding music. Most of my listening of classical music, is from post 1950’s, up through the present.

I have tried many times to listen to earlier eras of classical music, but it bores me. And I return to it from time to time, including Bach, in hopes that it will someday ’click’ with me. But despite honest attempts, no luck so far.

@simonmoon 

Glad to hear you have found a way around this.  You are clearly more net savvy than I am, so you do better.

Right now I am happy where I am and I don't have the time to tweak the population of stuff that's trying to access me.  Nor to I have the technical skills.

I don't even know what 'autotune' is.

Don't forget Bob Dylan has won plenty of Grammys.  Would be a pity to cut him out ever if only his current music is 'new'.

Whenever I see conversations like this on music forums, and I see so many people make comments about how new music sucks, or, it's all autotune, I get the idea that these people are stuck in old ways of looking for new music.

Good new music will never be found on mainstream radio, in Billboard, made by any musician nominated for any mainstream music award, or any other mainstream sources. If those are your sources, then resign yourself to believing that new music sucks.

I listen to prog, jazz, and contemporary classical music, and my biggest problem is keeping up with all the great new, creative, incredibly well played, music. 

And none of it, zero, uses autotune, teams of dozens of writers, computers, quantization, etc. All real musicians, playing their instruments.

@simonmoon: We all walk our our musical paths. Mine has been the reverse of yours; I started with 20th Century (Stravinsky, Copland, Ives, Vaughan Williams, Strauss, Rachmaninoff, Holst, Ravel, Prokofiev, Penderecki even (his "Threnody To The Victims Of Hiroshima" is the single most terrifying piece of music I’ve ever heard).

Then, just as I followed the bread crumbs back from the Rock music of the 1960’s to it’s origins in the Hillbilly and Jump Blues music of the 1940’s, I went backwards in Classical: through the Romantics (I love Wagner), then the Classical era (who doesn’t like Beethoven? Or Mozart? Well, except for Glenn Gould ;-).

But my love of Baroque music surpasses that of any other. Well, except Bluegrass.

@simonmoon What are the sources from which you are exposed to so much great new music?