The only way I can discover many of the artists mentioned in these posts is if they were used by reviewers of audio equipment. My tastes are for music that is harmonically rich. I discovered Dixieland jazz at 12; West Coast Jazz at 14; and Lennie Tristano and Sal Mosca at 16. Until I was 35, all my records were of jazz and good popular singers: Sinatra, Jack Jones, Ella, Nina Simone. Then a new audio system led me to big orchestral sounds, so that today I'm listening to Mahler and Bruckner constantly. If anyone here has wondered about these composers, I'd recommend Bruckner's 7th first. Be careful. You might acquire my obsession.
Can we make major musical discoveries at age 50, 65, or 80?
Most if not all of us remember our early formative musical experiences vividly. Maybe it was a first live performance, maybe some new band an uncle played on his stereo, or maybe a staticky pirate radio broadcast of a brand new British song for those who grew up across the pond.
I first heard Abbey Road in my single-digit years. Come Together probably rewired my brains right then and there, for better or for worse. My parents liked classical, and I developed a long-lasting fondness for Brahms.
Later in life, more pressing priorities take over. Careers, raising families, spouses who consider music and the gear it plays on a waste of time and money.
And later, we often gravitate back towards music.
I could have been happy listening to glam-rock and prog-rock forever, but I was always curious about new music and regularly got infatuated with new genres and groups and artists. Some of these infatuations fizzled, like with black metal and post-rock. Some, like Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux, ignited a taste for Latino music and Spanish-language hip-hop that lasts to this day. Then, random encounters with the music of Floyd Lee and Junior Kimbrough reignited a long-dormant love for the blues, for good this time.
And (very) few other artists like F ck Buttons, though discovered well into middle age, had the same transformational effect on me that Eno, Roxy Music, Kevin Ayers and David Bowie had when I was 12 years old. Sadly F ck Buttons is no more, having disbanded after just three towering, monumental albums. To this day I listen to them almost daily, and I will only consider audio equipment that satisfactorily passes the F ck Buttons audition test.
Then just recently, an Audiogon member recommended German band Bohren und der Club of Gore as a gateway to Jazz for folks who don't like Jazz. Since I don't like a lot of Jazz, I figured I'd take a quick listen and not only I loved it, it immediately attached itself to empty receptors in my brains somewhere between ambient / drone / industrial and downtempo Jazz / Classical. The band immediately went into heavy rotation here in my humble abode. It is perfect focus music, too.
Which brings me to this thread. Have you experienced musical revelations later in life that equaled or bettered those from your childhood and teenage years? What were they, and when and how did they manifest?
Thanks and Happy Listening!
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- 53 posts total
- 53 posts total