Jump to content

Losing Touch With Popular Music


Chris A

Recommended Posts

There is a simple explanation for this: in your teens and early 20's you listen to popular crappy music to ride the hype and get girls but when you finally settle down you realize its garbage and stick with the good stuff. ^_^

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That article is so true, people loose touch with popular music as they age.  I listen to a lot of pop and know many of the young artist.  Most of my friends listen to stuff from the 70's and 80's.  Right now I am listening to Rihanna, lol. :P

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://skynetandebert.com/2015/04/22/music-was-better-back-then-when-do-we-stop-keeping-up-with-popular-music/ 

 

 

What I found was that, on average…

  • … while teens’ music taste is dominated by incredibly popular music, this proportion drops steadily through peoples’ 20s, before their tastes “mature” in their early 30s.
     
  • … men and women listen similarly in their their teens, but after that, men’s mainstream music listening decreases much faster than it does for women.
     
  • … at any age, people with children (inferred from listening habits) listen to a smaller amounts of currently-popular music than the average listener of that age.
     

Personified, “music was better in my day” is a battle being fought between 35-year old fathers and teen girls — with single men and moms in their 20s being pulled in both directions.

The concept of taste freeze isn’t unique to men. But is certainly much stronger.

Edited by Chris A
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

We have three daughters who are now in their thirties.  All three seem to have followed along with our preferences. Through the years we exposed them to jazz, classical, reggae, rock, "Motown", pop, and country.  They tended to follow some of the more "popular" groups as they entered their twenties.  Now that they are in their thirties they have forgone most of the popular artists and reverted to what they were "raised" on.

 

Oddly enough, our seven grandchildren are all following the same pattern,but at a much earlier age.  They would rather listen to "Motown", rock, reggae and our favorite artists over the "up and coming groups".

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pop is such a tiny amount of even contemporary music, much less music in general.  Even as a child I had a broader love of music than just stuff from the past 10 years or whatever, and over the decades it's widened constantly.  Now, I have music I love that covers 35 centuries of human life and have learned to appreciate it all and how it is connected.

 

The oldest piece I have is from around 1400 BC and sounds surprisingly modern in many respects.  The broadest spectrum of music is pentatonic, including all "pop" music from the west.  For me, the questions are:

 

1. Does the composition have great form and show inspiration? 

2. Does the performance reflect the quality of the composition? 

3. Does the recording allow 1 and 2 to show through?

 

People all hung up on some tiny niche of music that may or may not be around in a short period of time, say, a century, are missing SO much!

 

Dave

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Parent should keep up with some the pop music to know what their kids are into and where their head is.

 

If my kids (or grandkids) heads were into, or practicing,  whatever popular music is currently espousing, I anticipate that they would soon be in jail, or dead. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting topic but there has to be loads of confounding variables.  Just consider how mass marketing changes over the years.  Consider how access to music changed over the years.  Consider how access to more artists has evolved over the years.  Music is a very dynamic aspect of human civilization and has been for quite a long time.  Todays avalanche of music would be very difficult to analyze relative to the past half century.

 

One of the things I have found curious are those PBS oldie concerts they show when it comes to their periodic fund drives.  They offer a wide range of concert venues and they're all live............  but the audience rarely has any minorities in attendance.  So what's the answer there?  Did they not like the older music to begin with?  Unable to afford tickets now?  Concerts offered only in certain demographics?

 

These days I find myself laundering through genres of music listening until I truly get sick of the stuff.  Then I move to a different genre and repeat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Todays singers make so many notes out of one note I can't follow them. For example singing the National Anthem they add about 400,000 note variations that are not required by the sheet music.

Some of them use the microsecond re-enforced hardware to instantaneously correct for off key mistakes, so that means I could sing off key and never hit the right key. This was demonstrated on one of the

PBS documentaries.

JJK

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

There is a simple explanation for this: in your teens and early 20's you listen to popular crappy music to ride the hype and get girls but when you finally settle down you realize its garbage and stick with the good stuff. ^_^

 But that doesn't work for people my age who grew up with good music. :o  I think the other part was also a little backwards, the hype was to ride the girls. :P

 

But good point   

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

But that doesn't work for people my age who grew up with good music.

 

I suppose you have no idea how often that has been said over the past few millennia...   :P

 

It's second only to "The children are just going all to hell..." 

 

Dave

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

 

But that doesn't work for people my age who grew up with good music.

 

I suppose you have no idea how often that has been said over the past few millennia...   :P

 

It's second only to "The children are just going all to hell..." 

 

Dave

 

That's true, my favorite music is roughly between the 50's and 80's, it's just another way for me to say a lot of music sucks today to me. :lol:

 

The strange thing is I could more easily listen to music made much earlier than a good bit of the new music. That must say something besides I'm old, maby not ?   :o  :huh:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All tastes in music reflect choices...and that is fine.  I don't look down my nose at anybody who really gets excited about ANY music.  However, I find those are not moved by the great works of the masters incomprehensible.  So much music reduces me to tears in seconds, tears of joy and direct connection with the eternal timelessness.  It's holy, and that does NOT have to imply anything about religion.  The grand canyon is a holy place, and often so is my music room.

 

Dave

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...