Do We Discover New Music -- or Our Old Music Again?

All Things Music
, ,
#1

What is the effect of the power to stream? To listen to suggested playlists? To create our own playlists? To have services “curate” our music? To have the power of services like Roon examine and analyze our tastes and listening habits? To be a part of this forum?

For most of our history, there was no recording. If you were going to get music you had to sing or create it yourself. People worked and learned how to perform and create music over and over. Rhythm was king and then came melody.

I grew up with phonograph records. 45’s and 33’s, and occasionally an old 78. Sure I would go to concerts, but I often got a record of music I saw, or listened to records first before I saw a performance. The effect of this and the culture at the time was to learn nay, engrave, a soundtrack in my brain. I know when and where I was when I first heard some songs or groups. “Take This Job and Shove It”, “Layla”, “Whole Lotta Love”, “The Can-Can (from Offenbach)”, and many more songs and groups just evoke a time and place that are part of what make me, well me.

There were periods in my life where I listened to a lot of new music. I listen to a lot of new music now, some of it great, some of it fatiguing or boring. With the power of streaming, I am sure I don’t give a lot of new music the chance it deserves. If I’m not involved within a few minutes, there is plenty more to choose from.

So, take a minute and answer my poll. Then take a few more minutes and write a reply explaining why.

  • I listen more to new music than familiar music.
  • I listen more to familiar music than new music.
  • I am pretty balanced; I listen to both.

0 voters

2 Likes
#2

New music, because there is sooo much good stuff out there…you just have to find it! Also A.D.D. Is a real thing for me.

#3

I’m in my mid-thirties now. When I was younger, I was all about the newest music in whatever genre I was into at the time. As I grew older, I started to diversify my music preferences into everything. That diversification has multiplied. But after getting really into music, I decided I should actually listen to older stuff, and that has gotten me to really appreciate how music has transformed over the years.

I now listen to a pretty broad mix of genres and decades. Yes, there’s some good new music out there, but there’s a lot of crap too. I balance it all out. Familiarity when I’m in the mood to just relax and stressed and need something soothing and expected, but when I’m in the mood to discover, I peruse through recommended playlists on spotify and find new wonders.

#4

Well, to be fair, I do tend to listen to “my” songs over finding new stuff…but my songs are usually the top 100 songs I’ve found over the past year or so. So I would still say I listen to new music, but I do listen to set tracks here and there. I also love re-discovering old favorites with new tackle. For instance I was on a Eagles kick during my impression of the Airist R-2RDAC listening. I might have to go find some other fun old albums…I have been craving some Steve Miller Band Lately… :face_with_monocle::thinking:

#5

Eagles. yikes. :slight_smile:
I did want to go see Don Henley/Chris Stapleton & others down in Tacoma next month though. Tickets were crazy expensive though, so decided to pass.

#6

Chris Stapleton is a fun listen…but I have to admit, I’m not the biggest concert goer…I do like live music though…just not overcrowded venues

1 Like
#7

I am in my 60’s plus my mother was a Singer/Dancer in England before she came to the states in the late 40’s so I have been exposed to all kinds of music from the 30’s to the present. I am not fond of Rap or Pop but I give everything several listenings and refrain from forming an opinion till afterwords. I also attend many concerts and a lot of them are newer lesser known artists. When you stop discovering you start to die inside.

1 Like
#8

Fantastic thread/discussion. Apart from me pressing wrong vote. I use my mobile to browse and am forever pressing wrong things. I have begun to listen to a lot of other genres and music I wouldn’t have thought because of Spotify. I would say it’s now a 60/40 split with familiar music to new music. Streaming has certainly opened my eyes/ears to other musical genres and artists.

I have especially come to realise that though there maybe cultural differences between musical genres that it doesn’t matter great music is great music. I have heard great music from all continents of the globe.

#9

I constantly challenge myself to be surprised by music, and make radical jumps between genres. Older acquisitions are for relaxation and benchmarking. New stuff will be appreciated and then archived.

The stuff I ignore is that which can be predicted within the first 30 seconds. This includes more than half of mainstream pop, country, and hip-hop…unfortunately.

1 Like
#10

Wholeheartedly agree with you on this. Try as I might I just can’t get into rap and hip hop. There are exceptions of course but more often than not I can’t warm to it. Perhaps I have gone at it with preconceptions and bias, so need to give it more of a go. My wife and kids listen to current Pop and the popular stuff. Especially my 19 year old daughter. My 14 year old son can often be heard in his bedroom in severe pain and discomfort. Though he insists that he’s rapping.:grin:. EDM is also not my cup of tea. The closest I can get is 80’s synth pop. I love most anything from to 1980’s.

1 Like
#11

Perhaps some of the problem is that a great deal of rap, like a lot of pop is commercial formula. I don’t find the posturing in a lot of commercial/formula rap or hip-hop to be attractive - nor do I find the close harmony in a lot of 1940s vocals attractive.

However rap and hip-hop done well can be excellent, and should be appreciated for content delivery as much as musical delivery. Ludacris is hilarious. Queen Latina is very good. Eminem can be awesome, and if you like 80s, there is Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC.

ETM, well it’s ETM. As repetitive as Chronos Quartet (if I hear one more arpeggio I’ll puke). But it may be approached by way of Dub. Approached, but not reached. It’s not to my taste either. Oops I just saw you said EDM which I assume is Electronic Dance Music, and not ETM, or Trance.

2 Likes
#12

I do like to be able to listen to the lyrics in rap and if there’s a good beat to it all the better. What I don’t find attractive in any form is the thump thump thump of loud base/bass (not sure which to one is correct) which I think is more present in EDM it makes me queasy and I just don’t like it.

#13

Commercial music (i.e., where albums are sold and concert halls sell tickets) music has a predictable pattern:

  1. The creative/experimental types develop a new sound but don’t necessarily make much money (10-20 years)
  2. The sound is borrowed, mainstreamed, and made into a salable formula (10-20 years)
  3. The formula gets old and the genre splits into (a) hardcore fans who expand on the sound year after year, and (b) forgettable commercial “product” that evaporates before a song ends.
  4. Standing out in an established genre comes to rely on technical skills and talent rather than innovation (i.e., interpretation of the new “classics”).
  • Blues + Rock -> Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, early Van Halen
  • (a) Metallica, Slayer, Black Flag, Ministry, Jane’s Addiction, Pantera, The Mars Volta
  • (b) Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Poison, Whitesnake

Overall, there’s been so much good content recorded over the last 100 years that there’s less room to innovate and interpretation is a naturally growing thing. Pat Boone “In a Metal Mood” (1997). Postmodern Jukebox. Puddles Pity Party.

1 Like
#14

I go through phases. My old 90’s stuff always finds its way into my playlists at some point but as @andrew can attest to, I do look for new music often. I have actually found Spotify’s discover weekly to be really good for that. Their algorithm seems to do the job just right and I always come away with more music that I enjoy.

I feel like you would enjoy this review of Greta Van Fleet’s (basically a Led Zepplin cover band) album. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/greta-van-fleet-anthem-of-the-peaceful-army/
Its rather harsh but does touch on the same points that you make.

#15

I just listened to a NPR special on these guys the other day.

1 Like
#16

The most flagrant Led Zeppelin rip-off to hit mainstream radio: Kingdom Come “Get It On” (1988)

Many, many people thought it was an authentic Led Zeppelin song from the archives.

[I downloaded GVF’s album for tomorrow morning.]

2 Likes
#17

I listened to the album this morning and then read the review this evening. Yes, GVF is just a cover band doing ‘original’ songs pulled from a Zep blender. Yes, they are nowhere near the skill level of the originals (nor do many people have the patience to play songs flawlessly in the era of computer editing). However, the review is too harsh. It’s just young people imitating what they love, and going one step beyond a simple cover band. The same criticisms were made of punk rockers in the 1970s and 1980s, and they was generally true. But punkers grew over time and led to much more. In that era the record companies had big budgets to develop young artists, and also wasted $$$ on many failures too.

Honestly, some of the GVF content is more interesting to me than Led Zeppelin’s late albums (i.e., “Presence” and “Coda”). In that era Jimmy Page was a heroin addict and John Bonham was on the way to killing himself from alcohol–so it was just Robert Plant and John Paul Jones noodling around as best they could. Therefore, GVF is kind of a cover band from an alternate reality where everyone stayed sober.

I’ll give GVF a second listen (only half the albums I try get that far), but I respect them 100x more than this double platinum masterpiece. It was a calculated corporate product aimed at high school boys and released just one year before Nirvana (popularized the Pixies song formula) and hit the mainstream. Grunge made hair metal seem incredibly silly overnight.

1 Like
#18

Led Zep was brilliant in albums 1-3, started it’s decline in the still good 4th album. After that, they might as well have been Iron Butterfly - our favorite melted vinyl ashtray.

1 Like
#19

There is ALWAYS new music. In fact,there is too much new music to listen too. Even in one genre and my genre is classical.

1 Like
#20

Half the songs on “Houses of the Holy” and “Physical Graffiti” were good–plus lots of empty filler. Double albums often marked the creative end of a band back then.