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Your thirties - a pop music wasteland?

11:41 / 07.11.02

Yeah, I hoped I'd die before I got old. The kids were all right. Rhythm was a dancer and music was my life.

And then I hit 30. Perhaps it's a biological thing. Perhaps it's a psychological thing. Perhaps I've just gone fucking boring.

But I can honestly say that in the last two years I haven't found a new band I can get rabidly into. I still get excited by new music from old favourites, and I still tend to know what's down with the kids, but I have no enthusiasm for it. Everything seems to remind me of something better I bought ten years ago.

This is by no means a bitching session against current bands; it's more of a personal reflection.

Any thirtysomethings out there care to share on this?

12:05 / 07.11.02

I was already laughing at the thread title, and then I opened it up and now I'm looking at...

Logan's Run - The Musical.

...I can't stop laughing. And I have to take a shower and get to work.

I don't know, I stopped paying attention to music in my mid-twenties. I always did have horrible taste anyway. I have maybe two or three favorites that I developed in my early twenties and never changed. In fact I just bought my first three CDs ever, and they were to replace my *cassette tape* that finally wore out... it was the only tape I ever played, really. Maybe I should go post in the Favorite Band thread, now that I'm in the Music Forum.

Jack Fear likes music quite a lot... isn't he over thirty?

Oh my God, now I'm late for work!

12:54 / 07.11.02

Well, look at it this way - I'm 35 and went to my first gig the day after my 13th birthday. That's 22 and a half years ago. I would think there was something a bit odd about me if I felt exactly the same way about bands now as I did then. A bloke I used to work with when I was 19/20, who was in his mid thirties and was a muso to boot, used to take the piss out of me for thinking Morrissey meant what he was singing about ("he's no more than a double glazing salesman, he says what he needs to say to make a sale") and saw how, in rock and roll at least, bands that were the next big thing to younger people were re hashing stuff older people had heard in their own youth. His view was on the cynical side, but I heard Rammstein the other day and, much as I liked them, knew that they were just like a commercial version of Laibach and therefore of no real interest to me.

I still do go and see bands - usually bands where I know some or all of the members. Other things excite me now, other forms of creativity/art. Although I'll still be swept up by certain songs, doubt if that will change. But there's nothing wrong with seeing a lot of bands for what they are - teenage angst. As I've stated on Barbelith before, I find the likes of Slipknot, say, extremely disappointing. Their 'rebellion' seems to me to be a big, fat nothing. It goes nowhere. Myabe someone younger can fill me in as to why I'm wrong about that.

But I think it's just natural progression, Sax. Don't worry!

13:06 / 07.11.02

I've just gone 29.

I was travelling for a month or so with a couple of 20 year-olds who were well into their punk and nu metal. I intimated (well, ranted) that I thought it was a pile of shite. They were quite offended.

I think, yes, your attitude to music does change with time. Esp. as popular culture does rehash stuff - and if you're 17/18, it's new, it's fresh. If you're 33, it's a rip-off.

But (un)fortunately, I have an immature streak in me a mile-wide. Hence when I do hear something I like (and my tastes are getting increasingly commercial), I go ape-shit over it.

Oddly enough, I think I'm devolving. When you're a kid (I mean 9 or younger), you have no critical vocabulary. I didn't know if something was ska or rock or disco or baroque or bebop or whatever. I just liked the sounds. Then I learnt about scenes and genres, etc. I think the last few months may have been a process of unlearning. Esp. as I'm increasingly distanced in time and space from the media (e.g. NME) that informed me. Or should that be corrupted?

13:12 / 07.11.02

Yeah, I'm 35.

Music is okay with me.

13:31 / 07.11.02

I have less time for live shows because I have a bedtime and wakey time. And slightly less disposable income for new records.

But the net radio, it's keeping me plugged into some great stuff.
Rilo Kiley - I'm going to see them next week, thanks to knowing who they are on the net radio and falling in love.
The Blow - they're fucking brilliant. Never would have heard of them.
Iron & Wine - a Sub-Pop "band", actually one guy recording in his bedroom less than two hours' drive from me. Ever hear of him around here? No. On the net radio. College station out of UC Boulder: Radio 1190. (Ooo! I just turned them on! Pedro the Lion, one of my favorites!) I heard of the station three months ago or so because they were featured on NPR.

I'm a sucker for the NPR.

Anyway, I think once you reach 30, you become *unfashionable* because the newest thing is reacting against the thing that was reacting against the thing that was really, really cool when you were 15 and just becoming aware of popular music.
Heavy metal to punk to grunge/alternative to ... electronica?
Thank god for the indie pop.
It's also easier to see just how calculated and constructed a genre's image is. How hard the acts try to look the part, how hard the music tries to communicate the pose.
Certain things I can love despite this, or because of this.
I'm also very pleased that Husker Du is getting name-dropped more and more often by the guys under the radar. It's really nice. Really.

Your critical faculties don't die - you just need to work on different avenues to hear the good stuff.

Wanna swap tapes?

(Ha! Right now, the 1190 has some dude explaining to a group of little kids about how LPs are made. "Do you know what an LP is?" "Nooooo." "You're probably all more used to CDs, right?" "Yeeeees." Rock!)

13:36 / 07.11.02

Pepsi Max: Unlearning - yes! It's one of the lessons of Jonathan Richman, I think.
Kids like music because it's *fun.*

Jack: Ooooooooold people, they can't rock! GRAMPS!!

13:52 / 07.11.02

Bastard. I'll bite your head off, soon as I put my teeth in.

13:52 / 07.11.02

Music is still okay with me, too. I'm just getting worried that I don't seem to be inflamed by new music. I still get excited about new books and authors, new comics, new movies, new choccy bars etc, but I think I'm just getting grumpy with music.

Grant, a tape-swap thing sounds good. But I'd probably just fill mine with The Smiths, Bob Mould, The Wonder Stuff, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, the Wedding Present and Josef Suk. Which you've probably already got.

And techno... why can't I listen to techno any more? I used to love techno. Bleepier the better. Perhaps I should start taking drugs again.

14:15 / 07.11.02

Hey, we could all make the same mix tapes full of 90s music and send them round to one another, and then feel vindicated that someone else appreciated our taste.

A young(ish) person was in my house the other day and commented that hey, he hadn't heard this sort of indie music for years... and that's my new stuff.

I'd like to keep up, but there's something a bit tragic about being an old git grooving to the new sounds, man. Like your friends Dad who'd dance about to TOTP, you know? Unless you're John Peel, it can just look a bit silly.

I do occassionally find new stuff I like. It just sounds a lot like the old stuff. Hmm. I'll get my knitting.

14:32 / 07.11.02

about being an old git grooving to the new sounds, man

Perversely enough, I am looking forward to hearing something on radio in front of my children and saying: "That's got a good beat".

And not only will they be embarassed and say: "Oooooh, Dad". But they won't get the early-90s pop culture reference that means I'm being oh so ironic about my incipient dementia. So, HA, the joke's on them.

I think.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:05 / 07.11.02

You'd like to think. Grandad.

I feel all young and fresh, reading this - which given that i'm in post-tequila hell, is a great thing.

Memo to self: the Simpsons lied, old people aren't useless.

20:04 / 07.11.02

Do you suppose music is special in this regard? I always say that I am the girl that music forgot, but that doesn't mean I didn't spend the better part of my teens with headphones clamped to my head (and in my day, headphones were the size of grapefruits.) I'm talking on the aggregate, there are obviously going to be people who will have a lifelong interest in anything. But also you know, I don't keep up with new books hardly at all anymore.

Other things excite me now, other forms of creativity/art.

This actually gets at the heart of the most inarticulable part of my feeling about life, and also ties in a bit to what Flyboy is saying in the Hardy Perennials thread. And in fact I dragged out this Howard's End quote about this time last year, and I still think it's good:

She began to "miss" new movements, and to spend her spare time re-reading or thinking, rather to the concern of her Chelsea friends. They attributed the change to her marriage.... Yet the main cause lay deeper still; she had outgrown stimulants, and was passing from words to things. It was doubtless a pity not to keep up with Wedekind or John, but some closing of the gates is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself is to become a creative power.

For example, this is sort of what I feel is happening with Barbelith. I really think that Barbelith is becoming a creative power, and maybe that means less argument. Alan Watts has something about this, too, which goes --roughly-- in the first stage, you look at a mountain and you see the mountain. In the second stage, you look at a mountain and you see the whole kaleidoscope of the mountain, yadda yadda. In the third stage, you see the mountain. But anyway I definitely think this is a positive thing. It just looks bad from the outside. Like sandals with socks.

at the scarwash

21:56 / 07.11.02

I've got a bit to go on 30--five years. I find though, that I'm less interested in music made by kids. I stick with old favorites, but I find myself turning towards uglier new music. Christian Marclay and Pan Sonic more than fucking Modest Mouse and rap metal. Also, I'm almost able to enjoy classical music. Fucking Alan Bloom may yet turn out to be right.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:50 / 08.11.02

I was in this situation a year or so ago, bands I'd grown up with like Blur, Suede and the Pets were now middle-aged and it was depressing. But even now, most of the stuff I listen to is old, I normally get half a dozen brand new albums a year and most of those, Bjork, Godspeed, Sigur Ros (die Jack die!!), are 'old', the rest are 'old' CDs, like the best of 808 State.

Does it matter? Only if you really like going to see the band live, which I was never big on.

And old musicians play their instruments and know how to do it also! It's only disgusting if it's that AC/DC bloke who wears school uniforms...

15:46 / 08.11.02

I'm 38 and I think this year has been fokkin great musically. Look at the evidence.

(1) Great dance-80's-electronic revival with electroclash: ladytron, fischerspooner, adult., crossover, peaches, fckahuna, etc etc.

(2) Great garage-blues-heavy rock-punk revival: datsuns, d4, von bondies, ikara colt, libertines, coral etc etc.

(3) Strange 80's postpunk wierd wave: liars, yeah yeah yeahs, erase errata, etc.

Presumably this is a great time to be young in.

16:04 / 08.11.02

Hmm... well I'll be 30 in less than six months and I still love love love new music. I've been resigned to the fact that if I ever have children I will be the oldie dancing around to the new stuff and asking embarrassing questions about the new-fangled music.

That said, I havent' actually bought or really heard much new music in the past six months. But that has more to do with a bad music consumption system and no funds to fix it at the moment than hating music. Which, if I were ten years younger I'd probably be a hell of a lot more concerned about, so I guess that's my "getting older" side, but it's OK.

Rollo Kim, on location

17:17 / 08.11.02

29 in a coupla months.

The thing that gets me... I never felt like I found my 'thing' - so I honestly don't feel like I've 'seen it all'. I suppose that as you get a bit older, it's obvious that you are going to see just how contrived the music industry is - and I really feel that we're at a particularly ruthless, corporate time in terms of the industry (I know pop / rock has always been about 'product' at the end of the day, but it's never come so close to resembling toothpaste or shampoo in terms of turnover and target-market).

I know musicians that are in their 40's and they are still discovering new tunes that do it for them - they're still 'youthful' without being sad about it, and I really do feel that 'youth' might just be a 'frame of mind' after all. I've grown up with people that were NEVER young if you get me? No concept of yoof...

I find the Nu Metal / Punk thing kinda naff - but only because the 'uniform' is worn by everyone - Robbie Williams and this week's boyband dress the same as the latest 'poppunknumetal' band. But I'm not old enough to remember the 70's so what do I know???

Genre doesn't HAVE to be about 100% recycling though surely??? And I'm a firm believer that we haven't seen it all just yet!

18:21 / 08.11.02

Just have to say this: I. Absolutely. Hate. Nu metal.

Feel better now.

And, oh. I forgot to add British Sea Power, Interpol and the Rapture to my list of great new bands.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:45 / 08.11.02

I'm 31 soon, and I still listen to tons of music. Unfortunately, most of it's dreadful goth bollocks from the '80s and new romantic stuff.
Digital Hardcore have been about the only thing to get me TRULY excited (ie, feeling like a kid again) in years.
I still like a fair bit of new stuff... but it's mostly new stuff that sounds like old stuff, if you get what I mean.
And Coil, of course, who are ever changing. Despite being really old themselves.

22:57 / 08.11.02

Possible solution to the "nothing new interests me" problem: use the time and money that you would spend on new music, were it interesting to you, to investigate genres/artists/movements that you've previously ignored or simply not had the time to discover. Old stuff. Then, if you find anything that excites you that you've not tripped over before, trace it back to the present and see where it's at now.

It's worked for me before.

gentleman loser

00:26 / 09.11.02

Perhaps I've just gone fucking boring.

Nope. You've just hit the age where you realize how cyclical and tired popular music is. Nu Metal? Duh, it's grunge, which itself was just a ripoff of moody 70's hard rock. Boy bands and bustier clad girl popstars? They haven't changed in 50 years. Today's Eminem was yesterday's Marilyn Manson or even Quiet Riot (now I'm showing my age). Even so called "indie" music (I hate that term) has started to sound alike to me.

Is there anything new under the sun? Yeah, there probably is, but you'll likely only discover it by happy accident.

Possible solution to the "nothing new interests me" problem: use the time and money that you would spend on new music, were it interesting to you, to investigate genres/artists/movements that you've previously ignored or simply not had the time to discover.

That's exactly what I've been doing, listening to stuff I hadn't considered before like jazz, classical, traditional music from various nations, even opera. Ten years ago, I'd have prefered to have my nipples hooked up to a car battery than listen to five minutes of opera. Things change.

09:29 / 09.11.02

Hey, of course the music industry is a cyrnical and awful place, and a lot of pop on the radio is shit, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the new Kylie song if I like it. Besides that, I wouldn't dare look my nose down on kids doing the same thing I did when I was their age, just with different bands. Eminem is a fucking fantastic rapper. That said, his lyrics are frightening sometimes, but I'm not gonna deny his talent, and hey, it's the media who decided he was the antichrist, not the kids. The kids are all right.

One of the good things about music and getting older is that some of the "snob barriers" drop away. You care less about liking the "cool" stuff and just get into what you like.

My Dad is 53 and is still discovering new music. OK, a lot of what he likes is stuff I'm not too interested in, but I come from a music -loving family and Dad and I have had many great talks about different bands and musical genres all through my childhood and up to now.

If you're bored with the state of pop music, look elsewhere. Even just ask your friends to recommend something they've been digging. There's loads of great stuff out there.

But, I'm listening to "The Best of George Michael" as I write this, so that probably just confirms I'm a washed-up music lover....

Nelson Evergreen

13:20 / 10.11.02

Be thankful, folks. You'd really give yourself the creeps if you were as rabidly into new bands now as you were at 17.

An element in this whole "I don't like new music by young people" thing is that once you've reached a certain age and abstained from 'the scene' (which, if you're a British indie kid, is pretty much a matter of going to gigs, lapping up the sad remnants of the weekly music press, being part of a dedicated choon-devouring/sharing peer group, etc) you've lost a healthy environment in which you can build lasting, loving relationships with new music and the bushy tailed hopefuls who create it.

I was already pretty jaded by the time I was in my early twenties; I'd hear band after band, dismiss them as laughable revivalists and charlatans. And six months later love them passionately. Guitar music in particular is such a well trodden genre that it can take time for an individual group's distinctive merits to emerge over what initially sounds like a bunch of copped riffs, poses and tired old chord progressions.

More so when you add several extra years of having "heard it all before" to the equation. Your bullshit detector becomes so effective that you have to set it at a lower level or else it doesn't let anything through, apart from "quality" rock music, at which point you'll be in danger of becoming chronically middle aged, which, as Rollo said, isn't so much a simple matter of getting older as a vicious malady of the soul that can strike at any time.

From here you're one step away from ending public rants about the state of modern music with the words "David Gray's quite good though..."

I can't see this happening to anyone who posts here, but even so, be vigilant. Give the good stuff a chance, because it's out there in abundance.

Matthew Fluxington

13:54 / 10.11.02

My feeling on this is: Once a music nerd, always a music nerd. I guess the question is, were you ever really a music nerd?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:01 / 10.11.02

I have been on a mini-spate of buying singles from 'new' bands (which for me is bands which the NME have started raving about), D.E.P., Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Von Bondies, Ikara Colt, Death Cab for Cutie, uniformly ho-hum at the moment, if this is the Noo Yewk scene then it seems to involve Nirvana Bleach-era b-sides with all hints of self-loathing smothered and deeply buried in the woods somewhere, with emo as American's do shoegazing, god help us. But I still believe there's good music out there.

Matthew Fluxington

14:58 / 10.11.02

Do you all feel that maybe yr looking for "new music" in the wrong places? Or, that perhaps "new music" for yourself need not always be something that was recently recorded?

15:33 / 10.11.02

Flux - you've rather hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned; I recently heard a track by Eliza McCarthy (I think) - English modern folkie - which I really liked. Nothing new about it, but a different avenue for me to explore.

09:08 / 11.11.02

This thread really struck a chord (oh my hilarous pun)with me - I'm now Dirty Thirty and I feel exactly the same about the music that I grew up listening to, Hip Hop. I'm sure Flyboy could diss me to my knees on this one, but I don't get excited about it in the same way anymore. A lot of the new stuff I hear, most of it just sounds too fucking r n b slick for me. Not the same sense of innovation within the mainstream that I got 7/8 years ago. Having said that if we are experiencing the same thing in completely different genres maybe it is just an age old bastard thing.

Actually, as I write this, I think I'm talking rubbish to a degree. I don't think the quality of the music has nescessairly diminshed, it's more that things have changed and what used to ring my bell is no longer present and I don't have the same energy or desire to chase that particular buzz anymore.

AT 30, You can't get insanely excited about things and decide to base your life on them anymore. For one thing you're juggling with real world responsibilites, another is you're so fucking musical literate, something has to be prety incredible to really impress. Another is you've done the insanely excited thing several times before, and perhaps wonder at its limits and the optimism that you used to project into it. Trust me on this one, this is coming from a man who used to believe house music and Ectasy were gonna change the world.

I don't feel especailly sad about this though - change is good, and the dropping away of one enthusiasm is necessary for us to change oursleves.

To broaden the discussion a little- I think music is very caught up with our identities, our sense of who we're trying to be. To what degree is moving away from certain musical enthusiasms part of changing beliefs and ideas about ourselves?

12:00 / 11.11.02

I think music is very caught up with our identities, our sense of who we're trying to be.

Agreed, though I would say that with age comes a degree of awareness of, acceptance of, and even perhaps comfort with who we are. I for one feel less of a need to make a statement about my identity with my choice of listening now that I have passed the 30 mark. The notion of our taste (musical especially) defining us is still there for many of us, but to a far lesser degree than when we were younger. That said, I still haven't grown out of rifling through people's record collections and making the odd judgment or two about them, though I am less inclined to write them off as a complete loser if I find nothing I like.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

13:25 / 11.11.02

Flux- maybe I am. I've certainly found in recent times that most of the new music that is new to me is not to my taste (Godspeed and Sigur Ros being exceptions) while old music which is new to me (the divine Ms. Smith, UNKLE, Spiritualized) is on heavy rotation on my stereo.

No star here laces

15:24 / 11.11.02

To broaden the discussion a little- I think music is very caught up with our identities, our sense of who we're trying to be. To what degree is moving away from certain musical enthusiasms part of changing beliefs and ideas about ourselves?

Hippy!

Seriously, though - I think the primary difference in approaching music as you age is that you no longer really care if it's 'approved' or not. So while you're still capable of liking 'young people's music' you're not going to commit either of the sins that you did in your teens - 1) giving something more of a chance than it deserves because you think it'll reflect well on you and 2) dismissing something out of hand because you think it will reflect badly.

Therefore, from the point of view of a teenager (and what do they know?) of course you look like a sad old fart.

But really, being a sad old fart is one and the same thing as having enough confidence in your own tastes not to need the approval of others.

Personally, as someone who is still trying desperately to stay in touch enough with music to keep DJing at clubs I find the primary difference between now and then is simply time. When I were young I could literally spend all day listening to music - my room, mates' rooms, the radio, walkman, record shops then go clubbing in the evening. I heard so much new music every day, that every day I'd hear a couple of things I really liked. Nowadays, even if I leave limewire on while I'm at lunch and listen to the radio on the bus home, and go out 2-3 times a week, I'm just not hearing anything like the same quantity of music, and I can't possibly keep up.

But if you look at dance music in general, most of the big djs are in their 30s, and have been for a while. Now to a certain extent this is because the genre is a little stagnant just now, but despite this the fact is still that the tastemakers in this genre are all middle-aged, as were the disco djs and the northern soul djs etc etc. So I think, if you've got the time to listen to as much music as the young do, then there is no reason for you not to be as instinctive about it as they are...

17:09 / 11.11.02

AT 30, You can't get insanely excited about things and decide to base your life on them anymore.

Huh? Why is this?

For one thing you're juggling with real world responsibilites, another is you're so fucking musical literate, something has to be prety incredible to really impress. Another is you've done the insanely excited thing several times before, and perhaps wonder at its limits and the optimism that you used to project into it.

But surely if true this would also apply to say, falling in love.

I just don't buy the musical literacy argument at all. I myself have gone through periods when I couldn't care less about new music, and others when I go fucking screaming to the record store every damn day to harass them about obscure garage or electro imports. And I've been just as musically literate all the time. Hearing that The Strokes rip off Iggy Pop is not the same thing as dismissing The Strokes for ripping off Iggy Pop.

12:25 / 02.12.02

I'm 41 and a lot of the people I got excited about in my youth are dead! The first concert I ever went to was The Sweet, hot on the heels of their release Teenage Rampage. The best concert I went to was Pink Floyd shortly after the most interesting member left the band. I still go to concerts though - but now I do the big multi-band tour things, the "events" with 20 bands over 2 days in the hot ozzie sunshine. Lots of wet women wearing very little. Oops. I've said too much.