At what point should you just give up trying to keep up with what's hip and pop in current music, lean back in your rocking chair, and just listen to them ol' time jazz records?

I'll be 47 in April. Can the rest of you regulars reveal your ages also?

Three. (Seven.)

33 in 3 weeks

I'll be 50 this year, def. listen to more old than new, but my recent roadtrip soundtrack ranged from Ella Fitzgerald, Ruth Brown and Etta James to Three Mustaphas Three and Royksopp.

I'm currently over the half-way point to the age of 37. I'll listen to EVERYTHING at least once. There are too many determining factors deciding whether or not I will listen to a piece of music more than once to bore you all with them all here.

EVERYTHING = ANYTHING!

May i borrow that phraseology, inhibitionist?

I'm 42, 43 in May. Generally what I'm enjoying listening to at the moment (and for most of the last year) is music from the 1920's and 1930's

I didn't realise what a bunch of old farts we were!

http://www.carlosbela.com/aporias/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/raybarretto.jpg
EVERYTHING=EVERYTHING!

41. Still get mistaken for much younger.

http://www.jonolivermusic.com/images/album_covers/donny_hathaway_live.jpg
EVERYTHING=EVERYTHING!

Will somebody please enlighten me as to the identity of the [bluegrass-instrument-clutching] femmes pictured upthread?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CF4MSH6YL._SS500_.jpg

Did you mean this one?

(x-post)

Tried posting yesterday and it didn't show up, so apologies if this eventually shows up twice.

Closing in on 40, I still listen the same way and with the same ear towards new and old. Can never really tell what's going to be ephemeral and what's going to last. Inevitably I get rid of things I shouldn't have and have stacks of stuff I'll never listen to again. WIth plenty of stuff that was obviously going to last. But the "borderline" stuff can be frustrating (for space and time reasons). At least if something really sucks, you can cut your losses and move on, but when something seems to have potential...

But what HAS changed over the years is my ability to RETAIN the information. Movies and books have always challenged my crappy memory. (I'm not a pot-head, but my memory behaves as one.)I can watch a movie a year later and it's a new experience. But music was the one guaranteed memory since you're supposed to play it over and over. But while I can quote every guitar solo and stupid lyric from a song I don't even like from when I was 14, if I try doing the same with an album I listened to repeatedly last week, it barely registers. It's crazy.

Which is to say I have a better chronological knowledge of pop music for the years I didn't experience than the ones I've lived through.

Note to Douglas: Shocking Blue! Nice! "Long and Lonesome Road," "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" off the top of my head, but now I have to go back and dig them out.

Don't know if I'm a regular, but 47

35

I'm in no way a regular but I turned 27 yesterday and Smurfherder's post strikes a chord. I listen to more stuff than I ever have done before and as a result I have trouble retaining a lot of it. Increasingly I think "I'll give this album another go, I can't remember any of it from the song titles", yet on listening it's all very much familiar.

As for the old/new split, I usually end up buying around 40-50 new releases (albumwise) a year these days but that's only a fraction of my music purchasing. I've spent a lot of time in the past two or three years catching up with stuff from the late '90s/early '00s which passed me buy completely or which I dismissed at the time. That's one of the main reasons I think I'll always find something new, there are always bands to re-assess as your tastes change. Unless they stop changing, obvously...

Good thread this.

I didn't realise what a bunch of old farts we were!

Yeah, but it's comforting to know we're here in such numbers. Must nap. Sleepy now.

43. I find it interesting that you never get this age/pop crisis nonsense on metal threads. Which fits with the gigs I go to: as extreme as it gets, someone's brought the family.

I think maybe everyone under the age of 30 saw the word "jazz" in the subject and moved onto the next thread.

but only because it didn't say "douchebag"

http://bp2.blogger.com/_pezd59V2Syw/RsBstoVW16I/AAAAAAAAACs/PEiCcuxcgJ4/s1600-h/hank_aaron_grande2.jpg

44

(god I can't believe I just typed that)

38, and this thread makes me feel young.

43. I find it interesting that you never get this age/pop crisis nonsense on metal threads.

You don't find too many under 25's at doom metal gigs for some reason. Strangely , the smaller the venue the older the audience tends to be I find.

I'm 23 and I listen almost exclusively to post-second world war, pre-mid 70s jazz at the moment.

xposts.

How is this thread not started by me?

-- Scik Mouthy

OTM

I actually started a thread not dissimilar to this one a couple of months or so ago, shortly after my girlfriend and I bought a house together - Tactics for choosing what to listen to

I'm listening to Autoditacker by Mouse On Mars right now. Earlier it was the last Les Savy Fav. Even though I know the MoM better and have had it longer, it almost seems newer to me. Not sure how.

I thought, post-Stylus, that I'd almost give up looking for new stuff, partly because of economics, but I haven't; I'm still buzzing about when new records are coming out, looking forward to Hercules, Elbow, Foals, Guillemots, The Do, other people I've not heard of yet. It's good.

Holding on to 49. I bought Shocking Blue's "Venus" single with my allowance money.

I'm 47. I listen to more music, old and new, than I did 20 or 30 years ago, mainly because it's easier to research and acquire.

If I haven't heard it, it's new to me whether it was made last week or 50 years ago.

OTM. We'll never be able to hear all the good stuff. This is the opposite of a problem.

Seriously, this thread is doing me good. These comments are OTM, BTW:

I think giving up is hard if part of your identity---that is, part of how you define yourself as a person, of how you define your aspirations---is finding new music. I think Carl Wilson's response to that Sasha Frere Jones piece in the New Yorker identified this component of identity with the liberal-arts-educated individual, who's been taught to value the finding of the obscure. That seems to get at something right, I think.

I don't have any advice for how to strip this out of your identity while remaining a devoted music fan, though. Lots of people I know have hit the stage where they give up on the new, and because seeking the new was such a big part of their identity as music fans, stop being music fans.

________________________________

I'm do try and keep up a little with current trends but really I have a more general addiction to novelty - a dissatisfaction with just enjoying what music I already have, and a compulsion to always be seeking out the new, even if it's just new to me. I don't mind if my "discoveries" are decades old. But sometimes it does almost feel too much like hard work - I would like to be more thankful for what I've got.

Sums up my feelings perfectly. Sometimes I feel less like a rock or pop or country or blues fan and more of a general obscurist. And while I love discovering new art -- especially new music -- I need to take more time to appreciate, and show more appreciation for, what I already have.

I'm 76 and ain't heard nowt new since USA Hardcore punk.

It's all on a loop and I'm afraid that the kids today seem to have no imagination.They certainly produce nothing new.

They don't even riot anymore

I'm 39. Still addicted to "keeping up" (meaning both new and never-heard) almost to the point of OCD. Until I saw this thread title it never occurred to me that NOT keeping up could be liberating. Maybe I'll just try it.

Until my early/ mid thirties I was an obsessive keeper upper - personal upheaval and boredom produced a period where, for the only time in my adult life, I wasn't buying that many records; i drifted back in via improv. and Wire-ish chin- strokery, but was as interested in SME stuff from the 60s/70s as contemporary stuff. There followed Brazil obsession/ Country soul fixation/ Afropop and much else; what's never really returned is any real interest or attention to indie/ alternative rock, or any worry about hearing new stuff (in my working life, I see loads of live music, so I do know what's "now"- I just don't often like it)

I listen to a lot of music and buy and lot of records, but lately I've been mostly been into older music, buying less and less new records and listening less and less to new stuff. I still might get some new records if they sound interesting or if there's a new releases by a favourite artist of mine, but mostly I've given up trying to keep up with what's trendy. Looking at the ILM 2007 tracks poll, I've heard exactly 6 of the tunes in the top 50.

I'm 28 now, I'll be 30 in a year and three months, so is there any point still trying to be cutting edge with my music taste? Does anyone besides DJs, critics, and people in the music industry really need to keep up with all the latest trends?

-- Tuomas, Monday, March 3, 2008 9:21 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

I'm going through the same thing, and I'm only about to turn 20 in may. I can't seem to be able to bring myself to do it though, it's like killing off a part of me, and despite how much I can tell myself its for the better, I manage to overpower myself.

one of the best moments of my musical obsession was when i quit caring about new drum and bass records. i had been buying other stuff the whole time, but i felt like i HAD to keep up with that shit. when i quit deejaying it and moved on, it was super liberating. since then, the % of old music increased and increased to where i am today.

I'm 29 and have pretty much always been more interested in older music, though I listen to more new music than I used to. For two or three years in my late teens practically all I listened to was classical, jazz and pop vocal stuff from the '20s-'40s. I've actually paid more attention to new music in the past seven or so years than I did earlier. In my teens it seemed less dangerous to invest myself in older music; I felt like I could have greater ownership of it. Newer music belonged to people who could invest themselves in being tastemakers. In the '00s, I've found that the combination of just being older/less insecure and the accessibility of new music via the web has made it all seem much more open and less personal; the sense of ownership isn't as important anymore.

Here's a related old thread of mine, although I drone on autobiographically in the last post:

Why keep current?

Although it's not all that bad for me, I did only hear Crank Dat Soulja Boy for the first time less than a week and a half ago.

May i borrow that phraseology, inhibitionist?

-- violoncellos, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 17:27 (Yesterday) Link

For a nominal fee, yes.

when you'll have children, i guess

them ol' time jazz records

I've never cared about what's hip or trendy - alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers. Nowadays I usually discover new music via music sites, friends (online or off), and such. Discover alot of old music that way too, stuff that's far from canonical.

I still need to discover most ol' time jazz records for the first time....

i think he meant: in what point should you just stop seeking for new music and listen exclusively to the things you already know

When you have children?! Hells no! You'll want some time to yourself and hitting the record shop and closing the bedroom door and putting on something new will keep you sane.

I keep up with my old favorites (Thomas Dolby's new album is pretty good!) and occasionally hear something cool by young artists (P.S. Eliot was introduced to me yesterday) but it's true that the past number of years I've been more interested in music from the 50s-70s than 00s. As Dan said upthread, I expect to run into things I love eventually - and ILM helps immensely in that respect.

well, for my friend's at least, it was the opposite..ot maybe it's just the age idk

alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers
alot of the new music I listen to is nowhere near the top of the charts or hyped by supposed tastemakers