Does your taste get more conservative as you age?

It definitely seems that way to me. When I was 15-16 I loved experimental noise music like Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Black Dice, Merzbow, etc. but now it's repellant to me. A good example of this happened the other day when my friend played me a song by The Dirty Projectors and my first response was "turn off this fucking noise," but I didn't say so to avoid insulting him.

When I was 19-20 I got heavily into classical music and listened to essentially nothing else for 3 years. Now it seems when I come back to a lot of this stuff I used to listen to before that the artists have intentions of making "art" but end up being just an unsatisfying in-between. OTOH when I listen to pop music it's usually unabashedly "fun" and non-serious. I'd much rather listen to something like Peter Gabriel's "So" than Scott Walker's "Tilt", whereas 5 or 6 years ago I would've turned off "So" saying that it was slickly produced crap.

Could it be that the more music one hears the better the appreciation one has for "craft" — like being able to appreciate play with form, virtuosity and restraint — or is it that one is just getting boring?

i think i am the opposite of this and can imagine myself finally getting into some hardcore rap when i'm 60

A good example of this happened the other day when my friend played me a song by The Dirty Projectors and my first response was "turn off this fucking noise," but I didn't say so to avoid insulting him.

legit response to DP obv

I think ILM is too much about pop-context craft and too little about experimental-context craft, so you'll fit right in

don;t think the phenom being described is 'conservative'

Rather a back-handed compliment!

in re: to aco I mean

(Obviously, both are great, but I do think ILM pays VERY short shrift to music I'd describe as genre-smashingly original)

well your hearing range definitely changes, so that might be a factor. also, as you get older i guess you eventually have to stop being obnoxious and pissing people like your parents off with loud obstreporous music, and start appeasing girlfriends and neighbours and co-workers who might not be n the mood for wolf eyes or whatever. this is why it can be a pleasure though, as a nearly-30 y/o to sneak on the latest sigh album when no one's in the house and crank it up for an hour or two.

don't start rilin ppl up already jaggz

depends on what you mean by conservative. but in my case, not really, or at least not consistently. on the one hand, i've for the last couple decades listened to a LOT of straight-up garage punk, which strikes me as a profoundly conservative genre. on the other hand, i probably now listen more broadly and in a more open-minded manner than i ever did in the past.

(and even shorter shrift to music that could be described as 'extreme' or 'challenging')

That said, there's plenty of experienced folk here who consume voraciously with an open mind - in many cases, the more someone hears, the more they want to hear - I can get with that

Could it be that the more music one hears the better the appreciation one has for "craft" — like being able to appreciate play with form, virtuosity and restraint — or is it that one is just getting boring?

heh 2010 is definitely the year where i just give in to my natural inclination to hear things that are well-crafted and tasteful, though i'd disagree that this is conservative in any way

although atm i'm listening to and enjoying the hell out of some rather banging cumbia, so who knows...?

i think i just have no time for the canard that a noisy, incompetent mess = "art" any more.

(Obviously, both are great, but I do think ILM pays VERY short shrift to music I'd describe as genre-smashingly original)

― so you want Mark Ronson to cry into your ass (acoleuthic), Tuesday, July 6, 2010 5:36 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

and other people would describe as 'prog indie'

Nothing but John Taverner arrangements for the lex from now on.

i've loved john tavener long time, ned. svyati!

(and even shorter shrift to music that could be described as 'extreme' or 'challenging')

Well I'm an unrepentant lover of mid-50s to contemporary classical music (a lot of which some people would say "isn't music"), so it's not that I dislike a challenge. Far from it, in fact — it just seems like there's just more "substance" in something like Boulez's "Structures" than in someone feeding the sound of a blender through a fuzz pedal, or something.

Do people get more or less boringly self-congratulatory about their musical tastes as they age?

i find i just want to listen to stuff thats well crafted and has lovely melodies over all else. so mainly old 50s and older stuff lately.

but i still like funky, grime, hip hop, blah blah. but i do find myself thinking a lot of hip hop is just immature. which doesnt bode well for what is probably about 40% of my record collection.

I do recognize this, but blame it on fatigue and simply being busy. Could that also be a factor, instead of only aging? I have always been willing to fight for an album, to continue playing an relatively annoying or hard to grasp piece of music, in the hope that it would open up (which it almost always did) and bring beauty and satisfaction. Nowadays I have a lot of crap going on, and simply doen't have the time or patience for music that doesn't immediately wants to appeal. I have loved Trout Mask Replica for over 20 years now. But think that if I would hear it today for the very first time, I would give up within a minute. Does this sound familiar?

Do people get more or less boringly self-congratulatory about their musical tastes as they age?

― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, July 6, 2010 5:47 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol

i also just think 95% of modern pop music is shit.

i'm less qualified than a lot of people here to talk about this, but i suspect that abrasive noise once carried a more political charge than it does now. without a dialectic of subversion is noise rock just the ignorable noodling of dilettante twats?

couldn't it just be something that people like?

xposts
But this contemporary classical music isn't conservative at all - conservative would be wanting to listen to nothing but coldplay or oasis in my eyes. actually, scratch that - conservative is not wanting to hear any new music at all and to stick to what you know. So many people, you go to their houses and if they're my age they have a small CD rack which they filled at the age of 16 with Bloodsugarsexmagiks and FreePeaceSweets, then never bought anything again other than maybe a movie soundtrack. As music fans, I don't think we count, but as an average person I think it does happen to an extent.

If I had too much crap going on to be able to enjoy some tunes, I would probably need to re-think some recent life choices!

i've loved john tavener long time, ned. svyati!

Hey, nice! Now let's talk Gavin Bryars.

I am in my 40's and I think my tatse in music is way less conservative than it used to be. I may not be as experimental as I used to be but I am far less genre faithful and more wide-ranging in what I listen to than I was as a callow youth. That said, I have undergone a certain amount of fatigue/busy related lack of opportunity to look for music but then I also have a wider range of interests than I used to have, too.

i'm less qualified than a lot of people here to talk about this, but i suspect that abrasive noise once carried a more political charge than it does now. without a dialectic of subversion is noise rock just the ignorable noodling of dilettante twats?

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 6 July 2010 17:52 (1 minute ago) Bookmark

We talked about this quite a bit on one of the 90s revival threads. I think one of the problems with a lot of rock and leftfield rock music (and other styles for that matter) is that it is art for art's sake and does not reflect the world we live in today, instead either being an experiment for the sake of it or trying to reimagine.pay tribute to ideas from the past. This is why people get wound up about hipsters and hipster culture is that they're so anodyne in their thinking that one wonders what is the point in these statements - what do they represent or tell us about the world?

just my view - not really got much to do with the OG subject.

But this contemporary classical music isn't conservative at all - conservative would be wanting to listen to nothing but coldplay or oasis in my eyes.

You are only saying this because you aren't listening to contemporary classical music.

ok i'll say it YES your taste gets more conservative as you age. YES. except for those people for whom it doesn't. but for that first group of people, YES, YOU ARE DOOMED!

When I was 15-16 I loved experimental noise music like Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Black Dice, Merzbow, etc. but now it's repellant to me.

Surely you'd be more "conservative" if you still liked it?

yeah ding ding ding ding ding, basically!

i think the OP was using the word conservative in the more conservative sense tbh

lol Kate OTM about this thread

lol 15yo Merzbow fan, give me some kind of medal

oh stop it don't be nasty, corey was just explaining himself

it's always boring to be all categorically "i'm done with x, into y now" especially when y is supposed to be understood as qualitatively better than x

yeah you know what, i think if anything my taste has just broadened with age

no. (x-post to "Tom D.")

and what M. White said. if anything it feels like needing to ask myself if my tastes are more conservative/staid these days is itself a reactionary impulse.

food 4 thought

yeah you know what, i think if anything my taste has just broadened with age

More eclectic definitely.

I'm consuming less music, and so by extension stepping out into new genres less and less and, yes, sticking to pretty "safe" bets in terms of music I'm listening to / trying / buying. But you know what? I don't really give one. I'm really enjoying listening to music at the moment, I had a lovely time with Shleep by Robert Wyatt last night, and if I'm not getting into a new genre every month, so be it.

But not necessarily less conservative, in a way (xp)

I definitely check out new/different things a lot more than I did ten (or even five) years ago but that might just be because it's become so much easier and cheaper to do so. Sort of a side issue but this year for once I've managed (to a degree) to focus my listening habits a bit more in terms of older music which has been kind of satisfying.

also, i noticed that my tastes over time are sort of a pendulum, where i'll spend a few months or years retreating into stuff i know i like, followed by a some time spent seriously pushing at boundaries/prejudices and exploring new shit, and then whole thing goes round again. that pattern denies the basic assumption of the "more or less conservative?" question. my tastes don't move in a line from this to that. they cycle through a process, expanding and retracting, shedding the old & played-out about as fast as they incorporate the new, but always open to rediscovery.

Probably--my tastes were never that wild at any point in my life, but I probably do become even more locked into the simple (or conservative, if you'd rather) things that have always engaged my ear: melody, songcraft, etc. I probably strayed from these things more often 20 years ago. If Flipper came along today, I'm not sure that I'd connect. Another problem is that if Flipper came along today, my first reaction might be, "They sound just like Flipper." I try to stay as open-minded as possible. Sometimes I succeed.

I just realized: Flipper's closer to 30 years ago. Ouch.

Do people get more or less boringly self-congratulatory about their musical tastes as they age?

― Cow Bingo (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, July 6, 2010 4:47 PM (4 hours ago)

That's nasty.

also, i noticed that my tastes over time are sort of a pendulum, where i'll spend a few months or years retreating into stuff i know i like, followed by a some time spent seriously pushing at boundaries/prejudices and exploring new shit, and then whole thing goes round again. that pattern denies the basic assumption of the "more or less conservative?" question. my tastes don't move in a line from this to that. they cycle through a process, expanding and retracting, shedding the old & played-out about as fast as they incorporate the new, but always open to rediscovery.

― good news if you wear cargo shorts (contenderizer), Tuesday, July 6, 2010 6:09 PM

I can relate to this.

I'm not trying to say "Oh I'm so fucking cool I listened to all this crazy music before anyone else". I was just wondering if this was a common phenomenon, and wanted to open a dialogue about it.

Its not about listening to Britpop when you 30 or listening to Stockhausen when you're 12 but whether you can enter into a dialogue with the music (and the culture surrounding it) that is of more importance to me.

I do love a lot of contemporary classical but its undeniable that its just a playground for people to avoid the chasm between the intentions behind some of the music and what it actually produces/what its effects are.

So was Beethoven, in a way. Look at the critical response of the time (and even after his death) to the late quartets.

I do love a lot of contemporary classical but its undeniable that its just a playground for people to avoid the chasm between the intentions behind some of the music and what it actually produces/what its effects are.

No idea what this means.

dont listen to music to have a dialogue about the culture around it. kind of a weird idea.

but then i've never belonged to a book group

here's an admittedly gross theory: maybe music is like porn. the kind of tame titillation that got you off when you were younger just doesn't do it for you eventually, and eventually you need something a little more hardcore, perhaps even going into fetish territory to get you off as you get older and it takes more to get you excited.

I guess I have a problem with listening and just enjoying the same things but also I don't want to just find something repellant, leave it and not ask why. I called that dialogue with music.

There is a thing surrounding the reception of contemporary classical and its relationship to what is outside the concert hall. I just called it culture.

HM, you are disagreeing with an argument no one is making (ie, "about" and "with" have very different meanings)

Rudipherous - I kind of want to say something like: a lot of contemporary classical presents itself as something that is hard to enjoy widely except for its small audience who do enjoy it, something smugly so. In the end the music's form can be quite radical but because it sets itself up to reach a small scene, that this can be a source of 'conservatism'. xp

I now only listen to rousing versions of Jersualem.