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'm 28 too, and I also had a phase recently where I was worried that I was getting stuck in the past, listening to too much old stuff. I guess my balance is probably 5-10% new stuff to 90-95% old.

The thing is, with older stuff, time (and the internet hive mind) are on your side, so it's easier to be sure that what you're buying is gonna be worthwhile. There's thousands of old records and genres that I'll happily spend time exploring while I let the hype settle on all the new stuff. I'll get round to it eventually if its worthwhile.

I've got far too many downloaded -and-never-heard-in-their-entirety albums in my iPod already . . . . Besides, who am I gonna impress with that knowledge?

So true, except for the part I removed via ellipses. I still get a tremendous kick out of discovering something new and exciting in the arts: Music mostly, but also books and films and visual art. But for precisely the reasons that I put music first in that string-citation, I worry that music will be first art form to begin to seem too trivial, too much of someone-else's time, too "young" for me to care about what's new and innovative. But what can you do? Can't stop getting older.

But how do you know you'll hear everything you want to hear if you haven't heard it yet?

If I'm not aware it's there, then I won't miss it!

Also, I keep thinking I'm missing out on stuff thats gonne be radically *new* and *different*, especially the longer I go without paying attention. But then when I finally do get round to checking it out, I'm always totally disappointed at how un-new it sounds! (Dubstep, for example...)

I seem to look for "new" and "exciting" sounds more in old music, where listening to new music is more about feeling at least a bit up to date, knowing what's going on and so on.

But maybe it should be the other way around...?

(xpost) exactly - that Basshunter single? Sounds like it was made in 1992 - and so do a surprising amount of new singles.

if it's good I'll hear it eventually.

I wouldn't be too sure about this...

Dan Selzer's nose for the obscure is legendary in underground (not indie) America.

the cream continues to rise to the top, as long as you're looking in the right places...for the cream. but sometimes i wonder if i still like cream as much as i did. it depends what kind of cream really. they've put all this stuff in it and i swear it doesn't taste like it used to.

Cream isn't the only stuff that floats.

I am just giving a hard time. You'll get frustrated to death if you get too hung up on all the great stuff you'll never hear. When I can't keep up I just spend more time making sure I'm listening enough to the stuff I've already got!

In fact, there are infinite ways in which to hear music you've already listened to.

Well no, there isn't. I just made that up. Sounded cool, in a Zen sorta way.

It's kind of nice, though, isn't it? To be pushing middle age knowing that there are universes of music that you'd probably like but have yet to hear? Hearing Mutant Sounds-ish obscurities like Instant Music and Fall of Saigon just intensifies it for me. Keeps me digging.

said the Finnish don't dance
they just listen to jazz
and sit in their rocking chair
now lean back
lean back
lean back
lean back

-- Alex in Baltimore, Monday, March 3, 2008 11:24 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

loooooool

to be honest, i don't think i've ever felt compelled to "keep up" with what was "new" -- my tastes were never particularly mainstream but I wasn't cool enough to keep up with the indie-obscurantists. I was always just hungry, that same "new to me" instinct other people have described.

after a while, repeated listening and familiarity wears down the power of even the best stuff, so i was always looking for something else to keep myself on that music high. there have definitely been periods - and now is one of them - where little of the "new to me" stuff I hear is doing it for me, and then you get into a bit of a vicious circle: having been burned by something mediocre, you feel less compelled to test/look for something else. usually i spend these periods in comfortable old sweaters, like enjoying elvis costello's or nick lowe's voice whatever crap they happen to be singing at the moment.

the only thing that bothers me about not keeping up with new/current stuff is the fear that I will lose touch with the dominant idiom(s) and get into a position where I just don't "get" the majority of music. I already kind of feel that way about current rap/r'n'b, where I'm sure there's a lot about it that i don't appreciate just because my knowledge isn't deep or broad enough.

another member of the 40+ club here, I mostly keep up with new music because of my DJ gig at a college radio station. ILM helps, as does hanging out in record stores and on the internet. I still discover new stuff all the time. And old stuff. I heard that Jay Reatard album today, it was great!

I want a list of 40+ year old ILX'ors, so I don't feel so alone (this thread is beginning to make me feel better, seeing others in the club).

Re people over 40 on ILX:

Kogan is 54, Aimless is 53, Beth Parker is in her early 50s (I think?), m coleman is 49, Jaq is 47, xhuxk is 47, Martin Skidmore (RIP) is 47, Dr. C is 46, mike t-diva is 45, Rock Hardy is 44, Ned T. Rifle is 43, Orbit (RIP) is 43, etc.

-- jaymc, Friday, 15 February 2008 17:46 (2 weeks ago) Link

I'm 42.

"I'm 28 too, and I also had a phase recently where I was worried that I was getting stuck in the past, listening to too much old stuff. I guess my balance is probably 5-10% new stuff to 90-95% old.

-- gnarly sceptre"

that just about sums up my current percentages (and i am also 28). and it really does seem to be mostly jazz and soul music that gets me these days, even though i still love so many other kinds of music.

i never totally give up on new music, but i know the outlets where i can find the kinds of things that appeal to me and i check them regularly. i get surprised by new/unexpected artists very infrequently, at least in terms of new music. i actually get surprised much more by old music, and it doesnt even need to be obscure. i dont care if music is new or old, obscure or popular, as long as it fucking moves me i'm all about it.

i'm not worried about keeping up with anything other than the kind of music i want to soundtrack my life. it all fits together.

http://cache.idolator.com/assets/resources/2006/12/velvets.jpg
Hey, I'm not a young man anymore

I listen to probably more than 95% 'old' music.
the contemporary music i listen to usually falls into the psych-folk, improv or blown-out garage punk ghettos

them ol' time jazz records

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Mptv/1313/5062_0062.jpg&imgrefurl=http://uk.imdb.com/gallery/mptv/1313/Mptv/1313/5062_0062.jpg.html%3Fhint%3Dgroup&h=450&w=357&sz=27&hl=en&start=4&um=1&tbnid=jtsy_GbO_kwlpM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=101&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlouis-armstrong%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DsuN%26sa%3DN
I listen to the same records that you do, Pops

(That was supposed to be below [satchmo.jpg])

http://www.mainspringpress.com/Sleeves.JPG

merely returning to the familiar is a bad idea - novelty and refreshment are important - but the reason to seek the new is not to keep up with what's hip, but to seek what's good and may speak to the contemporary in a way the past did not, quite

http://www.selectadisc.co.uk/%5Cwrite%5CImage%5C268jlhook.jpg

I'm more interested in the way the past speaks to the contemporary, TBH.

http://media.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2004/sep/opening_lines/between.jpg

http://lauraquigley.com/uploads/flatmtgirls-2006a.jpg

That picture apparently taken just after Shel Silverstein rewrote lyrics of "Cover Of The Rolling Stone" for them.

How interesting it seems to go one way or another changes for me. As a teemager in the late 70s early 80s I found the past fascinating partly because I already had instant access the present, and that by definition made the past interesting, and partly because the culture was one of deletion - records literally went out of print - and that made me desire what I had already missed.

Post CD the past has been very much in the present. It’s easier to hear postcard Orange Juice singles now for example than it was in 1982. This had the effect of mainstreaming the past (Uncut, Word etc) and that along with getting older and therefore further from the daily presence of the present (discos, school friends etc) has made me desire the new more.

For years I have worked on a strict 50% new policy – and new must mean new bands, new composers and a reasonable percentage of complete risks (seeking out the unreviewed, here or elsewhere in the media). But I think ultimately it’s about strategies to keep things fresh. I operate very different rules for classical music, whilst in Art I have to force myself to go non-contemporary.

The medium now most like the way pop music was in the 70s is TV where most of us live in a permanent present (though the archive is waiting on a server somewhere to come back and bite us).

I'm 51, and although I listen to a lot of new music (one reason I lurk on this board is to get an idea of things I might like), I don't really try and "keep up." (Too much time and money, for one thing.) But I do find that listening to new things helps keep my enthusiasm alive. I hear old favorites in a fresh way.

I'm 45. Old, new, not yet released--if the music's good/interesting, I want to hear it. Call it omnidirectional omnivorousness.

New forum anyone? I Still Love Music, Honest?

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.

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