For a person who was not yet born when music was initially released, is it possible to enjoy it with the same level of enthusiasm as contemporary music?

I am also much fonder of the "pop hits" of the mid-70s than I was in the mid-70s. Nostalgia is a powerful drug.

"deep period in my 20s/early 30s of exploring older music"

i worked in commercial radio in my late teens/early 20s and so I was very focused on contemporary music at that time. when I left "the industry" I swear I spent two solid years only listening to music made between 1976 - 1982 (i.e. at least 15 years old at the time) with the exception of Tom Waits (lol).

I guess the place I'm coming to in re this question is that I grew up in the 80s and remember all those popular movies featuring soundtracks of 50s and 60s music (e.g. La Bamba, Dirty Dancing), which would then get played on the top 40 radio station along with new music (iirc). I feel like the nature of your exposure to music, the context in which you hear it regularly, also figures into this notion of "contemporary" ... vs. say, when I was in my mid-20s and I searched the discount bins of used record stores for punk / post-punk / weirdo albums with a (c)1978 on the back.

I also think about being a kid (let's say 14 years old) and being part of a friend group that collectively gets into an older band the same way other kids would get into new bands. There were the trendy kids that liked NKOTB, the FFA kids that liked Garth Brooks, the stoner kids that liked Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, the theater kids that liked the Beatles, my handful of weirdo friends that liked The Cure and The Smiths ... but like, in a way, the culture of discovery/enthusiasm was similar? idk ...

I just remember when we found the import version of The Cure's Three Imaginary Boys at the nearest record store (which was about 10 miles away and was partly a head shop), and it was like, the same excitement of a new release.

technically we had all been born when this album came out but we were between the ages of 2 and 4, so ... kinda equivalent?

Not all of us were that young lol

Not all of us were that young lol

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, July 14, 2022 2:04 PM (one minute ago)

i bow down jim

i was recently at a festival with a friend who was talking to this random guy, and we were talking about Throbbing Gristle, and the guy was talking about the legendary show at the Kezar Stadium which the random guy had not attended, and my friend said that he had gone to the LA show which was also a bit legendary, and the guy asked my friend why he didn't drive up to SF and see the Kezar show, and my friend said, "It was a school night and I was 17 and I think I had a test the next day?"

So I am envious of people older than me who got to see stuff I was to young to be able to experience.

There were the trendy kids that liked NKOTB, the FFA kids that liked Garth Brooks, the stoner kids that liked Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, the theater kids that liked the Beatles, my handful of weirdo friends that liked The Cure and The Smiths ... but like, in a way, the culture of discovery/enthusiasm was similar?

I like this point... it reminds me of how I first learned about Led Zep and Keith Moon from a girl in middle school who was really into that stuff (she was too young to be a "stoner" yet, but I think she ended up aligning w/that crowd in high school).

My instinctive feeling on this subject is no, you had to be there. The best musicians are either responding to what's happening culturally or emotionally in the world at that moment, or pushing the state of the art forward in progressive ways to do something new, or ideally both like Dylan/Hendrix/Beatles/Stones in the 60s, punk and postpunk in the 70s, hip hop and shoegaze in the 90s, etc, and being there at that moment, you are the ideal audience for the new sounds, and the references to other art are in your mind the same as the artists making the new sounds.

But there are a lot of valid arguments against this. Archival albums that were recorded in the 70s but not released til now can be more powerful now than they probably sounded to people back then, because they capture a sort of lost snapshot feeling like a book of weird old sepia photographs.

There definitely seem to be records that were ahead of their time and found a new audience later, either misunderstood in their time like Trans or Flowers of Romance, or just showing up in sharper relief in hindsight after getting reissued like as-good-as-early-REM sides by The Embarrassment, or fans of boundary pushing music finally being able to appreciate 40s and 50s gospel and country records once enough time has passed and they start to sound fresh instead of conservative.

I think Running Up That Hill sounded more like a lot of other 1985 songs when it was on the radio in the 80s; it was still top tier then, but you can imagine it on a radio station or mix tape next to a Voices Carry, How Soon Is Now, San Jacinto, Shake the Disease, and so on, and it isn't as much a breath of fresh air as it is now. Sort of like how Bohemian Rhapsody was as fresh in 1991 when it became a bigger hit in the US than in the 70s, with a movie recontextualization that made its fusion of absurd comedy and bombast more intelligible.

The thread title makes me titter a little bit, seeing as “contemporary music” has usually meant “new chamber music”, and there is no situation where new chamber music has been given the same attention and enthusiasm as the works of dead masters

* usually meant, in my purview, that is

i wrestled with that fgti. i first thought about specifying contemporary POP music, but changed my mind about a second later. because for me of course, the idea extends to all styles of music.

i get what you mean tho.

another day of great discussion, all. thank you.

there is no situation where new chamber music has been given the same attention and enthusiasm as the works of dead masters

The 18th century perhaps?

(I had a similar thought about 'new music'/'contemporary music'.)

how many aristocrats at any given were really enthusiastic about chamber music vs how many

malformed post

basically were people really passionate about haydn string quartets at the time?

I guess some people must have been. I'm sure they heard them differently from how the later great masters ideologues heard them or how I might hear them depending now on the context in which I encounter them

I can get excited about charlie parker but it's not the same as the excitement of that moment, because of my distance from that social movement I can never really know what it meant in that context I can only project my own meanings onto things which sound cool which may be some of the same things which sounded cool back then but probably had very specific social meanings. neither way is intrinsically better or worse but in some sense I feel that music should be social, because it feels nice to be part of something exciting within a community. even though bebop was probably socially as much as sonically alienating for more people than not so it's a complicated example

How many times would even an aristocrat had a chance to hear a particular string quartet or staging of an opera? Four times in a lifetime? Twenty? Music before mass produced parlor pianos and Victrolas was a completely different context of appreciation AFAIK.

No one went to the opera to hear the music

Based solely on personal history, an easy "yes" for me. My cutoff date, 1961, opens the question up to all the early rock and roll and doo-wop, and I have felt some of that as deeply as anything from my lifetime. The question is confused somewhat--maybe this is addressed in previous comments--by the difference between hearing music before you were born and hearing music released during your lifetime but hearing it for the first time years later. Is there a difference?

Mozart was enthusiastic about Haydn's string quartets.

There's nothing else like release date anticipation when you have a plan to physically buy something you haven't heard before.

There's also nothing quite like the feeling of abundant fresh dopeness, the more overwhelming the better. A moment arrives when there's suddenly a LOT of really good new music all at once. For some reason it does hit me harder when it arrives with a multitude of shared experiences, like hearing it on the radio, or on friends' mixes or playlists, or on a video show like 120 Minutes, or just heard out in the world while experiencing life.

I guess for me, the experience isn't that dissimilar from when I would discover 8 or 9 albums from the 70s or from some list or blog and burn them onto a CDR or throw together an 80s mix of songs that were somewhat new to me. This is also exciting, but the lack of shared experience makes a big difference.

"You had to be there" seems about right. I was probably most immersed in first-listen-Beatles around age 10-11, freshly hearing lots of stuff from different eras all at once.

As fun as that was, I honestly don't think it can compare to bringing home a new record and hearing "Taxman" "She Said She Said" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" for the first time on the same day as several million other people.

in some sense I feel that music should be social, because it feels nice to be part of something exciting within a community.

It's interesting to think about at what point in history did music start being made for non-social contexts ... it feels like it was relatively recently

"hearing music before you were born"

In the womb? As is probably evident, I meant to say "hearing music from before you were born"...

like, how recently was it that music could be made by one person only for the primary purpose of being listened to be a person in solitude? Like, the act of creation / conditions of production (sorry Left inspired me) of music was inherently social for a very long time.

*listened to by a person in solitude not listened to be

For most of human history music was not merely social, but seems to have had ritualistic, spiritual or utilitarian functions (like work chants).

This whole discussion makes me think of a response to Rolling Stone's list of top rap albums that was published on Stereogum: that one can't reduce rap to a list of albums to be consumed when what's important is the entire culture that it derives from and reflects.

Put it this way.

We've all been to small one-room clubs that are a bit run down but a good vibe etc, watching a band go over well, followed by another one and a bit of a disco Inbetween.

So, we can imagine being down the 100 club and it's Sex Pistols supported by Subway Sect, let's say.

Now, a lot of people would sell their first born to be able to go back in time and be there. Only to find it's less whelming than they thought...

Case in point: first time we visited NY, I thought should we go down to CBGBs?
No, I decided. Crummy room by all accounts, see a band that's merely ok maybe, come away thinking we'd rather have done xxx that evening.
And then that band become world famous and now it's hey I saw them in NY nobody knew who they were etc...

My point being, um..

On the one full day I spent in New York City, I took a highly abbreviated Rock 'n' Roll walking tour which consisted of strolling past CBGBs on the opposite side of the street, seeing the Dakota from Central Park and checking out Great Jones Street in honour of DeLillo's novel. That very slight experience was enough to give me just enough extra context to feel I've got some connection when I hear or read about those places.

My point being that the human imagination can run with very little stimulus, not that walking past a building once in 2000 is equivalent to going there 200 nights a year in the mid-70s.

the human imagination can run with very little stimulus

ILX being a case in point.

definitely. I’m playing Grace Jones’ “The Apple Stretching” right now thanx to your post

There are musicians that as kids got obsessed with certain types of music and then made the leap to learning to play it that are often in styles long past their lives. My thoughts would be like people that pick up learning traditional say fiddle music or folk or jazz or even classical music.

but do they have the passion of beliebers? WE WILL NEVER KNOW.

I think it's the other way about. All the kids I knew who were into jazz and classical growing up started with the music lessons. They really liked the music they were learning to play. That's probably also the kids who like rock now.

I don't know enough to vote but hope the answer would be yes; otherwise I think you're basically saying music does not transmit/communicate as language does; it has to.

I don't honestly know how anyone could seriously answer "no" to the literal question, as phrased in the OP. If one person exists who enjoys music made before their borth as much as contemporary music, the answer is "yes". Fun springboard for conversation, though.

*birth

And then that band become world famous and now it's hey I saw them in NY nobody knew who they were etc...

It was the Strokes? (my guess)

It wasn't anybody : I didn't go.

But, quite .

in all my years of going to shows, the only times i've had that experience its always been bands i hated. i would be a terrible A&R person.

There are musicians that as kids got obsessed with certain types of music and then made the leap to learning to play it that are often in styles long past their lives

not sure whether to focus on the "as kids" part or the "learning to play" part ... we kinda keep coming back to the aspect of youth in re enthusiasm. I feel like there are a fair number of musicians who came to be passionate about certain "older" styles as adults ... but is the level of enthusiasm the same?

xxp Ah sorry, I misread your post. I mean, sure, most CB’s bills were generic hardcore bands or whatever that would not leave an impression or become world famous…

Although there is something nice about a band having a big moment I really don't miss the buzz and hype because it inevitably started feeling a bit yucky, not in any kind of principled or ethical way, but just in the way of needing variety and to appreciate things in your own time. I think I can enjoy old music more in some ways because I can put it away when I want and perhaps the flavor feels enough of a contrast to be able to enjoy it more sometimes, but maybe that's just as true for most bands today. I guess it's not true for the Beatles because they're never away that long.

Maybe it always improves appreciation when it's your own choice when you want to engage with something.

1. Language acquisition seems to have an age of porousness. Most people learn their native language and one or two others during this period of porousness. It's possible to acquire a language in adulthood but it's rare.

2. Similarly, modern people seem to be EXTREMELY porous to music in their teens. For most people I know, the music they liked when they were aged approximately 12 to 18 has special status. Of course you can still evolve and learn, but it's tough to replicate that thrill. Note that for me it's more about what you liked when you were that age, not just what was released when you were that age.

In my preteen and teen years I liked my parents' records (Beatles, Beach Boys, Motown, folk, jazz, classical), then I liked 80s pop, then I liked "classic rock," then I liked 90s indie. My overarching belief was that it was all a gorgeous smorgasbord and everyone could partake according to their taste and wishes.

3. Music I play, music people like, and music that makes money are completely mon-overlapping circles in my world, and I am okay with that.

I think it was "This is Your Brain on Music" -- the book, that talked about this in terms of neuroscience. Pretty sure we discussed it at length when it came out, but I don't remember the thread, and I'm not saying this in a prescriptive way ... more like the opposite, "I don't even remember what thread it was, so it sounds like enough time has elapsed to revisit it."

1. Language acquisition seems to have an age of porousness. Most people learn their native language and one or two others during this period of porousness. It's possible to acquire a language in adulthood but it's rare.
― your marshmallows may vary (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, July 16, 2022 8:48 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'd say that people don't learn languages in adulthood mainly because they don't need to, not because they have lost the ability.

I'd say that people don't learn languages in adulthood mainly because they don't need to, not because they have lost the ability.

Speaking as someone who has studied multiple languages as an adult, it's really fucking hard to get anything to sink in, and the minute you stop practicing/using a language you're trying to acquire, your brain shits it right back out. I took a couple of years' worth of Japanese courses in college and remember none of it. I have spent nearly 30 years living in a town where Spanish is spoken basically everywhere, and I can...kinda order food? The last few years I've been learning Swedish and Norwegian, and I keep those in my head by following a bunch of Scandinavian people on Twitter and watching lots of Scandinavian TV shows on Netflix.