Can I be that out of touch... no, it's the children that are wrong...

darthed1981

Had an argument with the wife the other night.  Not news in itself, but the topic was of interest.  In the end I probably agree with her, I don't like kids music these days, because I'm officially too old...

There were a couple of teens wandering along behind me as was walking the Labrador, and one was playing music from the speaker of his phone.  Now even taking account of the fact it was coming from a phone speaker and a good few metres between us... I thought "wow is that even music"... it was a one note vocal over some inoffensive backing beats.  It, to me, sounded like there was literally nothing going on with it...

Now I like a lot of new music... but if I'm honest it's mostly stuff that sounds like music I listened to when I was younger (Wolf Alice, Royal Blood, others but you get the jist) a lot of it is guitar based stuff with lads or lasses singing about what people sing about with sort of melodies with several notes.  I loved Kid A by Radiohead... which came out when I was 18...

Anyone want to seriously argue against the concepts...

1.  We all pretend we like "new" music but we really mean we like new bands doing the same thing the people we grew up listening to did... and in our heart of hearts they aren't as good...

2.  Kids need different music, they can't rebel listening to bands who sound like Oasis (or other popular older band, don't just reply saying you don't like Oasis)... as their parents won't think it's shit.

3.  This is an entirely healthy thing, there is no "objective standard" of "good", we all have different tastes and things change with time.  Guitar based rock still fills stadiums worldwide, we can't be that upset that music that sounds like crap to us ALSO does...

So, I've crossed the line, and I'm officially old ... 

Sporky

(1) is partly true, but my tastes aren't what they were in my 20s or 30s.

TTony

I remember my parents passing critical comment - "that's not music, that's just noise" - on something that they heard me listening to, way back when.

Now, whenever my response to something new is "that's not music, that's just noise", I smile to myself and realise that I'm old.

To an extent, new music has to be challenging to previous generations, otherwise it's not "new", it's just re-heated.

I can listen to "pop" stuff nowadays and think how dumb, manufactured and cookie-cutter it all is.  But then, probably no more dumb than the glamrock stuff that I grew up with.  That's music for market A - pop.

There's then music for a different market (the early punk to my generation) which is deliberately challenging and, often, places a different interpretation on whatever previously passed for music.  Given the number of iterations we've been through, finding something that's genuinely new must be getting very challenging.

Then there's music for all the other markets (defined by genre, age, whatever) ... some of us know what we like and like what we know (and will buy all the remastered, remixed, reimagined versions of stuff that we've already bought many times previously).  Some of us are always looking for the new challenge. 

Some of us listen to Radio2 (I think that's for when you're bored of music).

BillDL

(3) is definitely true.

I had a strange thought a few weeks back after watching a documentary about Australian Aboriginal people.  If they had been left alone on their island continent and not colonised by people from other continents, would successive generations of youngsters have eventually changed and modernised their traditional didgeridoo and "incantation" type music and dance such that elders would be heard bemoaning how awful young peoples' music had become?

Pjon

darthed1981 said:

Had an argument with the wife the other night.  Not news in itself, but the topic was of interest.  In the end I probably agree with her, I don't like kids music these days, because I'm officially too old...

There were a couple of teens wandering along behind me as was walking the Labrador, and one was playing music from the speaker of his phone.  Now even taking account of the fact it was coming from a phone speaker and a good few metres between us... I thought "wow is that even music"... it was a one note vocal over some inoffensive backing beats.  It, to me, sounded like there was literally nothing going on with it...

Now I like a lot of new music... but if I'm honest it's mostly stuff that sounds like music I listened to when I was younger (Wolf Alice, Royal Blood, others but you get the jist) a lot of it is guitar based stuff with lads or lasses singing about what people sing about with sort of melodies with several notes.  I loved Kid A by Radiohead... which came out when I was 18...

Anyone want to seriously argue against the concepts...

1.  We all pretend we like "new" music but we really mean we like new bands doing the same thing the people we grew up listening to did... and in our heart of hearts they aren't as good...

2.  Kids need different music, they can't rebel listening to bands who sound like Oasis (or other popular older band, don't just reply saying you don't like Oasis)... as their parents won't think it's shit.

3.  This is an entirely healthy thing, there is no "objective standard" of "good", we all have different tastes and things change with time.  Guitar based rock still fills stadiums worldwide, we can't be that upset that music that sounds like crap to us ALSO does...

So, I've crossed the line, and I'm officially old ... 

I agree with your points, but you can tell immediately that you're older than you think when that 'new band' has in actual fact been around for over a decade.

(I only know that because I saw Royal Blood supporting the Foo Fighters when Dave Grohl's leg was still in plaster, and that feels like years ago but was only 2015.)

monquixote

I'm having a slightly different experience where I find I don't really listen to much of the Britpop stuff I enjoyed when I was a teenager and listen to mostly relatively modern electronic stuff although generally in familiar genres. 

I like a lot of my daughters music like Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift although stuff like "grime" etc leaves me cold as it should and I find a lot of modern indie like "Wet Leg" is fine, but sounds like a retread of The Fall or similar to these jaded old ears. 

It's easy to think the 70's was all David Bowie and The Sex Pistols, but on the same episode of ToTP you would have little Jimmy Osmond singing "Puppy Love" there has always been plenty of crap. As we get older we lose the time and inclination to seek out and learn to appreciate the good stuff. 
Most of us probably were a bit puzzled by Kid A the first time we listened to it. As adults we might have rejected it out of hand not having the time to listen to something 5 times before you fully get it.

thecolourbox

I'm not sure you can judge new music entirely by what a couple of yoofs are listening to on a phone - I can't imagine every single human in the 60s or 70s having exemplary and sophisticated tastes, they just didn't all have phone speakers to play it through in public. There were less ways to find music back then, so I get that people had to like the same things more so because that's all they were given access to, but there must have been similar equivalents back then?

When I listen to a lot of 70s punk i think it sounds like middle aged people making a racket but that's probably because that's what middle aged people now sounded like back then. Likewise how I always think people looked older in the 70s and 80s compared to now.

I'm 35, so not young and hip as such but still a bit of a hipster I guess. I've always been a couple of years or so behind the curve when choosing to like stuff, I didn't actually buy anything in 2022 other than Jack White and White Leg albums but listened to quite a lot from the last couple years on my Spotify. Not much one note drill rapping though but then, i'm a mid 30s comfortable straight white guy, it's not really made for me is it

Pjon

monquixote said:

It's easy to think the 70's was all David Bowie and The Sex Pistols, but on the same episode of ToTP you would have little Jimmy Osmond singing "Puppy Love" there has always been plenty of crap. As we get older we lose the time and inclination to seek out and learn to appreciate the good stuff. 

+1. The episode from 25/01/73 featured Wizzard, Gary Glitter, Dandy Livingstone, Colin Blunstone, The Temptations, The Strawbs, Billy Paul, Elton John, The Sweet and ELO. 

darthed1981

monquixote said:

Most of us probably were a bit puzzled by Kid A the first time we listened to it. As adults we might have rejected it out of hand not having the time to listen to something 5 times before you fully get it.

I loved it the first time - but I was such a Radiohead fan it was almost a religious experience.

Now I'm worried about being tired, mostly, work, the backlog of work on the house etc etc - you are making exactly my point really - you just don't have the time...

darthed1981

TTony said:

I remember my parents passing critical comment - "that's not music, that's just noise" - on something that they heard me listening to, way back when.

Now, whenever my response to something new is "that's not music, that's just noise", I smile to myself and realise that I'm old.

To an extent, new music has to be challenging to previous generations, otherwise it's not "new", it's just re-heated.

Exactly - I don't see it in fact as a BAD thing, it's just the reality of getting older, it reminded me of the Simpsons quote I titled the thread with and the South Park episode, made me chuckle... I'm quite resigned to it.

It gives me an extra chuckle as I say that although I like new (or "newer") artists a great deal, last year I really got into Wolf Alice and Sam Fender, for example, they are artists who could be plonked down quite happily in the late 90s and fitted in beautifully.

darthed1981

thecolourbox said:

I'm not sure you can judge new music entirely by what a couple of yoofs are listening to on a phone 

I'm not - I'm just - semi-seriously - commenting on the fact I couldn't really acknowledge it AS music, it was just crap, though clearly crap that meant enough to those kids to be "sodcasting" it.

It's not like older people don't like aural wallpaper... despite it being in some cases a staggering work of musical genius at one point Classic FM was the only profitable commercial radio station in the UK because it's "relaxing" (it works as well - I always put on classic fm after a shit day for the drive home).

darthed1981

Pjon said:

monquixote said:

It's easy to think the 70's was all David Bowie and The Sex Pistols, but on the same episode of ToTP you would have little Jimmy Osmond singing "Puppy Love" there has always been plenty of crap. As we get older we lose the time and inclination to seek out and learn to appreciate the good stuff. 

+1. The episode from 25/01/73 featured Wizzard, Gary Glitter, Dandy Livingstone, Colin Blunstone, The Temptations, The Strawbs, Billy Paul, Elton John, The Sweet and ELO. 

Thank God Glitter and Little Jimmy Osmond were different weeks...

merlin

monquixote said:

 little Jimmy Osmond singing "Puppy Love" 

Donny, please. Little Jimmy sang "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool". Which was truly appalling. As was Donny's rendition of aforementioned pile of shit. 

fretmeister

Wolf Alice and Royal blood "when you were younger"

Get. In. The. Sea.

CaseOfAce

darthed1981 said:

thecolourbox said:

I'm not sure you can judge new music entirely by what a couple of yoofs are listening to on a phone 

I'm not - I'm just - semi-seriously - commenting on the fact I couldn't really acknowledge it AS music, it was just crap, though clearly crap that meant enough to those kids to be "sodcasting" it.

Who else had to look up the term "sodcasting"?
made me chuckle darthed1981 ! 

darthed1981

fretmeister said:

Wolf Alice and Royal blood "when you were younger"

Get. In. The. Sea.

To clarify.

Wolf Alice and Royal Blood SOUND LIKE bands I listened to when I was younger,  I was a child of Britpop!

Teetonetal

Don't forget, that when you were younger, you also did not universally like everything.

I'm a 90's child
- I hated Britpop with a passion
- loved the prodigy and trip-hop
- liked some Rap
- generally hated dance, unless at the right kind of party.
- Adored Alice in chains!

It's the same with music today - though generally, I think my taste has got broader - I certainly like a much wider range of music than I did in my youth - even if it might not be what the majority of the youth  of today listen to.

Grangousier

I always want to say "Oi, mate! Answer your phone, your ringtone's shit!" but don't have the ability to handle any escalation as I'm fundamentally a coward. 

viz

Oasis are one of them new bands, by the way.

darthed1981

Teetonetal said:

- generally hated dance, unless at the right kind of party.

Genuinely one of the best euphemisms for "unless I was on drugs" I've ever heard.

ArchtopDave

You're making a lot of assumptions in the first place. I'd have thought it would be very difficult to judge anything with any accuracy from that distance from the phone - my guess is a substantial amount of the music content would have been lost, plus you are assuming that the person playing it, liked it, for which you present no evidence. 

Secondly, I am very glad that, although I have fairly eclectic musical tastes, there's a fair bit of music that I do not personally like. I'm glad of this, because the world would be an extremely boring place if we all only liked the same music.

My biggest gripe, as someone how plays in a band, is the point blank refusal of some other band members, who are somewhat younger than I am, to consider any songs after about 1985. They just switch off when you try to play the original song to them.