Yeah, I kind of sound like a music snob or an old man at this time. I’ve been introducing her to classic rock, heavy metal, 90s hip-hop, R&B, 90s and 80s pop, 90s 2000s and 2010s techno, and so on.
I just like the idea. She’s very receptive to this and wants to hear a different genre each morning before school. Welcome to the world of dadding.
Could it be that you’re playing the ‘best of’ previous decades not taking into account all the garbage that was produced at the time?
I’m still finding tons of awesome new music
i do think the sheer volume of complete dogshit that comes out these days (especially now with AI) makes it extremely hard to find the good stuff, though. Like are you gonna trawl through 5 billion songs to find 1000 ones that blow your mind?
You basically have to rely on software recommendations at this point. What i’d like to see is a software where you just input the stuff you like and it helps you sift through it all by showing similar things and what others with your tastes enjoyed.
Like are you gonna trawl through 5 billion songs to find 1000 ones that blow your mind?
I think 5 billion might be a bit of an exaggeration :P
But yeah I do listen to a lot of new music, one of the big ones for finding new music is live performances like Defqon1
They have lots of colour stages, for example Gold stage is old school hardstyle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tww7lK7OHpw
Yellow (uptempo):
Red which is the main stage and this set in particular is the legends set which goes through all the top hardstyle producers in their eras playing their stuff
00:00 - Epoch 1: 2000 - 2005
00:23:34 - Epoch 2: 2005 - 2010
01:33:18 - Epoch 3: 2010 - 2015
02:55:32 - Epoch 4: 2015 - 2020
04:08:42 - Epoch 5: 2020 - 2025
04:41:46 - The Closing Ritual
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvVrXLErxcg
Then maybe I go oh this song from late 90’s sounds good, wonder what else was going on before then, then I can hop on Spotify and search for early 90’s rave:
Early 90s rave classics
Classic rave tracks from (mostly) 1990-1995. Everything from chart hits to underground hardcore.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4kWUW71rphZnv4hPE7OsVQ
or maybe I’ll hear something new like https://youtu.be/QeD-amb0vA0?t=580 and want to hear more so then I lookup the artist on Spotify and just start playing through all their songs seeing if anything else stands out
and that’s just for one genre (hardstyle) not taking into account trance music, metal, ambient/chillout, vaporwave, techno etc
It’s just a never ending quest to hear new music and keep pushing my boundaries
There’s also a BIG catch, you’re predisposed to liking the music you heard during your youth the most:
“Between the ages of 12 and 22, our brains undergo rapid neurological development—and the music we love during that decade seems to get wired into our lobes for good. When we make neural connections to a song, we also create a strong memory trace that becomes laden with heightened emotion, thanks partly to a surfeit of pubertal growth hormones. These hormones tell our brains that everything is incredibly important—especially the songs that form the soundtrack to our teenage dreams (and embarrassments)…
This might explain why I still love a cheeky listen to Korn or Limpbizkit every now and then 🤣
You don’t have to rely on software recommendations. You can still get your music recommendations the same way you did in 2005. Follow the artists, follow reviewers you agree with, follow indie music blogs.
Music is either a casual experience or a hobby and people who complain that good music is hard to find are in the former category. Which is totally fine but boy am I sick of casual listeners complaining about music nowadays. There’s more good music than ever.
Oh I remember the bullshit that was around back in the day.
yeah but we don’t show them that. We’ll skip disturbed and move right on to between the buried and me
wow, you are clearly not down with the sickness wa-ah-ah-ah
It’s been awhile since I…
Finding new music is less of a priority for you than it used to be. You spend less of your time in a music sphere and this are exposed to less of it, causing you to feel like less good music is being made.
It’s just a time investment thing. I said it in another comment but there’s more good music being made today than ever before
True.
That’s awesome you’re sharing your love of music!
I have to disagree, though. There is tons of great music from all genres coming out all the time, you just have to find it because the industry has changed so much.
Your Old Droog, Louis Cole, Kamasi Washington, King Gizzard, Viagra Boys, Oh Sees, Deerhoof, Mdou Moctar, Czarface, Parquet Courts. These are just a handful of random modern acts off the top of my head who are putting out great music.
Hell, plenty of talented artists from the 90’s (and other decades) like De La Soul and Beck are still releasing quality albums.
Maybe think about discovering new music as a bonding experience you can share with your kid.
I’m not worried about the bonding part. Between music, video games, legomen, and being interested in her life, I think that’s the one place I’m not failing… Yet.
Beck is the only one of those I’m familiar with, I just tried to download odelay and whatever and realized he now has like 20 albums, the new ones not fit to my taste that I’ve heard, daft punk ish, meh.
I’d rather frame it in a different way for myself: some rigidity in preferred genre’s has set in. Judging some newer genre’s is just… outside of my scope now, and instead of it feeling less or lower then ‘peak’, it’s more a problem of my (music)bagage getting in the way. That, plus there is SO much music being pumped out, that statistically, if you feel the better music times are behind us, it’s way more probable that you just havent found the new music that you love yet.
The daily genre class sounds fantastic, chances are high that she will find loads of new music interests in a small amount of time and effort. Gotta love it.
True.
If you expand your listening style to beyond what is in popular music, you will find a much steadier stream of interesting music. Look into older jazz, tango, bossa nova, traditional music from around the world. Look into alternative music from the 80s and 90s that would not have appeared on the radio or MTV. There is so much out there and there continues to be so much out there.
I agree that pop music has, in many ways, run out of ideas. We keep seeing the same thing be rehashed with a new production style.
You don’t have to look at older music. Those genres are still being made and made well. Hell, there’s an alternative rock revival happening right now!
To build upon this bonding of music, why not pick one day a week to listen to new music together? Both of you could critique the music together and compare to genres/songs that you do like.
I like it.
Don’t forget Ska, Punk, Reggae and at least some Country and Americana ( John Prine, Townes Van Zant, Bobbie Gentry ) some Bluegrass, oh and Industrial, Jungle… music is awesome and there’s so much of it!
John Prince nestled between Reggae and Jungle is such a trip. We called him folk before Americana. Even genres change names.
I try to keep my musical tastes and daily listening pretty random and inclusive.
I love reggae and industrial. Ska was always hit or miss for me. Franz Ferdinand, No doubt, The Mighty Might Basstones…
Madness, The Toasters, hell Rancid and Op Ivy, but I was in highschool for a big swell of ska bands and grew up in a town with a lot of live music.
Everyone disagreeing with you. I’m going to agree with you. Music peaked years ago. I listen to thousands of new songs every year, and my impression is music has lost its personality. Thanks to all the different streaming services, anyone can upload mediocre music. Everyone uses similar tools to make music so the genres all smear into a sound of boring sameness. Maybe it’s not bad, but it’s rarely distinct or good. I mean, I could play a guitar intro off Metallica’s Black album, a few seconds lead in of ‘70s Simon And Garfunkel song, a riff off U2’s Joshua Tree, etc…and they are distinct sounds of that group, you’d know instantly. You could play a song from ‘80s rap, R&B, or New Wave and you’d instantly know the era.
Modern music has pretty much lost anything that could set it apart. If anything defines it it’s the sameness of it all. If you listen to interviews of artists from decades ago they often spent weeks slaving over a particular sound or riff they created specifically for a song or album. Unique timing, multiple different unique instruments in a song. Lots of things went into new music that was full of new sounds. IMO now people just maybe tweak whatever comes out of software like Ableton’s instrument and synth packages a little and go with it.
Before some literalist jumps in and cites some exceptions - no, it’s not all bad. Yes, there are some good artists that have defined sounds. There is good music. The point is that the democratization of tools and the ability to share music so easily has, for the majority, drowned anything distinct out, you have to sift through a lot of crap to find the good, and I don’t think the last ~10-20 years have had the fortune of having a defined sound the way each previous decade did. Other than a lot of autotune and canned instrumentation, anyway.
That sweet, she gets to experience something new and exciting every day and you got to relive memories.
And yeah i am in my late 30s and also think I have peaked (years ago).
It starts around then. That feeling.
I know a lot of people hate Spotify but if you do have it there’s a great playlist called Aussie Punk.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1TFKIwyLme2YQBBm1eY9cp?pi=ban9f26xQSeyU
I’ve never been a fan of punk but I can take a look. Closest to what I’ve heard are Dropkick Murphys and the Ramones.
Learning how to play an instrument/make music has been more accessible then ever since the internet.
Also acces to musical trends worldwide, no longer are we bound to what the radio is willing to play.
This leads to an explosion in blended styles that you can’t define modern music into anymore. This might explain why you feel this way. The culture is completely different.
That said all this new stuff is still a continuation of the music that came before. Its an evolution and knowing the older stuff is still a huge leg up to understand the stuff that comes out today.
My kiddo loves music. But she’s really lazy about learning to play anything…
electro swing has not peaked. Look it up, jazz is objectively the best music.
I don’t know if it’s old man or not, but I kinda agree. Taylor Swift has sucked so much air out of the room so to speak, so there’s not nearly as much money for other artists. I feel like most of the music I hear these days is the same or very similar genres. Back in the 90s and 00s I feel there was more variety. Maybe it’s my perspective. Maybe it’s TikTok.
It’s probably us being old men. The type we said we’d never become. Lol
