Why do old people hate new music?

[Angst]

So uh does an old musician covering new music count as "old" or "new"?

 

[EgonSpengler]

So uh does an old musician covering new music count as "old" or "new"?

The original version of "Hurt" came out in 1994. Heck, Cash's version is almost 20 years old now.

 

[Angst]

The original version of "Hurt" came out in 1994. Heck, Cash's version is almost 20 years old now.

You're missing the point - unless you're just clarifying

Cash's generation is quite earlier than 1994, after all. I'm not saying Hurt is new today.

 

[EgonSpengler]

You're missing the point - unless you're just clarifying

Cash's generation is quite earlier than 1994, after all. I'm not saying Hurt is new today.

I would say that anything new to the listener can be called 'new music.' I'm constantly finding old music that's new to me. One of my best discoveries of last year was Spooky Tooth's blues-rock cover of "I Am the Walrus" from 1970. I think it was played over the closing credits of HBO's Watchmen.

That reminds me: Another outstanding tool for new music is the website TuneFind. If you hear a song in a television show or a movie that piques your interest, you can search by the title and, if it's a series, by the particular episode.

Spoiler :

 

[Gorbles]

Reznor was a big fan of how Cash's rendition turned out, too. It's one of my favourite covers (of all time, honestly), and I like the little bits that Cash changed in deference to his faith (and / or to complement how some of the original lyrics would definitely not be considered Christian, hah).

 

[EgonSpengler]

Reznor was a big fan of how Cash's rendition turned out, too. It's one of my favourite covers (of all time, honestly), and I like the little bits that Cash changed in deference to his faith (and / or to complement how some of the original lyrics would definitely not be considered Christian, hah).

I'm always up for a round of "Good Song Covers", if anybody else is game.

 

[Angst]

I would say that anything new to the listener can be called 'new music.' I'm constantly finding old music that's new to me. One of my best discoveries of last year was Spooky Tooth's blues-rock cover of "I Am the Walrus" from 1970. I think it was played over the closing credits of HBO's Watchmen.[/spoiler]

This is actually interesting. There's a link to newness in the temporal, but infact it has much more to do with time of exposition, which can be completely arbitrary.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I'm always up for a round of "Good Song Covers", if anybody else is game.

Should make a thread for that.
Does it count if someone covers a song they wrote for somebody else?

 

[EgonSpengler]

This is actually interesting. There's a link to newness in the temporal, but infact it has much more to do with time of exposition, which can be completely arbitrary.

Sure, yes. I think we have to add that context matters. I think for the purposes of what this thread is about, a song that's new to us counts as 'new music.' (For that matter, the definition of "old people" is contextual too. In this thread, from the quote in the first post, it's 33 years old. )

Does it count if someone covers a song they wrote for somebody else?

I don't see why not, as long as their version was released later.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes, a covered version songs thread would be interesting.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Okay, I meant to reply in this thread quite some time ago, but the browser ate my post, and then it was time for NaNoWriMo and then I got distracted by the umpteenth Dune argument on two separate forums...

Anyway, I've got some comments.

This article is about why we often lock out musical tastes in at a young age.

Why do old people hate new music? – Holly, age 14, Belmont, Massachusetts



We have a music thread where one can post one's favorite songs of the moment. But if the article holds some truth, then we are likely bound to our pasts in what we like today. I know I am. For all practical purposes music began in Feb 1964 when the Beatles took over radio play and everything else faded into insignificance. The music of the next decade still dominates my musical enjoyment. I still have warms spots for pre-Brit invasion songs by Bobby Vinton, Dion, Gene Pitney, etc. but it is not the same.

Revolution was in the air and in the music; times were changing, music was changing, and Rolling Stone was our guide!

So tell us about your defining music.

https://theconversation.com/why-do-old-people-hate-new-music-123834

Defining music as in what has always held your interest, if not being your preference no matter what age you are?

The music I was exposed to as a child was a mix of Disney children's tunes, music I heard on children's shows on TV (I can still sing several of the songs from Mr. Dressup, even though it's been over 50 years since I last heard them).

My parents liked country & western music (I have no idea what the current technical term is for this music - think Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Tex Ritter, Wilf Carter, Marty Robbins... all of those were what my parents liked and I didn't mind them either).

And then... The Mom & Dads happened. That's the music I discovered I could play - by ear - and years later I had formal music lessons (organ). My first musical fan experience was getting to meet The Mom & Dads when they were signing autographs in the music department in Woolco - I still have the album they signed.

Waltzes, polkas, schottisches... that's the kind of stuff I was into, and it's the kind of stuff I enjoyed the most in my lessons, and it's what I eventually started composing after taking music theory. Composition was part of the Western Board of Music exams, and while mine weren't anything to write home about (so to speak), it was good enough to please my grandmother. I remember the first time I played one of my original compositions for her and she asked which one it was, since she hadn't heard it before. She was flabbergasted when I told her it was new - I'd written it myself.

Then my dad brought home an 8-track of The Irish Rovers. Second musical fan experience: many years later, getting to meet and chat for a couple of minutes with Will Millar, and floating home on the proverbial cloud 9 after the concert. He's over 80 now and his voice is really creaky, so he doesn't sing anymore. But he took up painting as a post-music career, and included a print with the CD I'd ordered of one of his post-Irish Rovers albums when he formed the group some mad Irishmen.

So these have been my lifelong music preferences above all others. I eventually learned some Irish Rovers music to play on the organ, whether from a songbook I found in a music store in Wenatchee, Washington, of all places, or by ear. My dad used to whistle along to the songs he recognized (one of them was the same song I used as the title for the current Random Raves thread - "Years May Come, Years May Go").

So far there's no rock(ish) music being mentioned, right? Well, exposure to that came when my dad and I lived with his then-current girlfriend and her kids right after my parents' divorce. The oldest daughter was obsessed with Terry Jacks, and learned to play some of his music on their piano. To this day I still remember being awakened around 7 am on school mornings as she obsessively practiced "Seasons in the Sun." It's been nearly 49 YEARS and I can't get that out of my memory.

Musicals came along in junior high, as I had two years' worth of studying them in the music classes. That was also the time when I first heard Gordon Lightfoot's music. I enjoyed it, so I listened carefully during the classes when we'd sing it, and then went home and played it on the organ. My grandmother liked it, and so both of us became Gordon Lightfoot fans. There's one song I played that I always thought The Irish Rovers did better, that being "The Great Canadian Railroad Trilogy." Theirs is the more expressive version, and it's probably the most complicated song they did that I learned.

The first music I brought into the house that even hinted of rock was a Shaun Cassidy record. I had no idea what my grandfather would make of it. He'd already objected to the soundtrack from Oliver! (turns out he hated Jack Wild's voice in "Consider Yourself").

Something odd: I discovered that my first cat liked Strauss waltzes. I had a record of those, and that was one of the albums I'd listen to while I was working on a Doodle-Art my dad gave me. The cat would come into my room and settle down while that record was playing, and leave when the next one started.

I started working backstage in theatre in Grade 12, and my grandmother heartily approved - because I brought home so many new songs I'd learned (either new to me, or songs she liked but I hadn't learned them yet). I'm reminded of one night at rehearsal, when the schedule called for blocking and singing "Wunderbar" for the musical "Kiss Me Kate" (a play about a group of actors putting on the Shakespeare play 'The Taming of the Shrew').

That was the same night that the set construction crew had some stuff to build... and not very much room. Things got heated when both actors and set crew wanted to work at the same time, so finally the head of the set crew asked the conductor, "What time signature is this song in?"

The answer was 3/4 - waltz time. The crew head said, "Okay, we can do this."

That set piece got hammered together in time to the music. The actors and musicians had to be a bit louder that night, but it all worked out. At that time I was watching from the audience, waiting for my own crew head to show up.

Some directors wondered why, all those years, I insisted on attending so many rehearsals that I didn't strictly have to. The answer was partly that I wanted to learn the music, and the best way for me to do that was to keep listening to it. The other part was that I'd learned by experience that props people have to know the show every bit as accurately as the stage crew, or lighting and sound people. There are cues in the music and dialogue that tell the props crew when to get certain things ready, or prepare something (ie. capsules of stage blood because that stuff doesn't hold its consistency for very long before it doesn't work properly). And of course there were some cast members who needed a bit of costume help in a hurry, or a reminder now and then. There were a couple of performances of Jesus Christ Superstar in which the 39 Lashes almost didn't happen because the actor kept forgetting to take the whip with him. I told him, "You need this now," and he said "No, we're not doing that scene yet," and I just shoved it into his hands and hissed, "TAKE IT!"

When he got back after the scene, he was a bit embarrassed, and said, "You were right."

I can still replay a lot of these musicals in my mind. It's been decades - 40 years in the case of JCS - but they're still there, note for note, with the voices in pitch.


A few years into my theatre years, I started attending SF conventions... and along came filk music. The word "filk" is a typo for "folk" but the people who were there at the time thought "filk" was such a cool word that it became part of fannish culture.

Most filk music is based on already-published songs, or familiar folk melodies. A lot of it's based on Christmas songs (which applies to some of what I've written). But there are some original pieces that are really gorgeous - I've posted one on the forum, the one that was written in honor of the Apollo program.

I've got my own science-based filk running around in my head, but it's never been written down. The problem: I keep hearing saxophones as part of it, and I have no idea how to write music for the saxophone, nor do I have any clue how to play one. There's a piano in there, as well, and I've discovered that while I can go from piano to organ, I can't do the reverse. I can't write music for the piano.


I joined the SCA in the mid-'80s, and so came a lot of exposure to medieval-era music. That's joined the waltzes, Irish Rovers, and filk music as taking up permanent residence in the music-related part of my brain. At some point a friend convinced me to try watching "Robin of Sherwood", which eventually led to becoming an Enya fan. That's another permanent thing, so much so that I'm using a couple of her songs as inspiration for my "King's Heir" NaNoWriMo project.

Then came Yanni. I'd intended to watch a science documentary that day, and was annoyed to discover that it was a pledge weekend on PBS. My show would be delayed. But in the meantime, some sort of concert was going on... Yanni: Live at the Acropolis.

About five minutes later, I was hooked. I found out a few months ago that Yanni has been uploading the music from that concert to YouTube, so once I found a list of what order everything came in, I could enjoy most of it all over again (a couple of pieces didn't make it). From there I started browsing... who knew that he could sing? I had no idea. He barely speaks during the concerts I've seen, so I never even considered whether he could sing as well as play and compose.

When it comes to getting into different kinds of music, I pretty much coasted for a long time. Of course there were individual songs I found here and there that I liked. A Russian ice dancing team did their long program to a Beatles medley for the 1988 Olympics, it was enjoyable, so I decided to check out more of their music and found that I like some of it.

My latest addition to Music I Became Addicted To happened last year, by a really roundabout, weird route.

I spend time every day reading and commenting on my MLA's FB page (Member of the Legislative Assembly). She's an infuriating <politician> who never answers any question she can possibly avoid, and this tends to get some people rather annoyed.

One person was annoyed to the point where he posted a link to Simon & Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence". Just on a whim I followed the link, listened to the song, liked it, and noticed some recommendations coming up for the same song played by different musicians, using a variety of instruments. So I tried listening to the one played on a zither, and that was nice as well.

The version played by two Ecuadorian brothers on panflute and quenacho just blew me away. It's true that music is a universal language. You don't have to share a common verbal language to appreciate music. I barely understand a word of what they're singing, when they do sing - most is in Spanish but some is in Quechua - but I don't care. These two are multilingual, and during the chat parts of their livestreams I've been picking up some words and phrases in various languages. They're from Ecuador but their studio is in Poland, so there's a fair bit of Polish and Russian spoken during these livestreams, in addition to Spanish and English.

Ultimately, Cobain or the other stars of the era were not great musicians - any knowledge of music will show that they don't really measure up to a great musician, say Bach - but they weren't just musicians for the teens of the time; they were idols.

Once upon a time, Bach and the rest of them were the "newfangled stuff" that people listened to (so to speak).

I had to learn a lot of Bach for my Western Board exams. That's something I still remember a bit of, but it's been over 25 years since I had to know it, and I've allowed it to fade. It took a great deal of concentration to memorize those pieces; since I learn best by ear and tended to panic if I was reading music and lost my place, I figured it made more sense to just cram the songs into my mind and train my fingers, hands, and feet to go on "muscle memory".

Being someone who's just approaching 23, my music tastes are just about locked in now if that article's right, and started developing back in 2010. Guess I'll be in my 50s talking about early Vocaloid and OSTs from Undertale/Friday Night Funkin'/Pokemon the same way my mother used to talk about the Beatles. I do have every intention of keeping up with new music as I get older but I doubt I'll like it if it's not some combination of electronic, fast, and energetic.

You never know what's going to hit you. Prior to my getting hooked on Wuauquikuna last year, my only other exposure to panflute music was Zamfir - a looong time ago.

I should really thank my MLA. If she wasn't such an incompetent twit, someone wouldn't have been annoyed enough to post a Simon & Garfunkel song that these Ecuadorian brothers did a cover of and posted two years ago. I wouldn't have been curious about trying different versions of the song and discovering that I really like this kind of music.

It really rubs me the wrong way when older white people say that hip-hop is just noise. No the rappers I listen to are more cultured than you are Karen

It is noise. I've always considered it just noise.

I believe the derogatory term "Karen" has already been deemed offensive on this forum, btw.

Best music in the world is generally whatever you were listening to in your teens or early 20's.

Using science I think they proved modern pop music has become more homogenized as well.

I love 90's rock and metal. Guess when I was a teenager.

I do listen to new music but it's mostly rock and metal coming out of Europe or some 90's bands who can still go.

Hm. My teenage years... 1976-1982. I'm honestly blanking on what came out when, that I liked during those years. I did learn how to instantly recognize a John Williams score, and several other well-known composers who worked on SF movies. I know I liked ABBA (my cousin had a couple of tapes, which I listened to and liked), but not obsessively. I've probably listened to more of it during the last couple of years than any other time.

Thread premise is nonsense. I'm 41 and like plenty of new music (and dislike plenty of music from "my era"). It's been shown that in general music is in decline (in complexity, originality, etc) but there is still decent stuff out there if you search for it & there are still a few decent pop songs each year.

My entire sense of "contemporary" has always been a bit skewed. As a child, I learned to like what my grandparents and parents liked, and I wasn't born at the time those songs were released.

The Partridge Family came along at the right time for me to get into it. We always watched the TV show. And years later, Shaun Cassidy performed a few songs while he was playing Joe on The Hardy Boys.

I have a few tapes of music from the "Fame" TV series. My grandfather tried to put his foot down on that; he didn't like it.

Interesting. My take away from the article was that one's musical taste is mostly set at a young age and those tastes can persist over a life time. As we age we just rationalize why our choices are the best.

Yeah, pretty much. I looked up The Mom & Dads on YT, found a couple of songs, and sat in front of the computer, a blissful smile on my face, while my fingers went through the motions of how I played them myself. The feet didn't, though. I'm not sure I could manage that now.

As for buildup, my favorite slow buildup to exciting climax song is Bolero by Ravel. Good sex track.

I first heard of this during the 1988 Olympics, when the figure skating commentators were reminiscing about the 1984 Olympics, during which Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean won gold, skating their artistic ice dancing program to "Bolero."

I wasn't interested in the Olympics in 1984, but I've since seen the clip of that program.

It's a long, slow, and very boring piece of music in my view. It just keeps wandering around and never actually gets anywhere until it's suddenly over.

Over time, the quality of music has actually dropped.

That's rather vague. Some kinds of music are indeed not as good as in decades past, because due to electronics it's easier to gloss over people who can't actually sing.

But I doubt that all music can be included.

One thing which I almost always find as very artificial and also very unpleasant, is the ridiculously formulaic structure of pop music. Particularly the "bridge" part, which in most songs seems to me to just be there as a forced injection, and often ruins the rest of the song.

Of course you can find the equivalent of bridge sections in classical music too, at times also equally conspicuous, with a similar grating effect (in my view a good example would be Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights, where likely no one cares about the bridge - and Prokofiev was a serious composer). (bridge starts at around 1.53; repeats with minor alteration later on, so possibly it's not a real bridge but has other significance in musical theory)

Iirc the above is part of a ballet, so maybe the bridge there has actual use in practice.

For some reason, I'm reminded of my arpeggio exercises I had to practice for my music exams.

I played electric guitar (as lead) and only cared about playing 1 million notes/second, instead paying no attention to theory past the most basic scales. So I can see the allure - it's just not as musical. It was one of the reasons why I gave up immediately when university started; I wouldn't have had, if I was actually trained as a musician.

Just think... you could have written songs about Kafka!

Why do new people hate old music?

Define "old".

Top 5 is not written in stone but here are some pieces:

Pastorale symphony by Beethoven (maybe at the top of my list through the years)
Morgenstemning by Edvard Grieg (Norwegian homer vote)
1812 overture by Tchaikovski (try to find one with real cannons)
Rondo Alla Turca by Mozart (in all honesty anything by Mozart will do)

And finally one that is youtubed just for you:

Now this is what I'm talking about, with Bach and memorization and making the organ an extension of your own body when you play. This guy - I never heard of him before - reminds me of what it's like to be so much in the "zone" that even breathing becomes something that's forgotten because the music is all that exists.

The only time I ever played an organ like that was at one of the studios where I had lessons, and during practice sessions when I could rent some time in the studio. This was preparing for the last grade I completed for the Western Board practical exam.

If I'd only had a spare $16,000 lying around...

I know I'm spamming this thread now but this piece is just too brilliant.

Again Gert van Hoef doing magic.

Goosebumps...

Some of those hand flourishes are things my own teachers tried to get me to do, but I preferred to keep every scrap of energy for getting my fingers where they needed to go.

Fact: A lot of keyboard music was written by men, expecting that it would be performed by men.

Fact: I have small hands, and found it quite a stretch at times - actually painful.

Yes, we do have a music thread for videos.....

And this thread appears to be about music...

I would say that anything new to the listener can be called 'new music.' I'm constantly finding old music that's new to me. One of my best discoveries of last year was Spooky Tooth's blues-rock cover of "I Am the Walrus" from 1970. I think it was played over the closing credits of HBO's Watchmen.

That reminds me: Another outstanding tool for new music is the website TuneFind. If you hear a song in a television show or a movie that piques your interest, you can search by the title and, if it's a series, by the particular episode.

Spoiler :

The video is geoblocked.


One thing I've heard often when it comes to writing is "write what you know." I actually did used to play the recorder, a long time ago. So in order to help my medieval-themed writing project along, I've been meaning to take it up again as research for incorporating this type of music into the story (the game this project is based on didn't give the main characters any sort of hobbies or any indication of what they do when they're not busy escorting the King on hunts and getting framed for murder, so I decided that they're musicians in their spare time). I am completely convinced that my very noisy neighbors deserve to listen to me practice, as I've had to listen to them being less-than-harmonious during the past almost-year.

Oh, and if you want a new way to annoy people but claim you're playing music... earlier this year I ran across some instructional videos on how to play the spoons.

 

[H4run]

Imagine when I reach 70s, my oldiest but goodies compliation are bands like Megadeth, Metalica, GnR, etc. When I was a youth, I thought as the music progress it becomes more louder and darer, so I think I gonna have a good time sharing new louder music with my kid. But yea, it turned out people now listening to tiktok music, kpop or something along that. While loud music are reserve for older generation that is mostly above 30s.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Imagine when I reach 70s, my oldiest but goodies compliation are bands like Megadeth, Metalica, GnR, etc. When I was a youth, I thought as the music progress it becomes more louder and darer, so I think I gonna have a good time sharing new louder music with my kid. But yea, it turned out people now listening to tiktok music, kpop or something along that. While loud music are reserve for older generation that is mostly above 30s.

Just from the concert vids I've been bingeing this past year, this doesn't seem to be true. Jinjer's Melbourne show, which is on YouTube, was just before the pandemic, and while you can definitely see some (literal) greybeards in the audience, they're amid crowds of younger folk. I was just looking at some vids from the Spiritbox show that was in Chicago last night, but you can't really see the crowd. I'm not really into deathcore, but I don't know if that's an age thing. I do wonder what kind of crowds you'd find at one of the big festivals, Bloodstock or Wacken, or whatever. I just took a quick glance, and Bloodstock is being co-headlined by Jinjer and Judas Priest next month. There could be some OG Priest fans bringing their grandkids.

 

[Lexicus]

It is noise. I've always considered it just noise.

I believe the derogatory term "Karen" has already been deemed offensive on this forum, btw.

I mean if you don't want to be called Karen keep your ignorant and probably racist opinions to yourself? It's pretty simple

 

[H4run]

Just from the concert vids I've been bingeing this past year, this doesn't seem to be true. Jinjer's Melbourne show, which is on YouTube, was just before the pandemic, and while you can definitely see some (literal) greybeards in the audience, they're amid crowds of younger folk. I was just looking at some vids from the Spiritbox show that was in Chicago last night, but you can't really see the crowd. I'm not really into deathcore, but I don't know if that's an age thing. I do wonder what kind of crowds you'd find at one of the big festivals, Bloodstock or Wacken, or whatever. I just took a quick glance, and Bloodstock is being co-headlined by Jinjer and Judas Priest next month. There could be some OG Priest fans bringing their grandkids.

I thought Jinjer is this female vocalist right? she's neat!

 

[AmazonQueen]

I mean if you don't want to be called Karen keep your ignorant and probably racist opinions to yourself? It's pretty simple

Except labels like Karen are used as a slur (just like labels like pinko or do-gooder or label).
What the person actually said or did doesn't matter, they're a Karen so they must be bad.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They don't consistently hate it. I think there is some emotional attachment to songs people heard when growing up, but I've seen plenty of older people enjoy music that came out after they were middle aged.

Another element is that bad (as measured as some kind of global average opinion) songs from current generation get played more than bad songs from previous generations, because generalized opinions on whether a new song is bad aren't formed until enough people hear them. Oldies stations will tend to favor popular songs from their era rather than junk. Yes, some junk today is so bad that it doesn't make mainstream in the first place, but this effect still isn't as solidified for new music. For example I can recall a song that got spammed when I was in high school/early college that had 2 lines total repeated over and over. When I hear songs from the 90s/2000s played now, that song is not spammed...instead I don't think I've heard it in the past 10-15 years at all (thankfully). But there are modern equivalents of such woofers.

Could be some issues with annunciation of words vs comprehension for older folks too. Rap music really is just noise, if you don't understand the words. If you do understand them, some songs have some funny/creative lines and cover topics in novel ways...the content of the words is very important to the format for obvious reasons. I find that lack of comprehension a surprisingly common complaint with music, and oddly I'm better at it now than when I was 18 because I listen to YouTube videos almost exclusively at 2x speed. But I bet most people > 50 don't do that.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I thought Jinjer is this female vocalist right? she's neat!

Tatiana.

Spoiler :

 

[Lexicus]

Except labels like Karen are used as a slur (just like labels like pinko or do-gooder or label).
What the person actually said or did doesn't matter, they're a Karen so they must be bad.

To be clear, I was not making a universal comment on all possible uses in all possible contexts of the term Karen.

I meant, if you don't want me to call you a Karen in this thread don't post blanket dismissals of an entire genre of music (which, I'm sure completely coincidentally, is a genre of music created by and associated with black people) as "just noise" because you've heard three songs that you didn't like.

Also, just by way of general advice, if you don't want to be called a Karen, best not to allow the people who are calling you a Karen to get a rise out of you. Because, again speaking generally, people calling you Karen probably think that your taking offense at it is extremely funny, and getting angry about it only gives them more incentive to call you Karen so they can screenshot your overwrought reactions and laugh about it with their friends.

 

[AmazonQueen]

To be clear, I was not making a universal comment on all possible uses in all possible contexts of the term Karen.

I meant, if you don't want me to call you a Karen in this thread don't post blanket dismissals of an entire genre of music (which, I'm sure completely coincidentally, is a genre of music created by and associated with black people) as "just noise" because you've heard three songs that you didn't like.

Also, just by way of general advice, if you don't want to be called a Karen, best not to allow the people who are calling you a Karen to get a rise out of you. Because, again speaking generally, people calling you Karen probably think that your taking offense at it is extremely funny, and getting angry about it only gives them more incentive to call you Karen so they can screenshot your overwrought reactions and laugh about it with their friends.

I'm just disappointed that you are using this at best lazy at worse disingenuous type of labelling.
I haven't said anthing about rap music in this thread. I like some, dislike more.
I utterly despise almost all heavy metal though.