Why They Don’t Make Music like They Used To

Until recently, I was a member of a social media group dedicated to collecting vinyl records. Naturally, this demographic tends toward the late-middle-aged and male. There was one constant theme I noticed (besides the endless fawning over pretentious Boomer crud like Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin IV): disdain for anything new which wasn’t a rehash of a style at least 50 years old, not to mention an absolute hatred of anything even loosely “rap”.

That’s not music! It’s just rubbish! As I often commented: Wow, who died and turned you lot into our dads?

As it happens, this old person dislike for the new is nothing, well… new.

When I was a teenager, my dad wasn’t terribly interested in the music I liked. To him, it just sounded like “a lot of noise,” while he regularly referred to the music he listened to as “beautiful.”

To my dad, it was “all just thump-thump-bloody-thump”. Not like his old jazz and opera records. As it happens, I grew to like a lot of Dad’s old jazz and opera. So, why wasn’t the courtesy returned?

It turns out that my father isn’t alone.

As I’ve grown older, I’ll often hear people my age say things like “they just don’t make good music like they used to.”

Why does this happen?

As Grandpa Simpson says, now what’s “it” seems weird and scary.

We know that musical tastes begin to crystallize as early as age 13 or 14. By the time we’re in our early 20s, these tastes get locked into place pretty firmly.

In fact, studies have found that by the time we turn 33, most of us have stopped listening to new music. Meanwhile, popular songs released when you’re in your early teens are likely to remain quite popular among your age group for the rest of your life.

I may be an exception. I vividly remember listening to my nephew’s Offspring CDs, for instance. While I listen to very little hip hop, I ended up agreeing with my nephew that some of Kanye’s stuff is pretty good. I can even appreciate more extreme stuff he likes, such as Death Grips (and I turned him onto Backwordz). I got right into the obscure genre of British rap dubbed chap hop. I’m still jealous my kids saw Ninja Sex Party live, and I didn’t. We were all bitterly disappointed not to catch Death Cab for Cutie on their sole Australian tour.

But, as I say, I may be an exception.

There could be a biological explanation for this. There’s evidence that the brain’s ability to make subtle distinctions between different chords, rhythms and melodies gets worse with age. So to older people, newer, less familiar songs might all “sound the same.”

I would note that Offspring were the successful pop incarnation of the hardcore punk I listened to in the 80s. Even hip hop kicked off in the 80s when I was in my 20s. A lot of the newer music I seek out tends to be “old” style: dark country and dark Americana, for instance. Or the “nugaze” bands reviving the 90s shoegaze era.

But I believe there are some simpler reasons for older people’s aversion to newer music. One of the most researched laws of social psychology is something called the “mere exposure effect.” In a nutshell, it means that the more we’re exposed to something, the more we tend to like it.

This happens with people we know, the advertisements we see and, yes, the songs we listen to.

When you’re in your early teens, you probably spend a fair amount of time listening to music or watching music videos. Your favorite songs and artists become familiar, comforting parts of your routine.

For many people over 30, job and family obligations increase, so there’s less time to spend discovering new music. Instead, many will simply listen to old, familiar favorites from that period of their lives when they had more free time.

I suspect that this also touches on another deep, psychological reason for liking the old stuff better than the new stuff.

Psychology research has shown that the emotions that we experience as teens seem more intense than those that come later. We also know that intense emotions are associated with stronger memories and preferences.

At a time when we’re experiencing an unusual strength of emotion, the mnemonic power of music is immense. I can still vividly remember lying in the dark, listening to the Ups and Downs’ In the Shadows on the radio, for instance. Or watching the sun rise from a hilltop after a particularly crazy night, listening to Paul Kelly’s Leaps and Bounds.
So there’s nothing wrong with your parents because they don’t like your music. In a way, it’s all part of the natural order of things.

At the same time, I can say from personal experience that I developed a fondness for the music I heard my own children play when they were teenagers. So it’s certainly not impossible to get your parents on board with Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X.

Big Think

Or maybe not. Much as I tried to like Billie Eilish, she just leaves me cold. If I must listen to something new, it’s more likely to be Heilung.