Was music better or have we just "Filled Up" on our quota
June 11, 2008
Someone get that Pachelbel's Canon kid a recording contract, stat.
I've been listening a lot to my 'oldies', most recently Pink Floyd (of course - pretty much all of it), Elvis Presley (natch - In the Ghetto, Always on My Mind), Pearl Jam (Uh Huh! Actually I should say Ten - In my top 10 of all time for sure), Rod Stewart (Young Turks - late seventies this guy had game. Today? Not so much, but anything in the 70s is good to go), Johnny Cash (I'm not a johnny come lately here, I own the original pressing of Folsom Prison, and it is proudly in bad shape from heavy use in the 70s), Neil Diamond (Shut-up!), The Who (Won't Get Fooled Again is the greatest Rock song of all time to this very day), Jim Croce (Time in a Bottle, please. Need anyone ever say more), Led Zeppelin (Where to start - though check out In the Evening - it's incredibly underrated, but in my top 5), Harry Chapin (One of the Best Live Album's ever recorded. It's so good I can't listen to any of his studio stuff), S&G (All of it), Joe Cocker (The Second greatest cover of all time, "with a little help from my friends": The greatest cover is of course, All Along the Watch Tower, performed by Jimi Hendrix), AC/DC: (Love it all, but damn I'm hooked on Thunderstruck - go figure.) David Bowie (Aladdin Sane), U2 (Unforgettable Fire) Audience (Haven't heard of them? Go pick up House on the Hill), but only if you also like Jethro Tull (Aqualung). Ray Charles (What'd I say), Nirvana (In Utero and Nevermind, has any other band made the impact of Nirvana has with just two albums? I know there was a third. I also wonder if Nirvana was the last great band?)
She's a nutter but I'm a hugely loving Amy Winehouse right now inserted into my oldies. However, with few exceptions I'm spending more time on the music I listened to when I was 13-23. However, the most music I purchased was from the ages of 23-33, and that music is not really factoring into my listening habits at the moment.
So, was music better in the 60s and 70s? Or am I just old? Personally I think it's because I'm old. I'm curious if others (Over 35) are finding music that they listen to more and more frequently comes from their adolescent years to early 20s.
I hypothesize that we get "filled up" with music as we discover it, and that we have little capacity for more as we age. By more, I mean storing the music mentally, emotionally, and physically (purchasing it). We like to revisit our stored favourites (that is why we store them after all) and in doing so two things result:
1. We reinforce our connection to the favourite songs, making it likely to become even more important to us, and thus require more listening.
2. We force out potential listening time to new music, making it unlikely that new music gets stored in our psyches.
Then again. Maybe it is just a phase. And soon, I'll be spinning C&C Music Factory(Yes I own it. Shut Up!)
What's your experience?
A few things at play here
I generally agree with your "filled up" hypothesis, but I think there's a few things at play here.
First is our (biological) tendency to be less open to new experiences as we age. Things that we discover during our youth tend to stick with us through the rest of adulthood. Secondly, 'familiar' songs are easy to listen to, and trigger memories that were encoded during the first times we heard the song. We (as humans) tend to like this. Thirdly, those were some pretty good albums.
However, I would argue that there is just as much fantastic music being produced by contemporary artists. If you were 20 years old today, I'm sure you would be writing eloquently about the thematic motifs in Arcade Fire, or about Vampire Weekend's interesting combination of African melody and indie rock sensibilities. We are all products of our times.
Personally, since the cost of music has dropped (to $0.00 with my trusty bittorrent client), I've never listened to as much new music as I am now. Life's too short to listen to the same song twice ;)
Totally in agreement
I might be from this generation, but truth be told, I still like my oldies. The Who, Pink Floyd, Pearl Jam, Men at Work, etc. *sigh* those were the times...
I think that circumstances
I think that circumstances surrounding when you hear a peice of music can be very influential as to whether it makes the grade in your biological memory bank.
A peice can be very evocative of a certain time in your life, you hear a track that you've never purchased that transports you to a time and place, it has associations that the songwriter never dreamed it would.
However whatever the associations it is the actual track that has to grab you,the hooks and the catches that it posseses to lodge it in your memory.
We are all influenced, and tempered by all that we hear, the stuff your parents, your siblings, your contempararies played and share3d with you, whether you gravitated towards it or not, the stuff that gets pumped out as "incidental" on the TV, the stuff that is touted by the music biz....
Information overload is not new, how many tracks have you never heard, how many tracks would an average person get to listen to in an average lifetime?
For me it goes in phases. I
For me it goes in phases. I absolutely LOVE The Cure, The Smiths, Bauhaus, Phish, and the like that I used to listen to in my teens. I also listen to much of the music my parents exposed me to – Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, Dave Brubeck, Jimmy Buffet, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, etc.
Today I listen to all of it as well as Cole Porter, Gershwin, The Killers, The Shins, Iron and Wine, Show of Hands, Garth Brooks, Thai/JPop and pretty much anything under the sun. It's all wonderful, just depends on my mood. ;)