Although we might all share a common interest in movies, though we may share a common sensibility in books, though we all might find ourselves watching TV shows like A PLACE OF EXECUTION or HOMICIDE or THE WIRE, our taste in music is probably the least predictable.
Is music the most age-dependent media? Does anyone over a certain age listen to certain types of music? My husband attended a classical music event today (Sunday) and not a single person was under age fifty. I bet a concert of current hiphop or alternative music would yield the same inverted results. Do you have an ear for any genre of music? Is anyone open to all music? Are you more circumspect in musical recommendations than book or movie or TV shows?
49 comments:
I like several kinds of music, but a lot of the current stuff isn't for me. Maybe popular music is generational. At any rate, I don't consider rap to be music. To my ear it more like chanted doggerel. I'm not in tune with the melismatic style that a lot of singers have now, either. And keep off my lawn.
I can't acquire the ear for barber shop quartets, rap, early classical music (too repetitive), chants, most opera, progressive jazz and really hard rock.
My music interest is eclectic, but my likes are tiered. What i choose to listen to on a given day depends on my mood. I love Blues, garage band rock, classical, and almost anything from the '60s, which in my opinion was the best decade for music. I really can't stand country, or what passes for it these days. Don't like Rap or really heavy metal where the singer screams non stop.
I watched the Paul McCartney New York concert show last night and in audience shots I saw a wide age range --- teens to sixties, all into it, and all age ranges familiar with the lyrics, based on my lip reading. Some music seems to cross generations in appeal. The Beatles catalogue manages to do it.
Interesting topic-what groups/genre of music pulls in the most diverse audience.
I like a wide range: hard rock(like Frank, I can't deal with that where the singer screams nonstop though), old country(not into the new country either), jazz, blues, and I actually can listen to a few rap artists, mostly those that have a bit of melody to the back music(Snoop, Doctor Dre).
Top forty I can't stand though.
For me there came a time when I had neither the time nor the desire to obsessively listen to certain pieces of music over and over again. I can sing every word to every album Joni Mitchell made through about 1987 because I used to have the time and desire to do so (ditto much by CSNY, among others). Around about the time my kids were born and were growing up, I seemed to lose touch with "modern" music. Now I'm listening to it (involuntarily) again because it's what my kids listen to--even though I try to control the radio when I'm driving (now my oldest child drives, I'm outta luck there). It's comforting to listen to the music we loved in our teens and twenties because we know all the words and remember the times. As for what I listen to now, if it's not golden oldies, it's "quiet storm" or "good for background music while eating dinner."
I think the kids at the McCartney concert were there because their parents exposed them to the Beatles. Unless they have Beatle fans for parents, most kids today do not know who the Beatles are (sadly).
I'm with Bill Crider on music. All these critics keep telling us how true and important rap is and while I'm sure a fraction of it has something to say most of it seems written by morons for morons. Tin Pan Alley for the hood. The videos crack me up especially. All those tough ass snarling guys and their wimmen--the only thing close to it is the Toby Keith school of country pop. Tobdy's gonna beat yer head in ya dont stand up fer `merica. He's sort of a white rapper but instead of bling he wants John draft dodger Wayne's kind of celluloid patriotism. I'll still take real soul music over rap and I'll still take Hank Snow over Toby Keith.
Really interesting question, Patti! I think people's musical tastes do tend to be more circumspect than their reading tastes (although I may be overgeneralizing). I know for my own part, I try to be open to all types of music, but there are some kinds I just don't choose to try to like. I don't enjoy most rap, any country or "death metal" rock.
I don't think I could name one song on the TOP FORTY. Do they even call them songs? I do go on NRP and try out whatever they have up. I have found a lot of music I like on their site.
Like Frank, my mood determines the music I listen to.
Ninety percent of my music listening is classical and original motion picture soundtracks. In the car, I listen to a classical station.
While I do listen to some indy bands - Foo Fighters, Dark Captain, Light Captain, Maroon 5 and so on, but I have to be in the right place, and want something with lyrics.
I strenuously avoid Rap and hip-hop. I remember my parents saying, in the 1950s, that rock n roll was "just noise", but darn it, Rap and Hip-Hop are just noise.
To my ears for sure. We also listen to a classical station in the car but I'd prefer NPR. Lost that battle long ago. We always talk over whatever we're listening to in the car anyway.
I grew up around a mixed-format, small-market AM radio station in the Sixties and early Seventies, so I can listen to just about anything. I'd say rap and opera are my least favorites, though.
Ten years ago when my kids were in junior high and really into what was currently popular then, I told them that one of these days, those would be their oldies. I don't think they believed me, but now they understand.
Well, I think music is quite dependent on age, but I (late forties) and my daughter (early twenties) do share an interest in classical music. I listen to it, she plays it (and is her mother proud?)
You must be proud and that is a very good way to get children to listen to classical music-teach them to play it. We took our kids to concerts when young and both of them listen to it some. But their hearts are in rock and jazz.
It's getting harder to find my oldies now. Most oldies stations play eighties and nineties stuff. I need sixties and seventies, thank you.
I'm a big listener to classical music, but my guilty pleasure is listening to SMOOTH JAZZ. Most serious jazz fans dismiss Smooth Jazz as commercial crap. But I've found it listenable and entertaining. David Sanborn, Grover Washington, Jr., Al Jarreau, George Benson, Randy Crawford, Bob James, Earl Klugh, George Duke, and Boney James make great music.
I think, Patti, that for most people, their favorite type of music was the music they listened to as adolescents and young adults. This is a very, very general statement, with many exceptions, but I think it holds true.
Music means more to us when we're very young. The world hasn't yet barged into our lives, and our concerns, while they seem all-consuming to us, are really minor. We can delve into music with everything we've got, listen more closely to it, which is after all, aimed straight at us (at that age).
But when we turn, oh, say, twenty-five or so, we subtly turn a corner. We tend to leave the importance of music behind, as we gradually take on life's responsibilities. Anyway, by then, popular music itself has changed. We can't identify with radio music quite as closely as we once could. It seems to be aimed at...at...someone YOUNGER than ourselves.
There's already been a generational shift in rap music (although most of us can't tell), and this change happens across the board in all genres. It's been going on since music was first made for kids, since the birth of rock & roll.
And it will go on for all time.
I agree with a lot of what Mike says regarding age and priorities and being a target audience. One thing though, that i did, was share my music taste with my sons while they were growing up, who in turn kept me current with the contemporary music they enjoyed. They learned a bit of music history, and i learned that there was still a lot of good stuff being written and recorded.
Regarding oldies, Patti, two words -XM Radio. They have a station for each decade, plus a half dozen others that mix the music from all decades. I love XM, though i wish they offered more stations in some of the categories. For instance, they only have one Blues station, so the mix on it is all across the board. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but i think there is enough blues out there to support two different channels. Maybe have an acoustic based station.
Some people are against "paying for what is free on the air" in regular radio, but having had XM for a year now, i can't see not having it.
The corner we turn, turns back again when our children become rock listeners. I know very well the rock music of the late eighties, early nineties. My void is just before that and everything since.
Is sirius the same as XM? My husband rejected it because there was so little classical. If he's alone, that are the channels that get a work out.
Sirius and XM were competitors who merged. So, their programming is shared. Like the Blues, Classical gets a bit short-changed on XM - only one station of which I'm aware.
We just got an offer at $6 a month. They may be on their last legs.
I recall having an aversion as a youth to the music enjoyed by my parents; irony and age combine to make me realize that their musical preferences were in many ways an improvement over my faddish 50s and 60s rock-n-roll fanaticism. Now I enjoyably embrace their "easy listening" and big-band music from the 40s and 50s, and I have little tolerance now for the my youthful, untutored preferences. Ain't life ironic!
Modern music is noise to me, devoid of melody and thoughtful lyrics. Sure, it's generational. I grew up with the big bands and their great singers. There's hardly a song sung by Dick Haymes or Helen Forrest I don't love. But I don't expect the young to like my music. they want the boom boom, and I want the melody and emotion.
R.T. - does that mean you don't get a happy chill when you hear "Ooh ee, ooh ah ah, ting-tang walla-walla bing bang..."
;-)
Richard (Robinson), I have not experienced that kind of schoolboy euphoria since I last encountered the musical witch doctor more than half a century ago. My musical tastes tend to move backwards (somewhat like Merlin the magician's life which constantly retreated into the past); instead of keeping up with current trends, I continually surrender to older trends, staying instead with the tried, true, and proven winners. Give me my XM Channel 4, and I feel partially prenatal but musically happy.
Patti, I've had XM (now Sirius/XM) for years, and I love it. I don't listen to anything else in the car. I can get old country music, just about any decade from the '40s to the 90s, and a lot of other stuff. Well worth what I pay for it, and I sure hope they don't go belly up.
I think most of us stick with the music we grew up with and branch out (in varying degrees) from there. And the fact that most of us think rap and hip hop is just noise is likely part of the appeal to young folks. It pleased me no end that my folks hated the garage rock I loved as a teen. It made the music more vital, more dangerous, and more mine.
Our problem with Sirius was they only had one classical station and one opera. My husband really likes to listen to classical music and he can get two classical stations for free.
I liked the decades channels and the news channels. We have a six month trial.
Love the big bands, especially music with early Doris Day, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney, Frank and the rest. Can't get that on any station though but I have a lot of CDs.
I was a teenager in the 60's and still love the rock I grew up with but listen to newer artists like Iron and Wine and Arcade Fire. Saw Springsteen at The Palace 2 weeks ago and still go to see indie bands at small clubs. Hate what passes for country nowadays and never warmed much to jazz(Miles and Coltrane excepted).
I'm late to the part on this one but your post brought up an interesting point. I will gladly respond when someone wants to know what book to read or what movie to watch and I feel like i can pinpoint something that person would like, I rarely recommend music though. I find it so personal and much harder to share. Mostly because I have fiercely independent tastes, much of it weird. I used to be a musician. I played in indie bands, toured a little. My cds can be found for cheap on ebay and iTunes. People didn't like us much but those that did really did, much like I respond to music. I generally eschew anything "popular". Like you Patti I couldn't tell you much of anything on the top 40 now. I don't thin that is bad. I'm also not stuck in the past. Always craving and hunting for new music. Bess the internet for making it so much easier to find new stuff.
I could go on about music for days. I hope my daughters find that moment, like I did, when music suddenly becomes your window to the world. Music changed my life. No doubt.
And yes, my iTunes is crazy eclectic. And my daughter (3 1/2) has the coolest playlist on the block. We give out cds at her birthday parties and all the parents look forward to them as much as the kids!
I guess my idea of jazz is probably considered very old-fashioned now.
I would have loved to see Springsteen at the Palace! I like Arcade Fire too after Keith's recommendation.
Yes, Eric, recommending music usually leads people to disparage it so I don't often.
I've been to two live concerts recently, Asleep at the Wheel at a large casino, and John Pizzarelli at a regular jazz concert series. In both cases, the majority of the crowd was older with many seniors. Pizzarelli had Aaron Feinstein, a young jazz violinist with him, who was new to me. The CD the two have done together sold out very quickly during the intermission. Here in Winnipeg we have a non-profit station run by a group of volunteers that plays older music with very little talk between songs. Most of the announcers had experience on radio and now do their stints for fun. In my car, I now find myself listening to that station most of the time at the expense of the CBC that continues to try to attract younger listeners with little success while losing many of the faithful.
Oh, I like John Pizzarelli. I will have to look for a CD with Aaron Feinstein. We listen to the CBC a lot. It is actually better than what we can get locally. Wish we could get the other too.
I was going to make a comment but my reply seemed a bit too lengthy - so I blogged it instead.
Patti:
You can get the Winnipeg nostalgia station on the Web at www.cjnu.ca. Because of its status, the non-profit station can't be on the air every day so at month-end it's off for a couple of days. Think the live broadcasts are back Dec. 2.
Oh, thanks, Kent. I too often forget to check on this arrangement.
Music is like travelling and often goes hand in hand with it. I fell under the sway of flamenco in Madrid and Seville, and many kinds of Brazilian popular music in Brazil. I found malouf music an ideal, restful accompaniment to sipping tea in Tunisia. I've seen and heard locals young and old singing in public in pubs in Ireland, and a klezmer band singing in Yiddish with between-songs patter in Italian in Rome. There is no end to music.
I tend to like late Romantic composers in "classical" music, people like Carl Nielsen and Sibelius. Wagner could write the hell out of a tune even though he was not one of the world's great human beings. And Bach deserves
some of what is said about him.
Patsy Cline singing "Walking After Midnight" is (almost) enough to redeem country music
But I'm just as happy listening to American singers singing Johnny Mercer lyrics (and long as Judy Garland is not among their number).
Look, 99 percent of what we hear during the course of the day is an assault on the ears, the intelligence or both. But good God, there is fine music out there.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Or Rufus Wainwright singing Judy Garland songs!
I'd give Rufus and Judy a chance, but I won't promise you anything.
I'm agin Rufus singing Judy songs. Rufus makes every song sound the same to my ears. And Judy already did that.
I'm not exactly hip to recent developments in music, so I've never heard Rufus Wainright (and tell Bill Crider to keep off my lawn).
If all the adult Judy Garland's songs sound like her nerve-racking rendition of "Come Rain or Come Shine" on the Capitol Sings Johnny Mercer album, I raise my hand and join you in the nay column.
============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Well, at least Garland was a drug addict, which has destroyed better musicians than she. Rufus Wainwright is just affected and whiny. Neither strikes me as particularly talented, in Wainwright's case despite the genetics.
Inasmuch as my love for some rap goes back to Gil Scott-Heron and SMALL TALK ON 125TH AND LENOX (released 1970) and back further to jazz and poetry by Langston Hughes and others, y'all get off my stoop. Albeit I believe I first heard "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and "Johannesburg" (the latter mostly non-rap) first on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in 1975.
Mike Dennis's point is key...I made a point of exposing myself to as much as possible musically, and so while I dislike and like artists in most styles of music, there isn't a single style that I utterly despise (though 101 Strings-style "easy listening" or any other music which is made to be ignored comes closest...other "ambient" music is quite good, and the odder extentions of "easy listening" are as amusing to me as they were to hipsters a decade or so ago). Thus, Kenny Rogers's '70s hits strike as at least as bad as anything riding the country charts today, and while AMERICAN IDOL is dire, so was SOLID GOLD and the SONNY AND CHER show, to pick just one of many examples of '70s showcases for the largely untalented (S&C being often the least bad performers on their show).
"I can't acquire the ear for barber shop quartets, rap, early classical music (too repetitive), chants, most opera, progressive jazz and really hard rock."
Dunno what you call "progressive jazz" (one of the most abused of terms) though most jazz people use it, if at all, to describe mostly Stan Kenton-style work (as in stiff and self-consciously arty). Not quite as reviled as "sci-fi" in another context, but close. Seems like you like some, from what people used to call that. Of course, I love "early music," the Baroque and its antecedents, am open to opera, love harmony singing/acapella, and am a garage rock/punk rock fan going back throughout my musical life...and love much pop of various sorts, folk traditions likewise, blues, bluegrass, "classical" from all eras, etc. Part of the problem with concerts of most sorts is that they cost the Earth, are often a drag to get to, and that it's too easy for non-passionate fans to simply find their fix electronically. Hence the concert non-attendance.
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