http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeho...ing-new-music/
Pretty good article, especially the part about the "Reminescence Bump".
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeho...ing-new-music/
Pretty good article, especially the part about the "Reminescence Bump".
Interesting article, I'm sure it's accurate at a macro level. He over uses "never" and "no-one", there are people out there still looking for new music, that's one of the major joys of music, discovering new stuff. Most of the major bands I'm into these days were discovered well past my 35th birthday and many of the bands I loved in my teens I'm still fond of but to a much lesser degree.
I also dispute his argument that something that is "like band X but with factor Y" can't be better than band X. I know of loads of bands that were described to me that way and I prefer the second band over the former. Because while I still like X, the new band resonates more with me.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
I suppose I spent the 'formative period' listening to as much new/different stuff as I could find.
It has lasted for more than 40 years, I am still looking and listening for new stuff.
Pandora and other services do me a favor by suggesting new music. A lot of it has stuck with me.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain
I will sometimes take on board recommendations for new music and check them out. Most times it's something I don't particularly like, or I may like it but think it's similar but inferior to something I already have. Sometimes I put it on the back burner of my mind and may return to it at a later date. Occasionally, just very occasionally, I find something that blows me away. That's how I discovered Porcupine Tree, whom I had never heard of, let alone heard, until 2007. I mentioned to someone that I liked a lot of the progressive rock bands, and he said "Try these guys." I was hooked. Let's see, I would have been in my late 50's. I dare say most people on this forum are receptive to at least trying new music and have a similar tale to tell.
I must admit that after reading about a third of the article I skimmed very quickly through the rest. I find it bordering on offensive that this author seems to assert that what applies to him applies to everyone else. He thinks about music as a product, like a brand of shampoo or a variety of tinned soup. No doubt many people in the industry think the same way, but it's not how I think, and so I find it hard to get into his mindset.
A good article that makes a lot of sense.
It probably doesn't apply as well to music fanatics like most people in here, but that 1% doesn't drive this market.
QFT. PE members are the exception, not the rule. Most people lose interest in new music in their late 20s/early 30s when the kids, mortgage, job, start crowding everything else out.Originally Posted by Facelift
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Their interest was pretty shallow to begin with, like a friend of mine who used to like stuff like Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, etc. 35 to 40 years ago now drives around with the top 40 station playing in his truck at a barely audible volume, sometimes switching it over to the pop-country station.
That is sad but very true. It surprised me a few years back when I discovered I was the unusual one for still trying to discover new music. I really thought everyone did that maybe just to a lesser extend of a music fanatic like myself. I'm not growing tired of the search, there is always a new discovery waiting to be found.
This part I strongly disagree with:
"Why bother with new music that approximates something you already like when you can just stick with something you know you like, and thus reduce any risk of being disappointed". I'm the exact opposite. If I love Rush and Genesis, to give two popular examples, of course I'm going to be interested in bands mining similar musical territory. And they are never exact carbon copies, so I end up hearing some different things almost by accident. This causes me to explore even further. My exploration of music naturally widens, so I don't at all agree with this guy, especially his inane REM comment. No band was like them? Seriously?
In a curious way, the principles of this article point toward a future (in, say, 20 years) of popular music that is very unlike the present. Bands that came to fame in the '60s '70s and '80s will be gone by then. There are only a handful of bands who became popular enough since then to sustain recording and performing careers principally based on nostalgia, like the '70s giants still do.
A stupid article that displays the author's experience only.While I still have fondness for the music I discovered at that age -- Krautrock, prog rock, jazz, English pastoral symphonic -- it's the music I discovered much later which is closest to my heart. Pandora has been INSTRUMENTAL in exposing me to artists in my favorite genres which I never would have heard of before. Plus opening me up to lots of new genres I've never imagined in my youth.Quick: think about your favorite band/song. Chances are it’s an artist/song that you formed your affinity for during your teenage years.
Dumb article.
It's a good article, because it's true. You are trying to impute the experience of the hobbyist onto the general population, which the nearsighted in here often do.
The article is true only if you believe that the purpose of making music is to shift units and get dollars. Forbes is a business magazine, so it's the kind of opinion piece I would expect to see there.
I am slightly amused by the suggestion that music services are "wasting their time". Maybe he imagines that organisations like Amazon and Spotify employ armies of human clerical assistants who sift through order records and playlists and think "Hmmm, this guy bob_32_116 listened to a Yes album. He might fancy this band Asia, because a couple of them were in Yes. And he might like Van der Graff Generator, because they do symphonic prog that has some similarity to albums like Close To the Edge." Not on your nelly. It's all automated. They have it recorded in their database that a significant number of people listened to both Yes and Asia, so when I listen to Yes, the system recommends Asia. It costs them next to nothing to supply these recommendations, and even if only a small fraction of them hit the mark, they make it more likely that I'll remain a customer.
Well, you can't really speak for everyone, can you?
In general, I've found it is true that people revere and prefer the music of their youth. I think the article's author is probably correct in his guess, if we look at the masses.
For that which is not,
there is no coming into being
and for that which is,
there is no ceasing to be;
yea of both of these the lookers into truth have seen an end.
Bhagavad Gita
I've continued discovering new bands & music all my adult life. I still like some of what I liked during my 20's and early 30's but most of it I don't care for anymore. This year I've become a fan of The Black Angels, Pain of Salvation, Riverside, the Melvins, and just this morning I bumped into a band called Scowlin Owl and fell in love again. http://scowlinowl.bandcamp.com/ I'd be discovering new (to me) stuff whether I was a member here or not; that said, I've been at PE since it was anchored at Yahoo. I usually ignore any web music recommendations cause I know they can't predict what I'll dig.
I think this is they key quote of the whole article:
"If I’m anything more than a casual music fan, I already would have come upon The National. If I’m “only” a casual music fan, my sole purpose for being on a music service at all would be to find something I already know."
For the majority of the population, I think this article is accurate. Most people I know out there in the “normal” world, don’t care much about discovering new music and are content to listen to the same old classic rock (or whatever…) if they care about music at all. Of course there are exceptions and many people on groups like this one don’t fit the stereotype. That being said, look the amount of activity that comes up here every time a Yes or Genesis thread comes up compared to threads of new bands. There are a lot of people here who seem to be pretty content with the same old guard of prog and are not all that interested in new bands just like the article suggests.
Even looking at myself…..I am constantly looking for new music, but as mentioned in the quote from the article, I tend to seek it out myself, and not go by suggestions from music services. In fact one of the things that I don’t like about services like Pandora is that they almost never expose me to anything that I have not already been exposed too. Most of their suggestions are “safe” in that they don’t stray very far from a tight boundary of what they thing a fan of a particular artist might like. I also have to admit that although I seek out new music, most of it is at least somewhat similar to the music that I grew up with. Modern bands that do classic type rock, prog, blues etc. are what I tend to seek out, and I still pretty much ignore trends that have come along since such as Hip Hop, Rap, Electronica, techno, cookie monster vocal metal, etc.
I guess the bottom line is, I think the article makes a valid point and is pretty accurate for the majority of our society. It is not really a new concept either, as fundamentals of this article were taught in my marketing classes way back when I was in college and are used by many businesses today in industries other than just music. Hooking people with a “brand” when they are young and creating “loyalty” to that brand is as old a concept as marketing itself.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks