. . .
“I don’t keep up with new music anymore”.
How many times have you heard your friends say that?
This phenomenon has bothered me for years. A good number of friends with whom I first bonded with through music don’t share that passion anymore. They always cite things like family, work, and time. But that doesn’t stop them from watching movies or TV. That makes sense. Watching movies or TV is often more passive than listening to music. Movies and TV come at you through your television set (and, increasingly, your computer screen). Outside of radio, one has to go to music. Music also doesn’t hand people visuals like movies and TV do.
Perhaps people simply lose the passion for music as they get older. Their temperaments mellow out, and they don’t need to show the world what music they listen to. (Interestingly, if my Facebook feed is any indication, younger folks show the world what they listen to; older folks show the world what they eat.) Even the most rebellious of teenagers turn into their parents. Aesthetic experiences no longer need to be life-changing; they need only be enjoyable. Music becomes background sound.
What interests me more, however, is the conscious choice to stop seeking new music. People draw lines in the sand: there’s no good music now, music was better when I was young, and so on. I don’t hear people saying, “I don’t want to travel to any more countries” or “I don’t want to try any more kinds of food”. But they’ll say that they are not interested in hearing new music. Why do people seek out new experiences as they age – except for music?
My overly simplistic guess is that people tie music deeply with their identities. As they age, new music is a threat from younger generations in a way that new movies or new TV shows don’t offer. They don’t like that the world has seemingly left them in the past. They are bitter that the the present does not include them.
The Onion’s AV Club has an article that does a much better job than I of addressing this “why”. It’s a conversation between two music journalists about the generation gap between music listeners. Here are two quotes:
. . .
I firmly reject the notion that “maybe music really isn’t as good as it used to be.” To me, that’s like saying “food isn’t as good as it used to be.” Maybe it’s just your diet that needs work.
People like us split music into genres and eras, but in reality, music is a continuum, formed by a long chain of artists and songs that — if you choose to follow it — will take you deep into the past or carry you into the future. Listening to “old” and “new” music side by side, in the present tense, re-affirms this view. For me, when an artist echoes another artist from 20 years ago, I’m hearing traditions being revived and re-shaped, sometimes dramatically, other times more subtly. But it’s all part of a journey through music that’s incredibly rewarding if you don’t allow tastes you established in the 10th grade to hem you in.
. . .
(Read the article here.)
I’ve had my share of “get off my lawn” moments – see here, for example. But the rational part of me sees that, like it or not, children are the future, and that more musicians than ever are releasing recordings. Statistically speaking, music cannot all suck worse than it did when you were a teenager. (Music production is another matter.) People test new ideas because they are naturally curious, and because they don’t want to breathe recycled cultural air. Those ideas may not be for you – but that doesn’t make them any less valid.
Recently I found myself facing down the future of metal, or at least a part of it. (See below.) I gave it a chance. I found that I didn’t like much of it for various reasons (slick production, annoying midrange screams/clean vocals, I’ve already heard Meshuggah). But I see that the kids are trying to push things forward. I’m glad for that. I recognize that at some point, they will fade into the future, and I’ll be hungrily seeking out jazz and classical records. They’ll be old records – but they’ll be new to me.
. . .
A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE
This is a sampler for Basick Records. They spearhead the “djent” trend, but metalcore and deathcore run through their catalogue, and all those threads are inter-related, anyway. Hearing this was a glimpse of a future in which I probably will not partake, but whose existence has merit. Uneven Structure, 7 Horns 7 Eyes, and Chimp Spanner caught my ear.
. . .
I disagree. This stuff is just cheesy — in the bad way. The future is Deathspell Omega, Abigor, Rotten Sound, YOB.
This is one of the best articles I’ve read here. And that’s saying a lot. I’ll have to think more on the larger issue you’re talking about before I have a response to it.
However, I reject the idea that djent is the future of metal. It may be a future musical movement. And it may be metal, from a strict definitional standpoint. But it doesn’t come from the same psychological/visceral/emotional place as metal. It’s not even close. And there will still be people in the future who need to make music that comes from that space. They will continue to make metal the way we like it.
My thought… more to do with the “why” people listen to less current sounds as they age than the “what” current / future sounds may be: I am 28 years old, single (i.e. no kids / wife that demand attention) and I already have found that I am simply tiring of the constant search for new music… and finding less time to dedicate to it (professional obligations, other hobbies and self-improvement projects, etc). A father / husband would have (or should have) far less time than even I. As people age, I’d imagine that it is these types of logistical constraints, more than stylistic barriers, that results in their coming to enjoy less and less of what’s current.
Cosmo, you have mentioned several times lately the amount of new music that barrages you from every angle as an “industry insider” of sorts. It is literally delivered to you whether you want it or not. As someone who participates as a consumer only, I have lived much of my 20s in genuine fear that some album — potentially my new favorite album — would slip through my fingers. I’d never hear it. So I tirelessly searched in two directions at once: the entire history of recorded music that I’d never heard (and the massive catalog of music I ~have~ heard but don’t revisit as frequently as I’d like) as well as the ever-advancing onslaught of new releases. I walked into my local record store and saw what seemed to be hundreds of thousands of albums and thought, “I’ve only heard like one, maybe two percent of what’s here. If that. It’s HIGHLY likely that in that 98% is some stuff I’d like more than anything I currently have. And next Tuesday, there will be more. And the Tuesday after that. And…” …And then I kind of gave up. Well, I’m starting to, at least.
I relish November through January more and more every year because for a good solid three months, few relevant new albums are released. It is a time to reflect and listen in relative peace to what the past year(s) has / have given us. As that realization has become more and more apparent, I have realized I can make it “November through January” whenever I want to, really. I just need to turn off the search and start to enjoy what I already have. If that means some bands are going to go unheard, so be it (Cosmo, I imagine these thoughts are not foreign to you given your upcoming changes). It also means I’m probably going to become less current on what is coming out of the faucet “right now.” I’ll let Decibel and Invisible Oranges (or some similar, trusted advisor once you’re gone) basically tell me what to listen to – let someone else engage in the search… I’ll take their word for it. Maybe I’ll just wait for Decibel’s top 40, cherry-pick what suits my fancy, and then go back to my hermitage. The bottom line is that if you cut me off at May 2011 and said I could only listen to things that came before that time, I’d still have more than I could ever meaningfully listen to, and I’d probably be more than a little relieved that the search was over. I’d be an old-balls curmudgeon and djent / “what’s next” wouldn’t mean anything to me whatsoever. Kids would come look at my Skeletonwitch shirt like it was Poison.
Also, I wouldn’t have to listen to whatever it is Morbid Angel is going to release next month. If that’s the future, give me 1993.
I would actually pose that there is struggle in music and the arts that also exists in every other part of society and culture right now: the struggle not only with money and the economy but the whole model or ideology of capitalism that has ingrained ittself so completely into every facet of our life. Crappy production and crappy bands exists because they are truly treated as commodities with little to no real ‘value’ outside of being someones quickly disposed of ‘ear candy’, to be replaced and consumed by the next new thing. How many people do you think actually truly consider the ‘value’ of art, beyond making a buck? (does it make you happy, fulfill you, heal you, connect with you in some way?). Maybe people stop listening to new music because this ‘commodification’ instinctually bothers them, although they may not be congizant or even aware of it. I’m not saying the last 100 years of music hasn’t been chock full of crooks and shysters looking to make a quick buck. I’m just positing that music these days has become a commodity almost indestiguishable from other forms of consumable media, be it movies, video games, facebook, twitter, etc. Some people have been taking a long hard look in the mirror since the crash, and thinking about what really matters to them. When we live in an era filled with so much absolutely disposable stuff that exists for the sole intent for us to purchase and consume…a ‘real’ band like Iron Maiden becomes a salve, an alternative, something better than the current choice. Just ask Lagy Gaga, right?
I think it’s also why the whole new folk movement has become so popular, or retro trends like Steam Punk. Real values become more attractive in a fake world, even if those values themselves are borrowed, assumed, or come from another time.
What bothers me FAR MORE are people who (while not admitting it) won’t listen to anything they consider old. So freaking stupid.
The title describes almost all my friends. Depressing.
I think you cover most of the reasons why, though. As teens, so much of existence is a violently assertion of the image we want to project, and at that age we’re all convinced we’re so unique that we have to make every effort to live up to our special-fucking-snowflake status. Music, and especially subscribing to genre lifestyles, is a quick path to “individuality”, or so we think as we put on the uniform of a given genre. Seems like for most folks, once they’ve defined and accepted who they are, they don’t feel the need to venture outwards.
I’ll be honest, as I get older I get more frustrated sifting through shit I dislike, to the point where I don’t put nearly the effort I used to. What I find interesting is the way I now focus my energy, musically speaking. Metal is not my favorite genre — I’ll always prefer several strains of rock and roll more, stuff like psychedelic, jangle pop, dream pop, goth, indie, etc. But at least 75% of the “new music” I’m into is metal. I’m not sure why that is. I still peruse Pitchfork now and again, but I’m uninterested in almost anything they write about. I just did a quick itunes tabulation: of the 51 records I own from 2011, 39 of those are metal. It’s not necessarily that the metal stuff is newer or more groundbreaking, but somehow it doesn’t feel as stale. I can’t quite wrap my head around the why, but part of me is turning into one of those old men.
It’s funny how the whole emocore/deathcore/whatevercore is what seems to be thought of as the ONLY thing to consider when talking about kids getting into Heavy Music. It’s like looking at the late 80’s and talking about Glam/Hair Metal and ignoring everything else going on.
Actually, I think TomB nails it: that search for the unheard favorite album is exactly why I was so hungry for music when I was younger. Stumbling onto that new band and realizing how amazing they are, and knowing you’ve got a whole new catalog of material to dig through is magical. Despite having that music forever once you’ve found it, the thrill comes from discovering it with new ears. The older I get, I keep trying to replicate that feeling, but it rarely happens. At a certain point that dread beast ‘acceptance’ creeps into the picture, and it’s hard to justify spending so much time, energy, and money.
For me, part of it is losing a specific interest in new music while maintaining an interest in new-to-me music. Sometimes this new-to-me music is new, but most times it is not (there is far more music from the past than this year). As I get older, I’m MUCH less interested in the scene, and cool clubs, and keeping up with fashion, etc. Part of the scene is the newest in new music, so I’m less interested in that. I still love hearing something new, but it doesn’t matter so much to me if I get it when it comes out, or a year or two later. Furthermore, I feel freed up to spend time and energy checking out older music I never knew much about (for example, I’ve been exploring reggae and dub for the past few years, most of it from the 70s).
I can understand the desire to be on the cutting edge of a scene, but it’s a lot of work, honestly. Once the appeal of a lot of that work wears off, staying up to date with the music seems less critical. I suppose I can see catching bands live as a good reason to be up-to-date, but I don’t go to shows very often anymore.
Thanks, Cosmo. This is another brilliant, needed insight. I think every music nerd (as I believe most readers of IO are) have stumbled on the issues you raise here. I did and still do, almost on a daily basis.
I lol’d here: Aesthetic experiences no longer need to be life-changing; they need only be enjoyable. Music becomes background sound. I once was a 12-yo kid who found Life through metal. Today I’m 33 and am working my way to become an ambient/electronica producer.
I too can relate to TomB “search for the unheard favorite”. That’s exactly how I feel most of the time. I’m so deeply addicted to music that the simple thought of passing in front of a gem and never discovering it scares the shit out of me. I can remember the adrenaline jolt of the very first seconds of an album that changed my perception of music and art and life — I could say Sabbath’s Vol.4, or Sepultura’s Arise, or Gorguts’ Obscura, or Spiral Architect’s A Sceptic’s Universe – or Wes Montgomery’s Full House — and this is just like any drug addiction. I need to feel it again.
I still try to discover at least half dozen new bands/musicians a week. Most of them won’t ever leave the realm of youtube/myspace/bandcamp/etc of my computer. Sometimes though, something will shine. Even rarer, I’ll find something really unique – a curator like IO helps a lot (and I’ll say thanks for Grayceon once again). But most of the time, it’s just “been there done that” and I’ll come back to my favorites.
In my short life story I never settled for a genre. As time passed I started listening to drum n bass, jazz, math rock, noise, electronica, glitch, japanese underground music – never leaving metal behind me – and only later I could see a pattern: experimentalism, avant-garde, breaking boundaries. That’s what compels me. That’s why I feel that most metal music done today is just dull. Maybe the search for success is bigger. Maybe there’s less will for experimentalism (the honest, right kind of). Maybe metal really became a commodity. I’m not sure. But I’ll pass the djent and listen to Krallice, because it surprises me. And you can hear the musicians saying “Hey, let’s go someplace nobody has ever gone before. And destroy it”.
People will settle for old standards because they have formed their identity, found other more important things to do? Sure. It also shows they’re happy with what they got, and don’t want to think about it anymore. Why do someone ever listens to FM radio? At least here in Brazil, you’ll only get shit over shit in your ears. How can someone settle for that? Because they don’t care about music, I think. And your article questions why do this happens to some guys that used to be on “our league”. I don’t know, but I sure know that they stopped caring about music. This may sound corny, but if you love it, you won’t ever stop digging. Whatever genre appeases you at a given moment. This of course can be said about any passion in life. To me it’s hard to accept that most people will be satisfied with whatever is thrown at their ears, or turn to stone with what they got in the past. Because I think we’re talking about art, and if you stopped searching for the art that will expand your horizons, you became just another robot. I know I need art to put my life in perspective, surprise me. And even that I, somehow sadly, notice that I listen to less and less metal music as the years go by, it won’t stop me searching for the hidden gems. I won’t let my brain get comfortable. The only way I know to make my world get bigger is through art, and music is my favorite form of it.
(Also I dream of loving and marrying a musician. Hope she’s pretty.)
(sorry about the long story filled with English mistakes. usually I write and spellcheck the giant comment and sigh and close notepad without posting. but fuck you today, super-ego.)
One thing’s certain–band names these days have really gotten terrible. Don’t get me wrong, odd can be good, and the old standby of naming your band with a verb+adjective is fine if it works. But most of it is headscratching. Every time I see a marquee with these band names on it (which is basically every metalcore and its derivative like Job For A Cowboy horseshit) I cringe hard. As a music freak pushing 40, I simply have less time to give a listen to something when I can’t get past a shitty name or artwork, and thats ALOT. This rule has worked pretty well for almost thirty years no matter the genre. Add that to the fact that separating the wheat from the chaff became so much easier with the Internet, as well as tracking down “old” stuff (as you stated Cosmo, old means nothing if its new to you.) Its still amazing to me what can be done with 12 powerchords, or a sampler, or some instruments. Not to mention that all this has happened while school funding for music programs has basically died, record companies are going the way of the dinosaur along with a glut of other activities vying for all our collective attention like video games, shitty Facebook and others. Thats hopeful. And it keeps music freaks like me going.
I’ve never been busier in my life than I am these days, but I can’t help but seek out new music. I’m sure there are people expecting me to give up “the metal thing” now that I’m a husband and father…nope!
Most of those posts were too long to read, but the gist of them based upon how long they were is hilarious. Djent isnt the future of metal is totally wrong- have you heard the most recent blut Aus nord and death spell omega records? They are djent black metal. Apparently death core is going pretty djent now too. It’s never not funny how old people complain about kids these days and how what they say never changes. “this thing that sounds different isn’t the future, that thing that sounds like it came out 20 years ago is!”
Most of my friends “don’t keep up with metal anymore”, and what I notice is these are people I didn’t know when i was younger and just starting to learn what i was into. . .and all that time I didn’t know them, they were IN that scene. They were at the shows, some of them were in bands, they were immersed deeply in all of it.
….and they’re burnt out on it already. Some of ‘em aren’t even 30 yet and they’re burnt out already.
I don’t know why I still get excited about new music at 31, and it still surprises me when some of these new bands come out and do stuff that i think is really excellent (like that band A Dark Orbit).
I don’t believe there will ever NOT be anything good to listen to that’s new. I just don’t.
I can see how it might seem that way, but like I said, I still find stuff (and lots of it) to get excited about.
I only know maybe 5 or 6 other people who feel that way.
Most of my friends “don’t keep up with metal anymore”, and what I notice is these are people I didn’t know when i was younger and just starting to learn what i was into. . .and all that time I didn’t know them, they were IN that scene. They were at the shows, some of them were in bands, they were immersed deeply in all of it.
….and they’re burnt out on it already. Some of ‘em aren’t even 30 yet and they’re burnt out already.
I don’t know why I still get excited about new music at 31, and it still surprises me when some of these new bands come out and do stuff that i think is really excellent (like that band A Dark Orbit).
I don’t believe there will ever NOT be anything good to listen to that’s new. I just don’t.
I can see how it might seem that way, but like I said, I still find stuff (and lots of it) to get excited about.
I only know maybe 5 or 6 other people who feel that way.
I hate this mentality, there are always bands pushing the borders of different genres and if I didn’t constantly hunt and reevaluate things I would miss out on great albums. For instance if I was stuck on Emperor and Mayhem I wouldn’t have hit Diamatregon and Horseback and been blown away.
I think That Metal Show is a prefect example of what happens when you stop that search. Those old guys (sure they aren’t that old but they really sound like it) are squarely stuck in their time frame and refuse to acknowledge that there is much of anything happening post Metallica’s black album. The old still has a place of importance, but stagnation is a killer and even failed experiments (looking at you nu-metal and hopefully soon this core movement) can offer insights and shake loose some ideas.
Cosmo-
Have you read this book? http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0452288525/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306462571&sr=8-1
There is a science behind why people like the music of their teens and twenties the most.
I dig an dig every year finding less and less that I really like.
I am 36 and I find myself more fanatical than ever. It is almost becoming an obsession. That said, if the future of music sounds like the tracks posted, then my fanatism might wane pretty soon.
I have felt this way for a long time with friends, most of whom don’t listen to extreme music, but just aren’t interested in anything new in any genre. I returned home to metal a few years ago and have been in a bit of a frenzy like IgnacioBrown trying to devour old and new stuff at once but have been slowing down to really let stuff sink in. But yeah, new to me is still exciting. It just makes me wonder if anything new to me can rise to the level of favorites like those in my “high school” playlist that I decided to compile a few months ago and find myself dipping into every so often when I need that jolt.
@ Wash Jones
“that search for the unheard favorite album is exactly why I was so hungry for music when I was younger. Stumbling onto that new band and realizing how amazing they are, and knowing you’ve got a whole new catalog of material to dig through is magical.”
Even at 38 I still feel this way. Love the article Cosmo, hate the “old is best” attitude. it’s all relative to where you are at the time, the space your mind occupies. I often feel overwhelmed by the excesses of output, but manage to find enough that’s exciting and innovative to keep me 1000% engaged. never enough time, but always in pursuit of opportunity!
Let me sup up what’s been said so far:
1. Saying djent is everything that’s happening now is like saying hair metal was everything from the 80’s. (Thanks, TheWolf.)
2. People who stop digging never really cared that much in the first place.
3. There’s something to savoring what you already know.
4. It’s too much work, and it’s easier to let others do the legwork for me–so waiting for year-end lists or just checking trusted sources is best.
I see the value behind each of these observations. But let me give my own story, in very brief form. I was a teenager in the late 90’s. Nu metal was king, for me, and basically everything I found was mainstream. This was pre-Internet (practically speaking, because it wasn’t what it is now), and I didn’t know anyone who listened to extreme metal. It was all I knew, and I had no way to discover Entombed, for instance. As I got older and started to discover the world of extreme metal, I’ve become more and more immersed in this world. On the other hand, all my friends have stopped listening to any kind of metal. This may have nothing to do with it, but I’m not their friend anymore. (In fact, I don’t really have any, nor do I need them.) At one time, for me, metal was a way to connect with other people. Now, I’ve found it only separates me from them. But I care about music more than friendship. At 29, I have family, and I’m trying to make metal a part of that as much as I can.
Music is, for most people, a social thing, so discovering new stuff is a way to make friends and build new relationships. Teenagers and young adults are concerned with that. Once their connections are made, then discovering new music can break those bonds. They stop looking because they want to maintain the relationships and the status quo. People in their late 20’s and older are concerned with that. But it’s not social for me, and never was–that aspect was incidental to the music–so I will continue to discover new music.
I am a jaded metalhead who has little concern for most of the ‘new’ music released these days. Outside of its novelty value, most of what I discover online or trough friends rarely has a lasting effect on me. I erase 95% of what I download and usually buy the LP version of the albums I like. The ‘classics’ I listen to still serve their roles perfectly and can hardly be dethroned by new comers. On a sonic level, I am not that interested into newer production techniques. I rarely hear bands writing good songs these days, I hear (some intricate but hardly catchy or memorable) riffs collages. I rarely go see bands live because, after seeing thousands of them over the last 20 years, it’s all the same (guys trying to recreate their album with unfavorable conditions). I no longer buy band merch because it’s all the same flashy colors, horror-like graphics and huge prints. I no longer visit band’s myspace, bandcamp and facebook pages… I am no longer a fan boy.
I am 36 years old and I feel comfortable being a jaded metalhead who still think the best stuff out there got released between the late 70s and stopped around the turning of the new millennium.
my opinion is this: i think the “lack of interest” in music is something natural in our socials. or in the point of “comsume” in the culture is very demanding on searching in another areas. the world is huge! the universe is more huge! so maybe the interest of people when they grow up (just a point) is that the wolrd is something else in terms of art and or science the things are building a better and beatiful world but at the moment of choose the path of our live in a productive way our horizon becomes “smaller” not for the lack of interest in art in this case in the form of music. i agree about that our life become more demandant for the amount of information coming everywere and not try to listen to more music. our society demant other things, thats rigth! or at least if you are a musician or a journalist the search is bigger than if you not.
“Aesthetic experiences no longer need to be life-changing; they need only be enjoyable. Music becomes background sound.”
wow! for me is like a danger sing is just people are going to transform themselves in uncolorless paletes… at aged our taste for aestetics becomes refined and in every aspect or topic is life-changing. is the manifestation of the spirit of the human being.
maybe we need to be more concious about what we buy from the culture, in how we spent more time searching for another things instead of music, ironicali it might be the way to preserve it, in our days of lisetenrs to come…
in our days as lisenters to come…
Djent? I totally missed when this became a seperate sub genre. I read the wikipedia page…I still think I’m missing the concept.
You hit the nail right on the head when you said its tied to their identity. to aquire a new taste would threaten who they are. Adolescence…its with you for life.
one thing is clear from all of this, regardless of old or new:
metalcore/deathcore/etc. = “metal” that is played by people whose clothing styles, tattoos, and music tastes change frequently over time according to trends that may even factor in pop culture a bit, and whose fanbase is a bit more open to females. in a couple years their clothes will have changed, the band naming conventions will have changed, the music will ripping off a different section of “real metal”, and 50% of the previous fans will have graduated to “real” metal…. perhaps trying to play with actual death metal bands, or perhaps looking a bit sketchier and forming a doom band.
“real” metal = metal played by people who generally like what they do regardless of outside non-scene influence. the trends within the “real” metal scene (say, resurgence of old-school doom/death metal) are largely confined to within this metal scene itself. in a couple years, the people will still be there, wearing the similar shirts, with many of the same fans still there, and undergoing only slight metamorphosis.
Music is more affective when we are younger. Because of this we are forever afterwards chasing the dragon. We will never catch it again in the same way. That is not to say that new, great musical discoveries are not possible, but the magic of DMDS or Storm of the Lights Bane will never be quite the same. Nostalgia and memory enhance all things…queue Proust.
Tom Warrior made a good point (can’t remember the source interview) that to give up on surrounding yourself with art, with life, is to essentially opt out of living. We should continue to experience art, music and expect great things from it. We should also ask ourselves what we are really expecting from our art. This could help us aim our search.
As we age, our lives change and what we expect from it changes. This projects onto every other aspect of life, including art and how we view it. Why search new metal bands when they are simply riffing on Mayhem and Dissection, for example, which will never be as good as they once were thus the reiteration of those tropes will always be disappointing, when we could be looking towards art that is more suited for where we are as a person, different (perhaps) from where we were as a 17 year-old. But, to do this, to find new, satisfying experiences we must continue to surround ourselves with music and art, which help give and contextualize meaning to our lives (whether through idiosyncratic means or a social one).
I agree that many people feel this way, but think it’s a shame. I am 40, married, two kids, full time job, etc and i am still as excited to get turned on to new music as ever. And the Internet makes it so easy to find new and exciting and interesting stuff. I probably don’t BUY as much as I once did, things like Pandora and Bandcamp and streaming radio (and ok downloading!) make it easy to hear so much new stuff, but I think that it’s a real shame that a lot of people in my generation give up being turned on by new music and new bands.
Ha! I know the guy who wrote that AV article. Will share this with him, sure he’ll get a kick out of it.
Excellent article. I can identify somewhat with it in terms of where I’m heading musically – I’m still only 26 and in one sense, I am beginning to mellow. I was pretty much exclusively into heavy rock and metal up until about the age of 23, maybe 24. I was getting deeper and deeper into sludge and doom territory – helped by joining a doom band. As a consequence of joining this band, I sought out alternatives amongst rock and metal that were a world away from the heavy, trudging stomp of the doom march.
It was around that time I started listening to bands like Jesu and Soulsavers – the latter’s last album had Mark Lanegan on vocals and it really just blew me away. From then on, it seems I’ve opened up more and more to music outside of metal, sometimes to explore old tastes again, other times just as coping mechanisms with the daily stress encountered.
A part of this exploration undoubtedly stems from trying to keep up with new music. It is getting harder and harder to dig new bands. I too am not sure about this technical metal thing – I hate the word ‘djent’, so lazy – and reckon it’ll soon pass. Although I do like Tesseract. But I have kids on the way, and I am keen to pass on my metal knowledge in years to come. I don’t want to lose it.
So conversely, I still feel fuelled to search new music. I still get the ‘wow’ factor when I hear some I find awesome for the first time. I still remember encountering Weekend Nachos for the first time. I was just drawn to the name. The first time I heard ‘Nights’ was just excellent. Since then, I’ve come to be a bit on the fence about them – I didn’t think ‘Worthless’ was the kick ass hardcore album of the year that I was expecting. Similarly with Wormrot – I credit them for helping me get properly into grind music – I had tried before and it effectively started and ended with Napalm Death, Brutal Truth and Pig Destroyer.
I’ve always been taught by my Mum and Dad to be open-minded towards music and I still possess this mentality today. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to lose that spark. But it sure is a struggle. I started a blog earlier this week to fuel that spark, and I hope it grows into something other than a facility for somewhat belated reviews of various albums this year.
Although with friends around my age seemingly less and less interested in the new, that’s proving a difficult task. It feels somewhat against the grain and while it’s a struggle, it’s not one I wish to lose. And so I’m eternally searching for that awesome new band that ticks all the right boxes.
I’ll speak from my own experience, as well as from witnessing whats happened to many a friend, as we sail into our 30’s:
1) Life has becomes more of a routine…I’m no longer passing through successive years of school, or excited by new career prospects, and when chages DO happen, they’re often attached with responsibilites. So find that there’s less meaningful stimulation going around.
2) Everything’s derivative of something else: the longer you’ve been around, the more you’ve heard the same thing over and over. When you get on the train early on in your life, everything’s new….as you grow older, stuff seems to get rehashed.
3) In many respects, technology is changing things for the worse. Music is too easy to make and distribute, and there’s just too much stuff floating around out there.
4) Maybe everything wasnt always ‘great’ when we were younger…it was just all new to us and we didnt know any better.
5) It takes effort to be open to newer stuff that may be new and exciting to you when you get older; i think most people think it should happen automatically, and when it doesnt, they figure its the end of the line. More often, this involves discovering a new genre of music, and not so much discovering newer stuff within metal.
6) you cant go to shows as often, and therfore fall off a bit.
I’ll end this by saying although I’ve struggled to keeop things fresh and often think music is getting worse, there is always something out there that keeps me going and gives me hope. Nowadays, its more John Cage or Brutal Truth then anything more mainstream.
For me, I think it’s a couple of things:
1) it’s easier to identify with musicians (and therefore their music) who are close to my own age. New music is usually being made by younger people.
2) tastes change – it’s never just about the music… or at least, it’s as hard to ignore the non-musical things that prevent me from embracing one band as it is to recognize the non-musical things that make love another. There are more of these things in each column as I get older.
With that said, new stuff still makes an impression on me.
I say this as a 35-year old with 2 kids who used to spend every weekend music shopping and once went to 5 live shows in a week. But that seems like a long time ago. I’m mostly into metal, rock, jazz and electronic music, so fortunately there’s enough of that, new and old, to last me the rest of my life.
I don’t think there’s any one future of metal. It’s going to continue to splinter in multiple directions as bands add outside influences and/or expand on ideas only touched on in the past. However, I don’t see metal evolving very far beyond what already exists, because anything that does simply won’t be considered metal. Even the tracks above don’t sound like anything I haven’t heard before. The elements are just rearranged a little.
Lots of interesting theories here about why people stop listening to new music. For my part, I’m confident that there’s enough good music old and new (both metal and non-metal) that I haven’t discovered yet to keep me occupied for the rest of my years. I probably buy somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 LPs /CDs a year, and, at that pace, I’m not likely to exhaust the existing archives of good music anytime soon, let alone scratch the surface of the good stuff that has yet to be recorded and released. I’m also fairly omnivorous in my tastes, so I’ve got that going for me, I guess.
Full Metal Attorney’s comments about music being a social thing for most people make a lot of sense (this is presumably why people won’t shut the fuck up at shows while bands are playing, as they’re not really there to listen to the music). Maybe my relative open-mindedness can be attributed to the fact that music has never been an identity thing for me. In high school, I listened to stuff like the Jesus Lizard and the Melvins after going to a couple of shows with an older friend from church (of all places) and having my impressionable mind completely blown. None of my friends from school or the neighborhood where I grew up liked the stuff I did, and my repeated attempts to get them to get into it were unsuccessful. When I wanted to go to show (and I went to a lot of them), I either went alone, went with the aforementioned older friend (who wasn’t really a peer), or drug along whatever unsupsecting teenage girl I was dating at the time. To the extent that I felt a part of a community, I got that by reading zines and talking to record store clerks whose recommendations I trusted, which is the same sense of community I get from my visiting and commenting on this site.
Nowadays, I’m a grown man whose career requires me to move around a lot and whose colleagues / peers mostly listen to classical and jazz. I would love, love, love to work in a department someday with a bunch of metalheads, but I’m not counting on that ever happening, and that’s okay by me. I’m perfectly content to check out new and old music, chat about what I like with people here, and go to shows with my wife (who, lucky for me, has an open mind and happens to like metal). I can’t see myself ever stopping doing any of that, though I am going to be sad if this site goes away.
1) I’m 41 and, like Cosmo, am “rediscovering” old albums (“They’ll be old records – but they’ll be new to me”) or discovering a new/old genre and diving into it, like Dark Ambient.
2) Sometimes I discover a new band that I really like (Pig Destroyer, for instance), but mostly I just crave new albums by old bands or projects by my favorite band’s members: Triptykon, Shrinebuilder, Melvins, Napalm Death, Om, the reformed Alice in Chains…
3) As I get older I become more cynic/demanding and most new music or styles sounds like a really bad rehash to me or just plain crap.
I’m only 25, but I’d been thinking about this very issue recently, and I realized that I can pinpoint a time around the age of 22 when the number of my mind-blowing musical discoveries started to slow down. 17-21 was an exceptionally fertile period, and I devoured music so ravenously during those years that by 22 I’d basically heard plenty of examples of everything I love. I never stopped exploring, but most things after that point just got compared to the definitive albums I’d already fallen in love with.
I became increasingly aware of this as I started noticing that my end-of-the-year album lists were predominantly populated by artists that I already really liked. Nothing wrong with that, though. Some of them continue to top themselves. Even if their new stuff will never be my sentimental favorite, I still hear bands I like sharpening their craft with recent releases.
I think there are going to be albums from the past couple years which take on a new meaning for me when I move into the next phase of my life. I’ve been living abroad for the past two years, and a lot of the new music I’ve been hearing during that time is probably nostalgia-in-waiting. It’s stuff that just seems merely “good” at the moment, but is probably going to induce plenty of great memories and emotions a few years down the road.
Someone above pointed out that after a certain point in life, most things become routine without any major, exciting change in sight. I guess that’s what I’ve still got going for me now as a listener. If I were settled into a solid career, owned a home, etc, the occasions for new music to become a nostalgic bookmark would be far fewer. The memories we attach to music are probably as large a factor in our lasting enjoyment of music as the music itself. Perhaps some semi-regularity of change in life is necessary to continue solidyfing memories.
Oops, last sentence edit: to continue solidifying those** memories.
Once in a while Death Breath emerge with new songs and I’m good again, thanks.
Total Fucking Destruction’s work on bending grind into party music is a pretty cool new twist if you ask me.
But overall, with a family and jobs and band, etc. etc. it’s harder to spend the time. I think those of us who are really musically curious do it anyway, and share our findings with our friends. That’s really the trick in my books, find others who can share the ’search’ with you, since you’ll not only find new music but get exposed to different ‘taste boundaries’, if you will.
It’s also pretty useful to actually go see a live show more than once a decade when one of the crusty 80s superbands come through town on a reunion tour. New bands tour, go see ‘em. The door is almost always cheaper than buying a CD, and for one price you can usually see 3-4 bands. And that is where you will likely meet the people doing the kind of musical search you yourself are into.
@Crack and Mack and Full Metal Attorney: Well spoken–I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be a teen these days just coming in to music–pretty strange and varied, and any cursory look at today’s music fans kinda reflects that: a mash up of all styles, or more accurately, a “fash up”–punky hairstyles, skinny jeans, ironic t shirts and hip hop accents. Blasphemy! When I was coming up, I had one ‘uniform’–black tees and denim. That was it. My brother, who is 7 years younger than me, spent his high school years in the mid to late 90’s and came home with awful music–he was dating a chick in love with Billy fucking Corgan, but thankfully, all it took was exposure to one Minutemen album and that was it–he’s now more of a music freak explorer than I am, and I imagine he’ll be that way forever. He’s not a metal guy, but that’s cool, as we can share other music. The “exploration virus” may not be spread far and wide, but for those who have it, it’s deep.
Love this site!
I am 38, married with kids. Metal saved my sorry teenage ass and I lived for Metal in the late 80’s early 90’s. I dug deep and found some great music. In my mid twenties the fires of my passion died down but the embers were still there, I would still go back to the old school tunes at times of need but essentially I was in a kind of dark age where I didn’t actively look for new music. I’ve now emerged from that dark age and am actively digging up gems that I missed. I get the same kick from bands like Arsis and Sylosis as I did from Sepultura and Bolt Thrower.
There was a time (in my early thirties massive responsibilities emerged) when I thought I couldn’t stomach anymore extreme metal genres, but I was wrong. For me, I think it may have something to do with life stress, more stress = more need for metal = more time devoted to the cause.
I can’t claim to have an expansive knowledge of all metal that has ever existed anymore, but back in the pre web days there just wasn’t the sheer volume of music, now there is so much and it is so easily accessible it’s hard to keep up but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t quality.
Also, of all the metal blogs on the web, I think IO strikes the best balance between the old and new. A lot of music journalism exists either to promote new releases or to provide a nostalgiac refuge for aging fans of a given genre. IO, by contrast, is much more than just a nostalgia trip or a medium through which to market new music. I’ve discovered a lot of new music here, and I’ve also (re)discovered old music with which I thought I was already familiar. The post about KEA from earlier today is a case in point. I’ve listened to that album countless times, but now I will listen to it in a new way.
I enjoy a fair amount of new music, but in a detached way, like research or people-watching. It’s cool to hear new ideas, and to look for patterns in humanity’s wriggling mass. But creating my own music is usually the only experience that comes close to what it felt like when I first heard the stuff that created ME as a metalhead. So, I’ve stopped behaving as if the fate of my soul hinged on getting a new album. It’s more important to play guitar (and to listen to what’s inside, awww).
@ Fe0: Many times when I read interviews with bands in Decibel or Terrorizer, I’m amazed at how little they know about current music. I think you’ve just explained why that is so. Thanks!
For me it seems that there are too many bands to keep up with. It’s overwhelming and at this point i really focus on the music i make. Between two bands, working, housework, and my g/f i just don’t have the time or the drive to seek out new stuff anymore, and again, there are just SO MANY bands putting out stuff now. When hammers of misfortune put a new record out, i’ll check it out, and i’m REALLY curious to hear the new morbid angel cause the speculation about it is kind of hilarious, but i just don’t have the time or the cash to seek out stuff like i did back when i was in my twenties.
That said, i miss the feeling that i used to get when i would hear a record and it would blow my mind. i remember when i got into death metal, and specifically altars of madness when i was in 8th grade. or when i bought the weakling record at a garage sale in portland back in 2001. or for that matter, hearing bad brains when i was like, 10.
My explanation for today’s discussion topic is that people who claim they have stopped keeping up with new music or whatnot, have never actually been music fans; perhaps they were fans when the circumstances required it, but tossed music aside once the situation was solved.
“My overly simplistic guess is that people tie music deeply with their identities. As they age, new music is a threat from younger generations in a way that new movies or new TV shows don’t offer. They don’t like that the world has seemingly left them in the past. They are bitter that the the present does not include them.”
This is most interesting facet of this whole discussion. I’ve been constantly having this debate with my band members and wife, all of whom are very skilled musicians in various capacities, most of whom are adherents to the “get off my lawn, you damn kids” attitude, with regard to newer music. I’m still pondering this whole idea though and there is much to think about. As for me, I’m the person, amongst my peers, who is still most interested in music, new or otherwise. As an arrogant youngster, I swore that I would love it ’till the day I died. At this point, I seem to be one of the very few of my peers that such a statement actually applies to.
To whatever degree music was a component of establishing my identity as a youth, I suppose that in some manner it was always something more than that to me. I’ve also heard many other friends that have commented on how music was such a soundtrack to the events in their lives. Again, music was always something that transcended the current events in my life, transcended who I was, what I wanted to be, what I thought I was. This transcendent component that I’ve been experiencing from AC/DC and Kate Bush through Ludicra and Fever Ray is what drags me forward, into the headspace that always seems to be just a little bit…beyond.
I think alot of “new” metal sucks ass. A lil ’bout me: 40, married, 2 small kids, grew up with Sabbath, Kiss, AC/DC, Priest, Maiden, Metallica ect., play in bands, been to gazillions of shows ect. Why do I think it sucks? Too much shit going on in the same song. Too many colors, too many sounds vying for attention. Blast beats? Why not listen to a machine gun with a dog barking over it? It’s like today’s video editing. Too much, too fast, more more more. Mastodon, High on Fire, bands like these have the right idea. Pushing things forward….SLOWLY. One foot in the old with one in the new. Shit, I didn’t like 80’s art at all and I’m a child of that generation. Just because I don’t like most of today’s metal doesn’t mean I’m a curmudgeon. It just doesn’t inspire me. It makes me yawn in pretension.
Wow,pretty good thought provinking piece. I find myself in a similar situation as a lot of folks above me. Early 40s,listener of metal for 30 years,still going strong! Not nearly as many shows,but i still get out there. The classics of the mid eighties still sound as fresh to my ears as they did when i was a teen. Its really the exitement of hearing a new Opeth,new Enslaved etc that keeps me interested. The whole djent/deathcore thing i dont particually get,but at least ill give it a listen.
@Dogg”
>”The future is…Abigor”
I think they stand outside all genres, evaluations of the progress of metal, etc. They’re just on their own, I believe they always have been. Imagine a band trying to somehow replicate their latest album. Eek!
But RE: not listening to new(er) stuff, most of the few black metal bands I still listen to these days (DSO, BAN, Inquisition, Katharsis, Abigor, Negative Plane) are either producing work that constantly moves forward (or in Inquisition’s case the material is just good no matter what) or are evolving along their own path without looking back at all.
People who don’t listen to new music are just set in their ways and know exactly what they like. I think it’s better to listen to “classic” albums that defined a certain sound/style than listen to all the replicants out these days who never, in any way, match the masters. Just my opinion. There are Sabbath fans, for example, who refuse to listen to anything past THAT band. Oh well.
lol at “I’ve already heard Meshuggah”
@Chris Dalton:
“To whatever degree music was a component of establishing my identity as a youth, I suppose that in some manner it was always something more than that to me. I’ve also heard many other friends that have commented on how music was such a soundtrack to the events in their lives.”
Which I suppose is why the cliche of “you’ll always love the music you loved when you were 16″ exists.
When I’m 90 years old I’ll still be blasting Napalm Death’s FETO. It brings back a lot of great memories…outside of just being awesome in itself.
I’m 31 and still constantly fin new music I like…but it’s differant now than when I was younger. As a kid, music is an identifier for most people. Certain bands you want to be identified with become part of who you are. Proudly blasting their music as you drive down the road or wearing a t-shirt. Are you wearing the t-shirt because it’s stylish? No. You’re wearing it because you identify with this band and you want everyone to know it. Bands can become a part of who you are. Why else would you cry when a certain musician dies? I cried my eyes out when Dimebag died. Still will shed a tear when certain songs come on. Never meant the man. And I’m certainly not crying because he was a great guitarist who I’ll never hear anything new from. I’m crying because I connected with the band, the music and the man on an emotional level. It’s attached to a certain period of my life. As a kid and even into your early 20’s everything shapes you. When you connect with a band, it can become a part of your personality just like anything else. As a grizzled 31 year old (lol) I’ve been molded already and a good band discovery has just become a good band, not something I attach myself to. I think that is the main difference.
>I cried my eyes out when Dimebag died. Still will shed a tear when certain songs come on.
Wow.
I’m 34 in August. I seek new music daily. I manage a record store. I’m MORE excited by music in the past 5 years… particularly heavy music… than I have been on more than a decade (or more). I’ve promised to myself that music will always remain a major factor in my life. It has so far, even when all my friends my age have let it become just pop-dribble background noise. I’m sure at some point if a family becomes a part of the picture my music passion will have to take a back seat. At the moment though, I’m all about that new music pursuit. I connect with the music I like in 2011 just as much as I did with the music of 1991. Like my heart sunk when Kurt Cobain died or Dimebag got murdered, I’d feel the same anguish if Colin Marston or Bryan Funck were to pass away.
As for old people giving up on the musical hunt… try playing them something new that sounds old. Maybe they don’t have the ambition to find new music themselves, but they might just take to what you can expose them to. My mom had never heard of Adele, Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley or Clifford Brown before I played them… and she’s since bought the CD’s for herself… and even purchased CD’s of albums and artists that she once had but had given up on/forgotten about.
@deflepplin
Isnt “Too much, too fast, more more more” what your parrents or the normal people said about Sabbath, Kiss, AC/DC, Priest, Maiden, Metallica when you were a kid?
Thats notmeant to be a snide disrespectful retort, Im seriously wondering, and I pose that question to anyone here. I thought that was the very essence of metal: bigger, faster, louder. At least, didnt people like hetfield and lemmy proclaim as much themselves?
While music as a whole may not get better or worse, I wonder if particular genres may experience a “golden period” and subsequent decline. During this golden period, a fresh style emerges and the era’s brightest talents, excited by its undeveloped possibilities, discover the best ideas within its parameters.
If this fertile creative time coincides with a commercial peak, then these artists benefit from the best producers, recording resources, and industry support. On top of that, the knowledge that a large, interested audience is watching–and paying–may inspire the artists to even greater heights. Thus, a certain style–thrash metal, traditional metal, roots reggae, topical folk songs, free jazz, baroque, what have you–may indeed undergo an era of genius–and geniuses–after which its greatest possibilities have been exhausted, and subsequent artists are left scavenging for any remaining second-rate ideas or merely tweaking the same ideas for the current sensibility.
Arlo Guthrie once said, “”Songwriting is like fishing in a stream: you put in your line and hope you catch something. And I don’t think anyone downstream from Bob Dylan ever caught anything.” If you take that stream as meaning the passage of time, you could say that same thing about riffs after Tony Iommi. In fact, reflect on the 70’s for moment. Can you name one retro or “trad” metal band with a vocalist of Dio’s caliber collaborating with a guitarist with the musicianship of Ritchie Blackmore, composing, arranging, recording, and performing irony-free heavy melodic rock? No, you can’t.
Not to be dogmatic, but let’s get real. There’s a reason classic rock is called classic–it’s better at what it aims to do. It’s not that equally brilliant musicians aren’t working today, it’s just that they’re working in a different genre or sub-genre, ones most likely undergoing their own golden periods now, soon to face its inevitable decline as it exhausts itself. I suppose that’s obvious.
The trick is, when we’re young we bond with certain sub-genres, and that sound and style is forevermore “in our blood.” At a certain age, the window closes, to some degree. As a 40-year-old, I can appreciate and enjoy newer sounds, but I know what’s in my blood: 70-90s metal, Dylanesque folk-rock, some 80s indie rock, 70s reggae, 70s rock, 70s prog, some 80s-90s hip hop. That stuff’s my comfort zone, which is where I , and most people like to listen to music. The increasingly rare moments we actively explore and force ourselves to listen to music from far afield of our comfort zone can be rewarding and exciting, but our comfort zones now tend to expand by inches, not miles.
Of course, ever-shifting tastes and trends foil objectivity, but I still have a hard time throwing up my hands and surrendering entirely to subjectivity. That’s why I’m interested in a compromise that says certain genres or styles may peak, and thus certain artists within them may be “better” than those before or after, while allowing that equally great musicians are thriving elsewhere.
So, while I do listen to plenty of bands 10-15 years my junior (“Good job, junior!”), and many of them rank among my very favorites, I also reserve the right to tell kids to get off *certain* lawns, because they will never get any greener or more nicely manicured. Or at least tread lightly, please.
So Djent is basically heavy music with the aesthetics of Meshuggah? – Taking its palm muted, mathematical, poly-rhythms? It reminds me of when lots of bands wanted to sound like Neurosis and Isis with that whole ‘post metal’ period of the last ten years. Many failed. But at the end we were left with a period of experimentation, which has helped further the development of music and opened other avenues to explore.
In the process of the changes in music, Meshuggah will be remembered as one of the stepping stones and Djent will either find its way to another stepping stone with a highly influential sound, or fade into nothingness.
I think there’s definitely something in your connection of music interest and its association with youth. You find the people who say music’s not what it used to be are those who don’t go looking for it any more. Those who have in a sense given up a dependence on it, and are now categorically rejecting it as something that has had its day (as to ignore the fact that it is themselves who have had their day). Music requires energy and enthusiasm, and as it is constantly evolving it requires attention. Keep up with the game, or it will forget you.
>There’s a reason classic rock is called classic–it’s better at what it aims to do.
Eh, I think it’s called “classic” because they’re the favorite songs of a generation that’s now in a position of greater income, authority and power. IMO most of it is shallow baby boomer crap…nursery rhymes for a decadent, selfish generation that never wanted to grow up…thankfully they’ll be dying off soon. “Classic rock” is itself a selection or collection/subgenre invented by people who felt their generation was the most important in American history. I hope they all choke on their pet rocks and mood rings.
@UA
“People who don’t listen to new music are just set in their ways and know exactly what they like.”
You touched a very important issue here. Music equals identity.
@FT
I felt devastated when Peter Steele died.
I’m sure when I’m 90 years old I’ll still be blasting “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, “Morbid Tales” and Godflesh’s “Streetcleaner”.
People getting up in arms over djent – at no point did I say that it was everything going on now or in the future. In fact, I said the opposite. It’s funny how people read what they want to read.
Simon, Tomis0 – Yes, djent = Meshuggah + post-metal + tech death metal + modern prog metal + metalcore/deathcore. So the movement has a lot of possibilities, though the bands are already too willing to slot themselves into a “movement” than be themselves. This happens, I suppose, when any band consciously fits into a genre.
Fistful of Dave – It sounds like I should read that book. If people’s ability to appreciate new music simply decreased biologically over time, that would explain this phenomenon much better than the various (often histrionic) emotional arguments around the topic.
Every once in awhile, a new band will come along and blow me away. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s magic. Even better, however, is when I tap into a “lost classic” — like how I only just recently listened to Neurosis’s Times Of Grace, an album that somehow passed me by when it was realized. I devoured it, loved it, and it revitalized my listening habits.
A friend once asked me why I don’t listen to any contemporary jazz and my answer was that although I am sure there’s great stuff out there now, so much great stuff was recorded in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s that I’ll be occupied forever in just trying to hear it all. I also don’t like the modern, glossy production that accompanies most current jazz (and metal).
Christopher – It’s really interesting to hear that overproduction afflicts modern jazz as well. I’d imagine that like in metal, there’s an underground and/or an avant-garde faction that keeps things raw. Is this the case?
Also, yes, if I live to old age, I’ll always be catching up on recordings from the golden era of jazz.
There’s not one future for metal, one tendency that will reign supreme over all others, there are gonna be multiple forms, multiple genres of metal. Transformation and innovation will come faster and faster each time (as the number of artists and albums release increase, to the point when every metal fan is also a metal artist and has a band with a myspace page or something) until there’s nothing new left to try, until every experimentation between every genre was already mtried, even the ones that doesn’t work at all, and every old trend was rehashed and sold with some slightely different detail as something new. It might take a while, but we’re gonna get there. The number of “clone” bands we have these days is an indication of that. The technology (and maybe even more important, the low cost and of the technology and the easy access to it) is also something to be considered. If music isn’t as good as it used to be is a subjective matter, but one can say with conviction that music isn’t as it used to be. You can’t relate the experience of previous generations (from the 70s, 80s and 90s) to the experience of the new generations, music was experienced in a vastly different way.
the big problem with new music is alot of it is a derivative or a derivative , so we are getting the 2nd and 3rd string . maybe if you are a person who just likes loud and sniffs glue , thats fine with you, for me i like to search a little harder to find something that is actually original and doesn’t wear it’s influences to heavily on there sleeves in my 30’s grew up listening to metal in the 80’s so i caught thrash on its first go around , so these days i can appreciated things spawn from that like scene like black metal which has the same current as bathory and mercyful fate but are adding interesting elements and taking it some where else, alot of new music more of the bigger labeled band who play it safe- go no where and say nothing
i think good music always stands the test of time, if its not worth more than a week’s listen then that says alot about it’s quality , a band like agalloch there albums sound just as good as when i first heard them , the same can be said for sabbath, celtic frost, king crimson, etc
djent is the new nu-metal , the jocks have to have something to do crystal meth to in the trailer parks, just like the emo thing is the hair metal of today or i guess bands like black veil brides are taking that over
anyways the mediocre is always going to out number the good stuff just law of averages
I am 49 years old and love both old and new metal equally. I constantly search it out and can never get enough. I find it odd how people think new stuff is somehow boring or all sounds the same. I mostly am attracted to all the extreme metal genres: black, death, tech death, melo death, viking, folk, and on and on. Not into core this or that, but that is just a passing scenester trend anyway. I would not say djent is a genre. It is certain stylistic elements that can find their way into any genre.
The older I get, the more I get into it in every way (new music, shows, etc..). In my opinion, it just gets better and there are decades of quality metal to listen to now. It NEVER gets boring. The internet provides so many tools for finding stuff without much effort. I do miss the old myspace though, but it will be replaced eventually.
I think too, that a lot of Americans (I am one myself) are aware of only a small amount of the metal that is out there. Not sure why this is.
i don’t listen to “new” metal music because : all has been said in, let’s say, 30 albums. Moreover, i discovered metal as a child (i’m 37), and i must admit that by the time, the danger, controversity and brutality / violence this music brings has disapeared : i got familiar to that. Not a single nowadays band can beat Obituary’s first lp for example : you can have faster players, better production, better musicians, BUT it is 2011, and Obituary were 89…
So maybe the answer is : some don’t listen to “modern” metal because metal is not modern
@Rufus Johnson Brown : quote “I’m sure when I’m 90 years old I’ll still be blasting “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, “Morbid Tales” and Godflesh’s “Streetcleaner”.”
and some early Maiden as well !
In my case, it had to do with finding something *different.* I was a teenager in the mid to late 90s, where alt rock and nu-metal were the main genres. I hated that music back then, and while I have become more open minded with time and accepted some of that stuff, I still think that the vast majority of it is terrible.
Then, one day when I was about 14, I had a musical epiphany. It was that feeling that you get when you discover “the greatest band ever” (and if you’ve never experienced it, I sincerely hope you do one day). It’s something you can’t really describe, but you just *know* that band kicks ass. In my case, it was Guns N Roses and Appetite For Destruction. You can laugh all you want, but you got to remember that this was back in the late 90s, way past their prime. It was mindblowing, hearing those riffs, Axl’s voice, the profanity, the amazing guitar solos (which were nowhere to be found in any of the bands on the radio at that time), etc.
That album was different.
Then I heard Van Halen, and *that* was different.
Then I heard Megadeth, and *that* was different.
Then I heard Dream Theater, and *that* was different.
So on and so forth.
Every band that I found was different from anything that was on the radio in those days. I’m not totally against mainstream music, or against whatever is on the radio, but the vast majority of my music library consists of older stuff, and if the album is more recent, then it’s from a relatively obscure band, like Porcupine Tree.
Anyways, I also remember that it was much easier to get into a particular band or album back then because money was scarce and the internet was not what it is today. I could only save to buy an album about every month or so, so I had all the time in the world to listen to it and get into it. Now, I got a job now, so I can go to the store and buy as many as I want, or I can go online and download many albums in a day if I wanted to, so it’s harder to keep up with all the music that is out there.
As for the future wave of metal, I’m sorry, but I just can’t get into it because most of those bands just scream in all their songs, and that really annoys me. That is the one pet peeve I have with today’s music, and that’s the main reason why I don’t listen to newer bands.
Great comment thread, folks.
And I just wanted to say that Chimp Spanner song rocks!
I personally listen to new [as well as old] releases from bands I’ve been into since the 80s. 99% of bands that have come out in the last 15 years just don’t do it for me. They are too quick to follow trends and look over their shoulder to see what everyone else is doing. In doing so, they tend to sound alike. That bores me. Forge your own path. Strive for originality. Get your own sound.
I have to disagree with this article. As someone who loves music I have to say that most people just can’t find anything they like anymore simply because the radio is filled with terrible commercialized hip-hop and bubblegum pop. Until the late 90’s popular music was good and was everywhere. When labels decided to “create” these talentless stars we have today and only care to give them one good single per album, music quality declined dramatically. There are a lot of good bands out there, especially in the UK but unfortunately they never make it to North America. Here the radio waves are full of terrible commercial stuff and people just get turned off from it. Who has endless ours to look for new music on youtube or radio stations from overseas?
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Music is pretty much dead as far as i’m concerned, even the “real” bands and artists that are out there dont really interest me and even if they did they cant compete with the likes of Simon Cowell and the snotty nosed punks that he’s making “stars” out of.