Growing Out of It

jess @ age 22: goes on bizarre anti-pop binge for almost whole year in response to previous years conflict, listens to jazz (free and otherwise), classical, "experimental" electronica, world music. concurrently experiences not-unrelated year long anhedonia.

jess @ age 23: discovers ilm.

(it would be faceitous but not entirely untrue to say: problem solved. the "regulars" make up of ilm is changing right now, but i'd still gather the average age is somewhere between 24-34. and "discovering" the gray panther squad - mark s, dr. c, and the rest - with their continuing, unabashed or ashamed [unless this thread is trying to tell us something] interest in new [pop] music was relavatory only in it's comfort. the gentle slap of someone telling you: "hey, you knew it was okay to like whatever you like after all.")

(jess @ age 24: ilx turns him into surly insomniac.)

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

cf. Pete Young, David "Diddy" Hamilton, Steve Wright, Simon Mayo - all were once BBC R1 DJs. They still play "chart pop", only it's pop from old charts or which could have been in old charts. Okay, not very inspiring examples I know (and Peel is sort of the exception to the rule), but my point is everyone assumes their tastes have mellowed as they got older. Actually, they - like your average human - have absorbed enough pop now and are content to go with what they know hereafter. My parents = much the same story. They like music (not fanatical about it by any means) and listen to BBC R2, but mostly prefer the songs they remember from their youth.

oh no! it's mark s watching last week's TOTP! OH NO!
http://sketches.stsland.ru/VaMp.jpg

For instance: 9 years ago (aged 13) I got my first record out of a record library (Joy division's 'Substance' compilation). I then started listening to indie rock (both UK and US). 5 years later, I learned to be more critical of what I was listening and searching for radically different types of music. That search eventually took me to mostly improvised types of music. I also have a more informed view of classical and other experiments (also finding record shops that deal with such records helped).

But the questioning should never stop.

Lately I've wanted to listen to salsa most of the time, mostly because I've been getting out dancing quite a bit lately. A couple days ago I put on a Persian classical CD that I like quite a bit, one that is emotionally a lot more subtle than 99.9% of the salsa I have been listening to. I was annoyed to find that while it was playing, I was still singing a Pedro Conga (pop salsa) song in my head, "Eso me Gusta," one that I didn't even like that much at first. (I can't help thinking of this in connection with George Gosset's recent threads, by the way.) Maybe my appetite for something more subtle has momentarily been spoiled by salsa, but I'm pretty sure I will return to that Mohammed Reza Shaharajan CD with more enjoyment at a later time. And likewise, if I find myself mostly listening to relatively challenging* music for a while, I have to be careful about assuming that I've grown out of wanting poppier things.

I guess I would hope that as I get older, the proportion of challenging music I listen to would increase. I have largely lost interest in most current pop music at this point, and I'm not sure that's likely to change. I'm in my 30's but I'm still single and I'm not sure what's going to happen if I get married. As long as I keep dancing to salsa, and I hope to continue indefinitely, it's likely to have some place in my listening off the dance floor.

*By "challenging" I don't necessarily mean things that sound terrible at first (and perhaps on all listens), but things which require a lot of attention if they are to be enjoyed. One reason I have been playng salsa lately is also that I want something I can put on as background music, and this music works that way, though some of it is worth paying closer attention to as well.

later i discovered that i'd often actually only needed to hear much music once, to go there musiaclly, hence:

the more challenging or perhaps the more innacessible the music the more intriguing, the more i'll go back -- but this has never been true for many songs, mostly just instrumental stuff -- but i know several Cecil Taylor records by heart and the same thing happens -- it's still breathtaking, but knowing that these notes will follow -- have had to work around the problem by strictly denying myself what it is i really crave for as long as poss.

now i seriousley cannot like anything that makes complete sense the first listen -- easy understanding of the music have become warning bells -- i know that i will tire of that music, and i have many lps and cds that i will revisit for some urge thing, listen to two bars and take it off, and imagine the rest, regret purchasing the music etc.

easy example -- the stooges first album -- familiarity/contempt maybe, but i still like the way the songs start, the drum/guitar wind- up that the stooges were so good at -- then i'll skip to the start of the next song or the guitar solo -- but listeniong to that record in full, well boo, hoo -- it's like an old joke that isn't funny -- yet i still think it's a great record

so i should find some younger person and trickle feed my collection to him/her

do you ever go to find some music to listen to, look at your whole music collection, pick this, that, and then eventually decide there is _nothing_ there you want to listen to ? I'm afraid the more music i've collected over the years the more this happnes

George, this happens to me a lot. I just disipline myself sometimes and not go for the easy option.

reviving this

Do you "grow out" of music?

I have "grown out" of a lot of music I listened to in high school, i guess. My sensibilities have matured to the point where I can no longer ignore awful aspects of certain songs/albums. Plus realizing stuff like "okay, maybe I overrated this band because the singer was hot".

I still listen to plenty of garbage, but I'm no longer giving, like, Billy Corgan's every word the benefit of the doubt because his riffs are so sweet

Forever in Blue Jeans, over here

i get bored of stuff and never want to hear it again, i wouldn't call it "growing out of" cos that to me wd imply greater maturity or something rather than a whimsical faddishness in my brain

but there are emotional (maybe also intellectual) responses to music that i wd find callow and embarrassing nowadays

I thought everyone got tired of specific music things, figured this thread was more about growing out of music completely.

Oh ok. Huh. It's possible, I guess. Less likely to "grow out" and just get bored with it all as prev. posters said.

anybody who "grows out of" music as a whole can't really have ever been in love with music imo

nb being in love with some band or some scene is not the same as being in love with music

I have for sure grown out of concerts. Can't stand up for more than 30 mins. without passing out. Also, opening bands, euggh.

Music imprints on me. If I love something, it is very, very rare that I will stop loving it.

i don't much care for concerts but i don't know if i ever did. i don't much care for reading any interviews or journalism about music i like but there was a time when i did.

actually scratch that i sort of hate rock concerts. i love listening to live music in comfort performed by peeps who can play.

Growing Out implies that being into music is immature in and of itself, which is dumb.

well yeah how the fuck wd you "grow out of" Mahler for example?

I mostly listen to new/new to me stuff, occasionally dip into old favorites and wonder what else is out there. I don't actively listen as often to music in general but hey.

i've discarded plenty of shit i loved at various times in my life. plenty of it i still love, too, of course. sometimes music continues speaking to you as you age, as the cirumstances of your life change, as you discover you need new or different experiences out art. sometimes it doesn't. sometimes it winds up speaking to you in a wholly different way, years later, in a completely different life context, after you first discarded it.

that said, the idea of a listening life where nothing gets discarded is pretty 0_o to me.

I can understand discarding acts if they're, say, Skr3wdr1v3r

aside from that, I can usually remember why I liked a particular song when I play it back and it often evokes similar responses in me regardless of how much distance has passed since the last time I listened to it

lol maybe you like your younger selves more than i like mine

I know they're not a popular group around here, but for me Radiohead appears to have "grown with me", in the sense that I get great pleasure out of every new album, and that with each new album they seem to shed musical things that (in retrospect) are unpleasant while honing closer to... Ehh music I might make if I were so inclined. Biased fanboy thoughts but there you go.

Like I watched this live thing for their new album the other night and was amazed at how much I was love love loving new material from a band that I got into in high school and for all intents and purposes should've crashed and burned by now. Don't even really feel their earlier stuff much now, even.