Age and changing musical tastes: Is there a time to move on from Black Sabbath?

I didn't care much for Black Sabbath at the time of release. Now I love the records, esp the first four.

 

Why move on from something you've loved all your life? My tastes have changed since I was 15, but Black Sabbath is still my favorite band, overall.

Even if I don't listen to them daily, they are still one of the biggest influences on the bands that I do. I will always see their 1970 debut as the landmark recording in the history of Rock. None shall surpass; none shall enter.

 

Also:

Who is Tommi and 'Ozzie'?

If that's how you perceive them, maybe you aren't the 'fan' you think you are (or were ...).

 

I didn't read all the posts in this thread, but I read the original post carefully and I can relate to the topic of this thread.

I started listening to mostly 60's and 70's music first, Deep Purple and related spring-off groups were my heroes when I started getting into music.

Then, I was interested in music very much when the NWOBHM came along, bands like Iron Maiden etc. I was quite a big fan of this genre around that time. Towards the mid to late 80's, I grew a bit tired of it. I started venturing into Blues, and then later Jazz. A few years ago, I started delving into Classical music as well.

In the meantime, I had sold many of the music from the 80's, and also a lot of stuff from the 70's.

Interestingly, maybe ten years ago or so, I started to buy some of that stuff again. And I realized that I still like some of it quite well, even though I was having some of the same thoughts the original poster mentioned. Is this type of music still o.k. for me to listen to at my age?

I started getting back into vinyl earlier this year, and out of nostalgia, I was interested in buying the Iron Maiden re-releases on vinyl. I was wondering if I still would like to listen to them or not, and it was a nice experience to listen to their music again. I wouldn't want to listen to it every day of the week, but it is o.k. for me to have their vinyl albums. My son has heard some of it here and there also, and it brought a smile to my face the other day when he came down with his guitar and played "The Trooper", asking me if I recognize it (which of course I did, he played it well).

There is no right or wrong age when it comes to listening to music. A few years ago, my other son (younger) started to listen to Classical music. He liked Lang Lang's interpretation of Rachmaninov's piano concerto, and he listened to that CD many times. He also started to like Gustav Mahler at the same time I found my interest. I made him CD-R copies of the 2nd and 3rd Mahler symphonies, and he listened to those many times in his room, at quite loud volumes. He was around 8 years old at the time.

I think we have a special relation to the music we first started listening to in our youth. It's o.k. to still listen to that when you're older, if you still like it.

 

Though the thread really isnt *about* Black Sabbath( it was simply an example) there are some inner'esting responses. Im gathering and analyzing keep them coming!

 

I tend to move along with the style and trends of the day. I try to stay current. I am not wearing bell bottoms and tie dye shirts, nor is my hair down my back in a pony tail as it once was. I do still listen to the Dead, Doors and the other bands I grew up on but not every day. I try to expand my musical taste but just bought the remastered Led Zeppelin, Stones, Steve Miller and have all the remastered Dead CDs. If better ones eventually come up, I will cautiously upgrade, how many times can one upgrade? I listened to them for a few weeks and then go back to more current music. My ears and taste adjust with the times, but I never let go of the past. I am back to Ty Segal, Temples, Yo La Tengo, Luna, Arcade Fire, Will Oldham and Jason Molina music. If it is good to your ears, and finds a place in your heart keeping listening and go back as many times as you like. Similar to you, I am much older now and have a much more hectic day, so the louder more aggressive music does not get played as often, but that does not mean I still can't appreciate it and when playing those CDs, Not only do I find that music is timeless but it brings back fantastic memories, like looking at old photos and visiting with old friends.

 

Long time lurker, first time posting. I will turn 45 in January. Music no longer defines who I am but it is a big part of who I am. Maturity is a state of mind, not a written rule. The sound track of any aging man's life is almost always going to be a compilation of many songs and genres spanning many years. Bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Deep Purple, Yes, Blue Oyster Cult and others wrote the sound tracks of my life. I don't consider listening to other genres of music as "moving on". I simply look at it as pleasing the current state of my ears. Unlike the skin that wraps our flesh, some music is timeless and I consider Sabbath to be one of them. I will have no problems playing Sabbath in the old folks home.

 

There's been some intriguing research about the general phenomenon of people clinging to the tastes in music, food, clothing, haircuts that they had in their late teens and 20s. If I recall correctly, a lot of it has to do with it being associated with the emotional intensity of our early encounters with sex, romantic love, heartbreak, sexual jealousy, etc. Those experiences are so intense and formative that even things completely ancillary to them (like music) take on outsized emotional significance.

This phenomenon is probably most discussed for people who are now between 50 and 80, simply because self-examination has become so much more common in the past few decades than it ever was before. But I know that when I was growing up, people who were older than me were listening to the same stuff they did when they were young. It was pretty clear to me even when I was a kid that big band music, which has never done much for me, held great emotional importance for people who were in their teens and twenties from 1935 to 1950.

Where this really comes home for me is the emotional punch decades later of hearing music from the 1970s that I didn't like, or may even have actively disliked, at the time. I can hear a top 40 song from the 70s that I never liked, and find myself welling up with tears. I still think the song is musically lame, but it brings back a flood of memories and half-memories and feelings that aren't even memories at all, associated with an exciting time when things were new and exciting, and full of promise. A time that I cannot re-experience, except through the occasional neural firing triggered by a certain musical phrase, or the way a storefront looks. or the smell of my first girlfiend's drug store perfume.

Added: I think this association is where a lot of so-called "guilty pleasures" come from.

 

Obviously I 'm not the same person I was when I was 10. I'm a husband and father and my family's needs come before mine. I'd like to think that I've grown as a person. I've been supporting myself since I was 18, which was 33 years ago, I've lived all over the east coast. I don't think that I have to. "grow " musically, to have self worth. 2014 is the 40th anniversary of me becoming a Sabbath fan, as I purchased Sabbath Bloody Sabbath as a new release. They have been my favorite band for nearly that long. They have coexisted with jazz since I was 16. I don't think I have to justify them to anyone. I couldn't give a **** if that makes me like immature to any of you or not. I know I'm a good parent and husband, I pay taxes and contribute to society just as much, if not more than many who only listen to "adult" music.

 

I've moved on from Master of Reality to Vol 4

 

Being of a similar age, I can relate to the OP. I still enjoy listening to all the testosterone-based rock, but I don't want to buy (or re-buy) it anymore, therefore I've been concentrating on filling in all the necessary rock holes in my collection and be satisfied with that. With the odd exception, the upgrading business will be over for me. I'll be happy with what I have then.
But stop listening to it?
That's what death is for.

 

I got my first Black Sabbath tape around 1979 , I was about 8 years then. I saw them live in 1994 and 2013 in Finland. Tonight I listened to a audience recording of the same 2013 show. I will never move on from Black Sabbath.

 

I'm 49 and my tastes have always changed/varied/evolved, and I hope they always will. Some music I loved as a teen doesn't connect with me any longer; some still does. Some one-year-wonders I got into for a while in my 30s or 40s didn't become long-term favorites. It's all good, and there is always more music to find (while your old favorites will also be available for listening).

 

A: Death.

 

I wouldn't worry about about still loving _____ band at any age. I find I'm a phase listener ie. I love a certain era of an artist/bands career but find it hard to get into anything they've done after a certain point. So I go looking for other things. I was a teenage metal fan but I haven't really be able to get into metal since the mid nineties. Pantera were the last metal band I loved. Metallica would be my Black Sabbath but I haven't liked much they've done since And justice.... My taste have changed a lot since then. I find a lot of aging music fans have quiet a narrow scope of what they like, so they find it hard to get into new music. It's people saying "I love the beatles, stones, Zeppelin ect..who today does that type of music as good as them?". The answer is no one. Those bands nailed that type of music. If I was only looking for new bands that fit into the narrow scope of what I liked 20 years ago I would be bored and disappointed now. Of course new bands will have elements of what I liked in the past, but it's got to have something new and different in there.

 

Rock will always be the most important music for me, I can't see that changing. That being said, I feel I moved beyond some the the groups I loved so dearly when I was 17, Black Sabbath being a perfect example.

I still consider myself a "Black Sabbath fan" and own everything through Sabotage, but I rarely feel the need to revisit. Maybe my tastes have refined, or maybe I've just lost touch a bit... Either way, their music fails to really resonate with me anymore...

Nevermind, I'm gonna play Vol. 4 at full volume tonight.

 

For me the equivalent question would be is it time to move on from Rush? I've just turned 47 which means I've listened to them for 30 years.
The answer-

 

When it comes to taste, there's no such thing as, "moving on" IMO.

As Blind Faith said, "Do what you like."

 

I never listened to Sabbath much growing up, so 3 decades later it's a bit refreshing as a change.

 

I can't say I have ever felt the need to "move on" from music I truly liked. I don't get sick of it.

I am not a huge BS fan, but had friends who were that had 8 tracks of the first few Sabbath albums in their cars, so I heard plenty of it, and I still listen to them now and then.
I still listen to a lot of music from the entire rock era, there is a lot of dooooooooooowap I still like to listen to.

 

Welcome.
I lurked for about 2 years before I 'took the plunge. And I'm also 45 in January!

Deep Purple is another big favourite with me and I can imagine me playing Highway Star in the old folks home. And if my hands are still up to it, stuff like Purple Haze - as long as they don't tell me off and ban me from playing the guitar loud.

 

Ultimately, I think people should get to this point....

... at least.

 

Hell no.

Good music will stand the test of time. Fans will always be fans.

 

It's your life, it's your money. Do you still love listening to Black Sabbath? Just do it! Do you want to keep on buying their music? Just do it.

 

I don't like the big albums from my high school years-Nine Inch Nails-The Fragile, Smashing Pumpkins-Machina, Weezer-Green Album, Red Hot Chili Peppers-Californication, etc. The harsh brickwalled sound ruined those albums and they just collect dust in my old cd case.