How Middle Age Affected My Musical Tastes

I'd say my tastes have evolved rather than changed. When I hear something that I may have really dug as a teenager, it's not very often that it makes me cringe. On the other hand I like a lot of music now that I would not have touched when I was seventeen. I would say I am not as averse to something loud and heavy as I used to be, though I still demand that there actually be something interesting going on in the music. THUMP THUMP THUMP does not do it for me.

Peer group pressure is a powerful thing when you are in your school years. It takes guts, when all your schoolfriends are raving over certain bands, to say you don't care for them. Even worse is to admit to liking something that's associated with your parents generation. Nothing is more uncool than liking the same thing your Dad likes.

It's a bit sad really. By the time people get into their 20s they have usually managed to develop their own independent tastes, but in the meantime they have probably closed their ears to a lot of stuff that they now find themselves needing to catch up on.

 

Now I'm picturing you back in the day, sitting in your car at 17 years-old outside 7-11 cranking Number of the Beast waiting for the stranger you just gave $7 to come out with the 6-pack of Meister Brau he's buying for you.

 

That is eerily pretty damn accurate lol

 

At 66, my music tastes are so broad I have trouble answering the question "where am I now". I recently looked at the list of my of recent searches on Spotify. I'm pretty sure Spotify's listener algorithm does not know what to make of me. We're both "confused".

I used to admire my rock heroes for their youthful energy. Now, I am more inclined to performers who have been on a journey with me and are weathered. There are the living: Bob Dylan, John Prine, the Stones, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, all longtime favorites. And, recently deceased: David Bowie, Leonard Cohen (both of whom I just discovered) and Tom Petty.

66 is way past middle aged. When I became 40 (1991) and more middle-agey, I was primarily into vintage blues and then classic jazz for about 10 years. I was searching for music that was wholly new to me. I still love that music. I joined SHF in 2002 and my purchasing flipped back to the folk/ rock performers I loved when I was in college.

 

When I was younger, rock music and its culture played so much into youth subcultures and identities and all that... I was heavily tied into what it all "represented"... A bit much in retrospect.

In middle age, I'm glad to say I listen a lot more with "my ears" and not so concerned about "what it all means" and judging a lot of music by its audience... Now, if I hear something, and it hits me on a visceral level, it really doesn't matter how popular, unpopular, genre-specific, "cool", etc. it is... I just like it for what is coming out of the speakers.

 

I’m 48. I still more or less love what I loved in 1988 (at 18) plus a boatload more music that I either had not yet been exposed to, or was too rigid at the time to have given a fair chance to appreciate back then. I just don’t have time to listen to as much music as I did back then. Which sucks.

There are exceptions in my rankings though. Back then, I would have rated The Wall as one of PF’s top 3 album picks of mine. Today, I find that I’d much prefer to listen Piper, Saucerful, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, More or Obscured By Clouds than The Wall or even Dark Side.

 

Agree with One Slip, Ram and The Who......not sure I agree with the Frank Sinatra line.............

 

I am 65. My musical tastes have expanded over the years. 30 years ago I would NOT listen to rap or country. I now appreciate rap more and like many rap songs and have grown to like country. I have also personally "discovered" some artists that I missed in earlier years.

 

Exactly! In 1988 I thought the Wall was easily the best Pink Floyd album and the Final Cut was next then Dark Side of the Moon. Nowadays I usually only listen to Piper, saucerful of Secrets, Meddle, obscured by clouds, 1965 and a momentary lapse of reason.

 

I met my wife ~35 years ago and she says I had bad taste then.....and it's only gotten worse.

Yes, the net is far wider than it used to be: I've grown to love jazz and classical. But I also traded hardcore for grindcore.

Can't win em all, I guess.

 

I'm 50. As time has gone on my musical tastes have expanded. I have found myself much more open to music I thought I hated when I was younger, partially because I am a musician and approach these songs from a different angle today. I can now appreciated the Bee Gees that my older sister used to play all day when we were kids. Same goes for the prog rock my older brother used to bore me with, as well as my parents' music from the 50s. I enjoy it all now. I also expanded into liking 40s big band music.

When I was a teenager, I thought bands should call it a day as they approached 40. But when I turned 40 I had been in the same band for ten years playing bars and clubs. If I could still play, why should the pros quit, and, for most of them, give up their livelihood? They're entitled to work. (I had this epiphany well before I hit 40).

I still like all of the music I enjoyed as a kid, but I was an odd kid. I had a cousin who was 15 years older than me move in with is when I was five. By second grade I was into the Who, Stones, Alice Cooper, Yes, J. Geils Band, Focus, Edgar Winter and Yes - all stuff he played at home.

There's still stuff I don't like, just much less of it.

 

I'm similar to those who have posted that they still enjoy most of what they did when they were younger (which in my case was mainly progressive rock and related forms of pop), but have expanded into other genres in middle age. In my case, those are jazz and classical, as well as Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. Given that my interest in Sinatra has been going on for only about a year now if that, I've been amused at how consistently he has been mentioned in this thread. I wonder what the deep connection is that seems to exist between Sinatra appreciation and middle age!

 

It's sad that you apparently haven't listened to anything new in thirty years.

 

I used to think The Final Cut , Amused To Death,Permanent Waves, and LZ2 were the very zenith of mans endeavours to produce the finest music possible.Now it just sounds like a horrible racket.
Somewhere down the line I find myself now truly appreciating the gentle warming rich tones of Cohen ,Prine , Knopfler and Warnes plus a lot more .

 

Really? As I approach 50 in a few weeks... My music has become louder and angrier.

1988 I was a McCartney fanatic, now I find him too sugary and Plastic Ono Band is far and away the best solo Beatles, for example.

Used to have every Pink Floyd album, now never pull them out. I would rather reach for The Clash or Elvis Costello.

Modern music is all Jack White and Black Keys... Loud, rough, angry stuff, mostly.

 

Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines middle age as between 45 and 65 so at 58 I guess I fit in there in the upper end. I know that like many others here have mentioned my appreciation for Sinatra has grown as I got older, but I have loved him for a long time, but I just got his Capital Concepts' box set and do not know how I made it this long without buying it. This is coming from an Elvis diehard and a man whose first love was country music and particularly Charlie Rich, one of the most versatile and underrated vocalists of the 20th Century.

Wow, my love for great orchestral pop music and particularly the Golden Age Of Christmas Music in the late fifties to early 60's has grown exponentially. I love Percy Faith, Johnny Mathis and Jack Jones among many other great legends that made their mark with great Christmas music.

I also find myself drawn back to the country-pop music I listened to in the early to med 1970's when Charlie Rich, Tammy Wynette, Waylon and Willie, and so many other great country artists broke through with their own brand of country.

I try to keep up with the current stuff, but other than Carrie Underwood, I find a lot of current artists to be sort of hip-hop country artists that do not have the pipes or musicality of the artists I listened to in the 1970's like Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Rogers or Conway Twitty. I even love Adele and Pink, but I am drawn to great singers with big voices like Roy Orbison or Kelly Clarkson. When I was a teenager growing up I couldn't stand the Beatles and as I approached middle age, the greater their music seemed to get to me. Music tastes can change, if you keep you mind open and are not afraid to admit you were naive and too close minded at some junctures in your life.

 

55, well past middle age, i listen to a lot of music during the day, and jump around... right now listening to Merrilee Rush & The Turnabouts Angel of the morning...
listened to Jerry Band today, George Harrison Living in the Material World, Brandi Carlile, World Party...
as to what i used to like, still like most of it, just don't listen on a regular bases, exceptions: Beatles, Stones, Neil Young been listening to a lot of solo Paul McCartney based on suggestions from this forum!

 

I hit the 50 mark not long ago so when I saw this thread it made me stop think.My music tastes haven't changed but the volume is much lower these days.

 

Depends on what you mean by 80s music. Most 80s radio music was scary bad, but the 80s started alternative music. Not grunge stuff with slurred lyrics, but real alternative; Cocteau Twins, Bauhaus, The The, Front 242, Love and Rockets, Wolfgang Press. I still love THAT 80s music

 

Is that how you took it ?
I rather thought he was giving examples of things from his younger years which he has either gravitated towards or lost interest in.
I didn't think he was giving a sum total of things that he listens to.

 

Journey was great till they got that castrati singer. Early Journey is still with a listen. I still like "Look into the Future" and "Next"

 

I dunno. Sinatra has always been a cross-generation, all-ages crowd pleaser in my family. My dad was a huge Sinatra fan. I grew up loving Sinatra (I used to listen to my dad's old 7-inch album box of Songs for Swingin' Lovers a ton as a teenager, and his High Society soundtrack 7-inch box). And then my daughter grew up a Sinatra fan (of course "It Happened in Monterrey " was one of the tunes I used to sing her to sleep by that she specifically used to request). I dunno if it's a middle age thing. I think it's just a Sinatra thing.

 

Right! I have listened to plenty of new music since 1988 I was just mentioning the things that I really liked then and how my opinion of them has changed. I have been through grunge, gangster rap, classic country, early Jazz and pre-war Blues stages many times over since 1988.

 

I agree wholeheartedly! My mom liked Sinatra and I love him and so does my daughter. His voice and style is totally unique, although I think we appreciate his artistry and timeless songs even more as we gravitate towards middle age.