One of the most common excuses people my age give for not paying any attention to older music is that it's "before my time", as if that somehow means it's not worthy of attention and respect, let alone a healthy fanship of.

Bullshit.

Where are the rules that say we can only pay attention to music that came out during our teen years, or during the past 3 or 4 years? Why does something have to have occured within our collective active memory to be worth listening to?


The same thing applies in reverse to older people. And by older I don't mean the elderly, because I've heard this from folk as young as 25 or so. Many people in this age category dismiss newer music as being "after my time". It's the same bullshit. Does something have to have been relevant to your formative years for it to be worth a listen? A woman I work with refuses to listen to anything that came out since she was 20, using this as an excuse. She's in her 50's.



People that are guilty of either of these similar behaviours are depriving themselves of a hell of a lot of great music IMO.

I agree. That "before/after my time" line is some bullshit just to make excuse for how young or how old somebody is.

Timmy84 said:

My modern music collection spans from the 1920's, to just last week. I've also got some classical composers in there. With any luck, like the universe, it'll just keep expanding.

I agree. Alot of times I think it's just to cover up laziness, intolerance, stubborness, indifference, narrow-mindedness or all of the above.

JackieBlue said:

It can be a lot of work, especially these days, to find music other than what's being offered on the Top 40. It's just an excuse not to put in the effort.

i guess i'm getting old because last night on the VMA's i was like who are these people.

there are few new artists i've checked out but there isn't much on the major labels worth listening to.

Some people feel the need to make excuses everytime they don't know something

ehuffnsd said:

I'm 23 and I do that now. I don't pay a lot of attention to the video channels or most radio. If something new does happen to come out worht listening to, one of my friends'll give me the heads up.

meow85 said:

I'm 17 and I do that.
I'm always about 3 months behind music. Not like I wanna be, its just hard to find good shit. I WISH I could turn on the radio and hear good new music without having to scour the internet for artists that ain't got no CD's in stores or are dreadfully hard to find.
Up until I had to look up one of their songs for some little school project (it involved making a song and they wanted to use a tune to some song by them,), I though Danity Kane was a MAN. Judging by the name alone. I had never seen them or heard their music.
I just heard that umbrella ella ella song about a few weeks ago.
I don't know WHAT is going on anymore. I blame Prince and THIS website, mostly. Once I got into him, I started moving backwards in time.

But I'm open for modern artists all the time.

To some people, music isn't as important as it is to others, and it's ok for people to like what they like. Of course, there are countless artists out there that are well worth our attention that we won't have the time, money or energy to explore, from before our time, during our time, or after our time!

I always felt like I was missing out on things because I was a teenager in the 90s and HATED 90s music. However, there always seems to be something that can grab my interest. I have a LOT of musical prejudices and shortcomings, but I've found lately that quite a few artists have overcome my own stereotypes to work their charm on me.

I'm in a lucky position: I TOTALLY disliked all the stuff that was released when I was a teenager (okay, Im 19 but nearly 20). I just listened to the Beatles or 70s/80s stars that i'll never be nostalgic in teh future.
I hope I'll be open mindeded. But I'm more intersted in current dance music than pop.

ToraToraDreams said:

It's frustrating to have to wade through the crap that's out now to find something worth listening to. If, years from now, my fond music memories involved tunes that came out 40 years before I was born rather than whatever shit Rihanna and Fall Out Boy are offering this week, so be it.

but some people really do find it hard to adjust to something that isn't familiar to what's been around since they were born.

it's not an excuse to dismiss a musical era, but i can totally understand it when a 14 y.o. gives me look when Love & Marriage comes on my stereo.

hell why go that far, they'd even look me funny over Glamorous Life

it takes time to some people

What are these people?

Why are you talking to them?

PricelessHo said:

Only because they've bought this line that they have to listen to a certain kind of music. It's not cool to dig Sinatra if you're 14 in 2008.

siblings, relatives, siblings of friends, etc. and they sure hate to ride with me in my car



which is why i don't argue with them.

and i believe it helps a lot when new artists cover older songs. coz i noticed they got a lot of those American Idol renditions bunred into CDs.

Moonbeam said:

for instance?

It actually says more than that. It says 2 me, that this person has not taken the time 2 look into the history of and the significance of a particular subject. I think it speaks volumes about the individual.

TRON said:

beatles?

TRON said:

Tom Waits is probably the biggest one. Elvis Costello to a lesser degree!

I'm only really apprehensive about things my parents like, because 90% of the time it's utter shite - music, movies, theatre, everything. All my taste seems to be self developed as I sure as hell didn't pick anything up from anyone in my family.

meow85 said:

I'm 25 and I couldn't give 2 shits about how people of my age view my music(which almost ALL happen to be pre-1982).

Alot of my friends gave me flack for what I listen to in the past, now they kiss my ass like its a "lucky charm" so I could make them mixtapes from the "old granny stuff" I have in my house

It is what it is,,,I think the older you grow, the more attached you get to the stuff your pops listened to while you were younger(God knows how I hated Chaka Khan for dominating the heavy rotation in my house, and I damn well better think twice before changing that record,,,now, she's my FAVE female artist next to Billie Holiday).
[Edited 9/9/08 16:37pm]

Harlepolis said:

That's been happening to me since BIRTH. The first time I heard oldies music on the radio, I fell in love with the time frame. I'm obsessed with sixties/seventies music/culture.

currently right now, im discovering older music, because i dont' care for the music today.

I don't care what others think or if they dislike or think its cheesy. But keep listening to it long enough and those same people will be asking for a copy of whatever artist you are listening to

meow85 said:

great thread!

I work with a ot of young peeps and they often give me new music to listen to.
I'm always looking for something inspirational.

so they give me albums by the
foo fighters
older bands like Faith no more
more recent stuff like the kooks

and the list could go on and on
I listen to these guitar based bands and recognise the quality and sometimes the sincerity in there music, but it usually doesn't grab me.

for some months this was bothering me. 2 b enthusiastic about something, anything is perhaps an essential part of life.

but at some point I realised that the songs, or most the new music I was listening to was great but didn't really speak to me.

I realised the subject of the songs often could be defined as growing pains.
Often these pains are no longer actual for me. I canrecognise the quality in the music but the themes really don't apply to me so I often can't hook up with it and for inspiration I have to look elsewhere.

for example my time of "aw! no-one understands me because I'm a teenager" is behind me.

this "before my time/after my time" excuse is not always bullshit.

Graycap23 said:

A person who digs Alien Ant Farm's version of Smooth Criminal but couldn't tell you anything about Michael Jackson beyond his current weirdness is a person I'd have a hard time having respect for, at least in terms of their musical taste.

Rightly said:

I wasn't really talking about subject matter, but abnout time frame in reference to a listener's age.

That said, songs about "teen" subjects should be approachable to everybody IMO because everybody's been there. And I do mean the quality songs, not the whining because Mommy took the car away type songs.

I can see why younger people may not be able to relate as well to harder, more life experience based on songs, but even that would be situational, wouldn't it?

Well, I first got irritated with current music when I was 17 and fresh out of high school in 1985. By the early 1990s, when I was in my early 20s, I was totally disgusted with it. That isn't dismissing music before or after my time, that is dismissing it during my time.

I admit, before shit hop totally ruined things, I only listened to either current music during that time or to old music that was made while I was a child in the 1970s or while I was a teenager during the early 1980s. After shit hop totally ruined all current music, that's when I started going back and exploring music before my time in the 1960s. And as shit hop took over more and more, I even went back to the 1950s. If it keeps up, I'm gonna end up buying some Andrews Sisters from the 1940s. I'm almost at that point.

As for music after my time, I'm only 40, I'm still in the "during my time" years.

As crazy as it may sound, there are actually people who just don't give a crap about music.

VenusBlingBling said:

Then what the fuck are they doing commenting on music in the first place?