I try my best to do this, and find lots of great new music.
I still find a lot of new popular music just doesn't do it for me, and I think it's because as you've heard more music, the it's harder to find something that sounds fresh.
When I was in the peak of that chart I was really into stuff like Spacehog, who seemed really cool to me at the time, but probably would have sounded a bit derivative to my parents. At the same time my dad loved Smashing Pumpkins enough to buy all their albums...
Certainly, of course all the old stuff is good because that is the stuff that you already curated into your personal preferences. There was a LOT of shit from pretty much any era, its just that the younger version of you already pawed through all that shit. Listening to new music means having to paw through a lot of crap, which is always harder than just listening to stuff you already like.
Plus there's so much more music each day it all gets diluted and hard to find.
I also always felt like as we move on artists will be much smaller as far as their following, like their time of fame will be smaller and shorter. Comparing like Beethoven who is world famous for generations to like metallica who is pretty big then like Taylor swift who is also huge but I feel each window getting shorter lived as more people spread out their preferences amongst all the artists and people use algorithms instead of buying an artists CD
It also can be pretty hard to find music you will actually like. Every streaming and sales service is more interested in promoting content based on who paid them off or based on what is cheap for them to stream. It seems like there are not a lot of resources geared specifically with connecting you to music that you are likely to enjoy.
I usually troll through new albums each month and just listen to a bunch of stuff until I find something I like.
People often forget that nostalgia is the secret spice that makes the past great.... not the actual past.
And nostalgia is nothing more than there's shit happening in our brains at 10ish-20ish that doesn't happen any other time. Hormones and energy and lack of responsibilty and first experience bias combine to create a dopamine cocktail we cannot recreate.
I mean, I'll die on the hill of 90s was the best music, TV, movies, video games, and fashion. But I know that it's not objectively true. But that's how it feels for sure.
Other explanations could just come down to the structure of our current society.
I can see a clear and quantifiable decrease in my family support structure between childhood and now. Of course that's mostly due death and moving away from home. But my answer would be entirely different if I lived in a multi-generational home or kinship group. Which was the default for about 99.9% of human existence.
Music, fashion, and tastes are a lot more subjective though.
I'm way too analytical to fall into that curve, and I'm sure most people on Lemmy are like that too. Like, we literally have data going back decades on most of these metrics, so why are people even going with their gut? Quite a few are literally numbers you can check!
I’d be very interested to see the age distribution of the people who were polled. It just says 2000 adults, but if they were all around the same age then it may not all be matters of opinion, especially for things like “political division.”
Judging by the footnote, it's YouGov which isn't a very good poll typically. That said, it's likely got enough people across ages to standardize it properly. They probably do have a larger amount in one demo vs another, but you can simply weigh them differently to balance it out.
There's probably plenty wrong with their methodology if we dig deeper though; these polls aren't very scientific typically. With political division, it could be how they were asked, for instance.
The one that surprises me is TV. It has objectively improved in quality so much, it’s basically on par with movies at this point. Writing, acting, costuming, all of it. I’d never claim that TV from the 90s was superior to now, even though I was a teen back then.
I will absolutely argue that TV was better between 2006-2016 than 2016-2026. I think the detailed ratings (especially on streaming) ended up feeding studio decisionmaking into shallower works that their algorithms suggested audiences would like, and that we lost something in the process. The collapse of mid budget basic cable original programming also has hurt the genre as a whole.
Also, there's nothing quite like a high budget but mediocre show, that looks visually stunning but just doesn't resonate with you.
Absolutely, Netflix is the worst at this. They rate their in house series based on how many people binge it in the first week or two. No slowly enjoying a show. That's what so many of their good originals have been canceled. Apparently they weren't addicting enough for Netflix's tastes
TV now is kind of garbage because every show will have like 2 8 episode “seasons” with a 3 year gap in the middle. I appreciate the variety but it’s clear to me the industry hasn’t really recovered from the streaming era destroying the cash flow into the TV industry. The 90’s and early 2000’s are absolutely the peak of network TV IMO when it comes to big syndicated network shows like Star Trek Buffy stargate etc. but there are a much wider variety of shows today so it’s kind of a mixed bag
I feel like it has way more to do with how knowledgeable you were at the time. Kids generally don't have the most critical eye for any of those things and most people don't go back to see what they missed.
I just said to a friend this morning, "every kid's favorite movie is the last movie they saw"
It would be interesting to see that study carried out in other countries as well. In my country, for example, many older people will tell the tales from hiperinflation and how they had episodes of starvation when younger. I believe most people would agree with the best economy being post mid-90s, only varying on when, so it woud give a considerade skew to that chart.
Ditto. Im constantly finding new stuff. I think we all get a favorite music era for free since we start with none, but you gotta think about it and try to keep adding more. Takes approaching the new stuff with different points of view. New music often isn't good for the situations you listen to your original favorites. Maybe you started with electronic dance. Ambient music isn't gonna fit that goal and needs a new mentality and space to appreciate it.
I'm 'only' 26 and I've been having a blast going through Groundbreaking's collection that they've released over the years. I only recently realized there was this whole archive like a year and a half ago, but I've actually been listening to some of the songs sold on other albums for much longer than that! I've been discovering artists that pique my interest and I'll definitely look into them more once I'm all caught up.
And since I'm a huge rhythm game fan, I'll often discover new music and artists through charts on the way. The only thing more exciting than finding a new song I really enjoy is listening to one of my favorite songs
That could easily be extended to other interest areas;
The average person may exclusively eat local, contemporary foods (ie whatever everyone else in their community eats), while "foodies" go out of their way to find new and interesting flavors.
For many people, fashion is, "whatever looks kinda like what everyone else is wearing." For "fashionistas", there's a whole language around clothing choices.
But it's better to share some actual joyful experiences.
I recently started listening to "Angine de Poitrine". They're a modern band that just released a new album and still plays live concerts. According to the OP chart, they're 15 years too new for me.
For some old stuff, check out Hillery Hahn. I keep going back to her Bach sonatas and he lived in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Then there are crazy fusion versions. I recently found Ben Comeau's gem "Donald Trump is a Wanker". He took the bassline of "Seven Nation Army", gave it a choral voice, and transcribed it to a fugue format. To paraphrase an other contemporary artist; that shit is bananas.
Yeah this is almost exactly upside down for me. Most of my favorite music is from before I was born, and as I've gotten older I've only gotten more into new music.
Old stuff I'm partial to classic prog rock and jazz fusion (Yes, Chic Corea, Frank Zappa, etc.). New stuff is kinda all over the place, but the more genre bending the more likely I am to like it (black midi, KGatLW, The Comet is Coming, etc).
Bro I smashed the shit out the like button for angine de poitirne, and I don't even think they're human. How do I have nostalgia bias for music that isn't from this dimension?
I bet it was for you what it was for me.....part "this is crazy unique", part "AI can never do this" and "that's a musical scratch for an itch I never knew I had".
You'll notice I said some. I would also say some of the best was from before I was born as well. I think art is as intrinsic to humanity as breathing and it is something we will continue to do with gusto and success forever.
Hell yeah, and forget even just individual songs, I tend to gravitate toward whole-album bangers and continue to find thoroughly dope and delicious stuff.
Xoth - "Exogalactic"
Clipse - "Let God Sort Em Out"
Two (somewhat different 😅) ones I've been getting just hours and hours of cover-to-cover listening mileage outta lately, for reference. Even got the Xoth one (new folks to me) from someone on Lemmy 😎
Sounds like we have similar taste. I really dig that Clipse album and while I haven't listened to Xoth, I love tech death: Necrophagist, Fallujah, Archspire, Inferi, Ulcerate, Revocation, Cryptopsy, Cognitive (underrated!), Eschaton (also underrated!)
I'm also an album guy, active music nerd on rateyourmusic. 👍
So I guess I'm saying based on those two picks and your pro-album taste I think you sound cool, lol
You've given me some work to do and I'm only half happy about it, hahaha. But a buncha those are familiar (lovely).
To add a ridiculously great recent full-album-dope, sounding both "newer" and "older" than I can really imagine a death metal record sounding today, as I like to call em, "The Sangui Boggi Boyz" (a la "The Soggy Bottom Boys") -
Sanguisugabogg - "Hideous Aftermath"
It's gross and rad. Ya prolly already know lol, but hey.
Ya know, I definitely know of Sanguisugabogg and have heard a couple songs (Dead As Shit is badass), but they've been on my deep listen list for awhile and I haven't listened to any of their albums yet. I'll push them up in priority on your recommendation!
So. Rather than DM I'll just be weird and ask here.
How'd the listen hit? I actually enjoy any amount of appreciating AND shitting on any art in this space, so feel free to let it rip.
Funny thing about heavy music, within the same space of humans, you get some of the LAZIEST people right alongside some of the gnarliest, hardest-working, most interesting music brains.
Feel free to trash anything I ever recommend - with all sincerity.
And now, with my conscience clear, I will ask - plz, gib. Lemme get 1-3 records from you I really gotta hear. Just cuz you think they're dope.
(It can be more than 3 lmao, 1-3 felt like a polite thing to beg)
I think Hideous Aftermath is great, super heavy and brutal but it's obviously not just mindless caveman stuff (though it's groovy enough even caveman-listeners could vibe with it)! I'm not gonna lie and pretend it's gonna sit at the top of my tier list or anything, but it's definitely in the better half of the 200~ albums I've heard and rated from 2025. And yeah like you said, a really great example of bringing the old school sound and feel into the new school.
Suggestions (i'll keep 'em recent-ish for now unless you want older stuff):
Horse Bitch - RIP Pistachio (2021) - Folk punk. Just a tremendous and extremely underground record that's equal parts pathos, catharsis, party, and funny. This is pretty small band and honestly I think I might just be their biggest fan, lol. I love this goddamn album.
Playboy Manbaby - Violence (2026) - Garage punk/indie rock, almost a bit post-punk. Insanely approachable punk album that still has some meat to the lyrics. This one totally surprised me but it's currently my 3rd highest rated album of 2026 so far.
Vittra - Intense Indifference (2025) - Melodic Death Metal. This wasn't my favorite album last year (it was #13 though!), but it had to be one of the most fun albums I listened to last year, especially for a heavy album. I don't know how else to explain it other than to say that it's just such a goddamn good time and the entire run of the album it really sounds like the musicians themselves are having a goddamn blast.
If you want to know what I mean without committing to the full album yet, just check out 'Transylvanian Buffet,' although album opener 'MOFO' is just as fun but like 10% less silly.
BONUS 3.5. Impureza - Alcázares (2025) - Technical Death Metal/Prog Metal/SPANISH FOLK MUSIC. Okay so Alcázares and Intense Indifference aren't really all that similar, but they have a similar vibe to me; both are super playful, inventive, and experimental without feeling novelty or tacky. Overall I like Intense Indifference more, but if you really vibe with that one and gotta have something else that scratches a similar itch, this is absolutely what I'd recommend.
Anna Pest - Dark Arms Reach Skyward With Bone White Fingers II: Be (Not) Afraid (2026) - Deathcore/Technical Death Metal/Mathcore/Electronicore/Hyperpop? Real talk, this album blew my mind. I only checked it out because in January I saw it was doing well in the early 2026 charts on rateyourmusic so I wanted to see why. Looking at the album cover I was immediately worried, absolutely certain that I was about to hear something insanely cringe. Instead my face was immediately ripped off and sewn back on with a bloody manic smile. This shit is wild. It's basically the most extreme maximalist hyperpop approach, but applied to metal. You gotta be open to being like, sonically overwhelmed at times tbh, but holy shit what a ride.
Open Mike Eagle - Anime, Trauma & Divorce (2020) - Alternative Hip-Hop/Conscious Rap. Mostly just wanted to include a hip-hop album since we both liked the most recent Clipse. Anime, Trauma & Divorce is definitely my favorite hip-hop album of the 2020s so far, but it's definitely on the more like, chill, introspective side of the genre. Tons of clever, nerdy bars though, and just awesome music underneath the voice. The tracks with "Little A$e" (OME's son) are admittedly kind of pointless throwaways but I ain't gonna fault the man for including his own child in the experience of sharing his art, especially on the album specifically about familial strife, ya know? All of the rest of the album is GOLD though, imo. Although admittedly I'm like almost the same age and have extremely similar interests as OME so this is one where your mileage might vary greatly depending on how relatable you find it.
Tried to give you a little variety, hopefully you'll like a couple of those. Same as you said, I'm not precious about this shit at all and I love talking music, so if you listen to them feel free to share any opinions you have, even if it's "this shit sucks and anyone who listens to it is stupid!" 😅
Same bud. There's so, soooooo much great music being made right now. Some of it's on the radio, some of it is obscure as fuck. Doesn't matter. You just gotta fucking open your ears and listen.
Notable that this is only popular music. You might be surprised to find you follow the same trend if asked to rate Taylor Swift compared to Modest Mouse or something.
They are operating under the assumption that the "best music of your life" that you're talking about does not have significant overlap with current top hits. If that assumption holds true then you may well follow the trend shown when asked to rate hit music.
Gotcha gotcha gotcha. Yes, I agree; these always filter towards the average, which is definitionally your primarily pop music listener and thus the subject group becomes that artist set
They beat me to it haha! People into jazz, classical, world music, progressive metal, etc would certainly rate things vastly differently from people who listen to pop music alone. These studies only target the averagest of persons.
Notice the graph peaks in the teens, when most people's fun and social life also peaks. I was an introverted high school nerd and barely remember the music from that time, then in my late 20s got into doing theatre - suddenly had a thriving social life full of parties, dating, friends, fun... now it's decades later and the music of that era is by far my favorite.
I wonder how you could adjust the whole graph based on connections to friends.
When people are under 10, they don't have that much agency in choosing music. They just listen to whatever their parents listen to, or whatever their parents put on for them. In their teens they start getting to choose music and have a lot of classmates and friends who can be sources for hearing new music. In their early 20s that continues with university and/or first jobs. But, after a while that tails off and people have smaller social circles so they are introduced to fewer new things.
That could also explain why music from before people were born is somewhat popular. It's something you might have been introduced to by your parents, or possibly by friends in your teens or 20s, or maybe something you discovered on your own later. When you're 40+ you still might have people introducing you to music that existed before you were born, but you're probably not being introduced to the new music very much. And if you are, it's the popular stuff, which often sucks in all eras. Maybe if you have teenaged kids you hear what they like at some point, but that's a small window, and often what they like is the popular gunk.
That's really what I was thinking - that the graph probably wouldn't change much if you remapped it to personal connections because the pattern of personal connections is probably what drives it in the first place. Hence my favorite musical era is when my connections peaked around age 30. Although tbh most of what I liked then and still do is what you would call "popular gunk" - never did care much for dismissing popularity as low quality. They often go together, but unpopularity and low quality also do.
There's a reason why things are popular. People like it.
The only drawback is that to make a "Billboard #1" type hit, you need extremely broad appeal. So, often it's stuff that nobody hates instead of something that people who know a certain niche genre absolutely adore. You're unlikely to get a jazz song as a #1, or a twangy country song, or any song with lyrics that any group might find offensive,
Somehow that reminded me of the birthday party my daughter organized for her husband. The theme was that he was running for President. She made campaign buttons with his face on them and the slogan, "Win or Lose, We Still Got Booze!"
I can find "new bangers", but there's also a whole lot of "holy shit, the kids have absolutely no taste in music", which I think is a often what the olds think of new music. I think that's the typical drop you see on the graph as people get older.
OTOH, to me the absolute worst era of music was the popular stuff coming out when I was 5-20 years old or so. That era just sucked. As a kid my general impression was "Holy shit, my peers have absolutely no taste in music". It was only years later that I actually discovered music that was made during that time that I had never heard about. So, I suppose there was some good music back then, but it wasn't the stuff that was on the radio, on TV, in the movies, etc. The best era for music, IMO, was 10-20 years before I was born. And, it isn't even music my parents introduced me to. They had pretty poor taste in music too, and never played that stuff. I only found out about it decades later by exploring music on my own.
There was a period in my life where I didnt have time to listen to new music and I thought I could get by on Metallica, maiden, misfits, and (at the time) my favorite band, Fear factory. I distinctly remember telling people, I'll listen to this til the end of my days, I don't need more.
Then covid happened and I was stuck at home, no longer interrupted by random work or life stuff when I picked what music I put on for hours, and it got stale (No shit). And I started to listen to so much more.
Now my wife and I go to multiple shows a week, hearing all the latest and coolest shit from our local scene (SF); we tell all of our friends: $BAND is coming in 6 months, buy your tickets now, it'll sell out. Or: free show on Saturday, want to come?
We are on friendly terms with members from multiple local bands, we go to album release shows, we get signed merch just by being chatty/friendly, we are helping bands, promoters/venues book with each other by putting them in touch.
Honestly it's pretty incredible. When someone says "there's no good music these days" or "rock/metal is dead" i just ask them... "Well what are you into? I can recommend something". Because they're so wrong...And if thry see what I see, they'd never say that in the first place
I was a teen when Limp Bizkit was the thing for me and it's pretty sad that no other band has that sound yet. Especially the one of the less known tracks. I'm not a hardcore metal guy, so I look for guitar work with melodies. Any recommendations?
Nu Metal in general is a very broad category that was never as saturated (from a number of bands perspective). It's just that the bands that did break through got huge. So now there's a bunch of nu metal bands with unique sounds that nobody ever duplicated.
I have to say, I'm not very good with specific descriptors like that, moreso (sub)genres or "this band sounds like that/these band(s)".
I agree there's not a lot that sounds quite like Limp Bizkit, not that I'm familiar with anyway.
When you say "guitar work with melodies", what first comes to my mind is Iron Maiden. My instinct was to go to my concert calendar and see what is coming up that might fit the bill to give you a rec, and I found "The Lord Weird Slough Feg" (sometimes just "Slough Feg" these days) is in a couple weeks. One track I remember loving by them is "Tiger! Tiger!". Their whole vibe reminds me of a Heavy Metal 2000 (the movie).
The fuck? Fontaines DC, Tyler Childers, Janelle Monae, Leon Bridges, I have never stopped finding new music I love. This graph makes no sense. Modern music is so good. Old music is so good. I do not have a preference for any particular time period when it comes to enjoying music.
Time is a very good filter of what's worthy and what's not. You're living now and you're witnessing good stuff, but you're also witnessing bullshit before it's had the chance of being forgotten. If you look back 40-50-60 years, will you think of The Beatles, ABBA, Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix, or will you think of someone who maybe released a couple of songs or an album and dropped out of existence? Yes, I thought so.
I assume this refers to pop music which was mainly available after mass media became a thing. They’re probably not interviewing Edward Von Dickensachen about the Chopin concert he attended when he was 12.
It's not talking about music, it's talking about humans. If this chart is meaningful, it should apply regardless of fashion. Otherwise it's not talking about humans, it's talking about recent trends in music.
You just gotta know where to look. Music is an industry, so the people who view songs as products will push their favored products in front of as many of their target demographic as possible. They want those tween-to-twenties locked down. They decide what's cool, so if they like your products then you're cool. So if you're 40 and only listen to top 40 pop stations, you're probably in for a bad time since none of that shit is really trying to court you in the first place. I'm in my mid-late 30s and I'm still discovering bands and current releases that I'm into. Just gotta look a little harder.
I think that as we get older and consume more media, we experience a sort of fatigue of simple and easy structures, so we desire something more complex. But we grandfather in the stuff that we imprinted on in those formative years, and that's why that younger demographic is targeted; they'll keep coming back to their comfort media for their whole life.
Pop music is (usually) the middle ground between nursery rhymes and something like djent or cool jazz or math rock or whatever other more nuanced genre you're into. "Products" in those genres just aren't gonna sell like boy bands do. Some pop music is actually good and complex, but it's just not my thing and mostly never has been. I'm not trying to insult people who like Bad Bunny or Kendrick or whatever, but yeah Black Eyed Peas and Kid Rock fucking suck. Don't @ me.
Good and bad music exist since the existence of music. The problem with bad music began from the music industry massified it with criteria more commercial than artistic, this is why good music did not cease to exist, but you have to look for it more than before. Whether you like it or not depends only on personal taste, not on type or style.
Man I must be an outlier apparently, I don't listen to any of the music from my teens or even my twenties except in rare nostalgia trips. I'm constantly finding newly released songs that I like and even cringe at some of the music I liked as a youth. I don't think I can even define an era of "best music" - there're so many great songs across all music.
A few months ago I decided to listen to a few albums I used to be obsessed with as a teen. I just... didn't feel anything anymore. The music used to vibe with my teenage angsty energy, but being in my 30s now it just doesn't hit the same.
Meanwhile, I still rock out to classic rock and oldies from before my time. I was just singing Steve Miller Band and The Beatles on my way home from work - no radio, just felt like singing.
Though some stuff I listened to in my youth is more relevant now than ever. Songs written during the Bush era criticizing politics are as cathartic to scream out as they used to be...
Same. I'll rarely put on music from my teen years (90s for me), but for the most part I'm listening to stuff released from the past 5-10 years, or older stuff I've recently discovered from before my time.
There is great music (and shit) from every decade.
I'm making an effort to listen to newer music by swapping albums with colleagues of younger generations (in return I get them to try records I'd just have assumed everyone has already heard). I like a lot of their recommendations but I don't know if anything's really going to stick. Maybe though!
I wonder if the difference is between people who like music primarily because of the memories it evokes vs people who just like music for its own sake. I'm sure this is a gradient, with most people probably falling closer to the former category and those at the other end of the scale seek out new music.
You're probably right, my endorphin port is tuned to fire when I hear new music I think is sicc. I still get the nostalgia stuff but only when I'm feeling sentimental. Otherwise I'm looking for a fresh (to me) beat. Just got into burialgoods and the hexcore he makes.
This study builds on decades of work that makes less and less sense every minute of the digital age. Each year we're further from a semi-homogenous group listening to Casey Kasem's Top 40 (or whatever). Most people have a fairly clear, shared concept of 60s/70s/80s/90s music, but ask ten people about the 10s/20s and you'll probably get eleven different answers.
In addition to changing mass listening habits, the digital age untethers us from time and wildly diversifies "new" music. You can hop on Youtube/Spotify/etc and listen to the Glenn Miller Orchesta as easily as the newest Drake singles, which with radio/MTV/etc was historically not the case. Those platforms also have allowed a world of music diversity and access that completely changes the paradigm. For example, some of the best "80s Music" in existence was released in the past few years.
It's just that the good stuff is getting drowned out by the garbage corporations are pushing on us. There's plenty of good music being made in the USA if you dig for it.
Isn't that proof?
They're not new artists.
And there are millions of people making music, of course there are exceptions to the general trend.
But thanks for the tip. Dusting off my chromatic dreamcoat and checking it out right now.
I went to a listening party for that last Friday, was a good time. Though, I'm never gonna put that on intentionally, it felt really... Idk, passive? Like a score for a movie where the music isn't really "the point". Great for background. I don't mean to be disparaging; I'm more of a metal guy so it just wasn't my thing.
Personally I really enjoy listening to BOC actively but you might enjoy it more if you put on one of their older albums like Music Has A Right To Children while on a scenic drive.
I've discovered a new subgenre or other every few years and I still find music that's just as good in my thirties as when I was a kid. Trick is I don't care when it was made, I only care that it's in the style I want. I also have never listened to what anyone would really consider radio friendly music so it helps filter out the product placements disguised as artists. Stay curious and find music yourself and you will never experience this curve.
I wonder if there is any noticeable difference between different generations to this graph. Like if there is a specific time-frame, that if we account for nostalgia and calculate out this bias/distribute different generations evenly performs higher than other time frames
First off, this is a marketing paper aimed at companies trying inform the industry about taste demographics.
Secondly, I think it’s relevant to note they selected sample songs from billboard top ten (excluding the top 3) so the data is definitely only speaking to ‘an average of average taste in billboard pop music’ and not to musical taste overall. Edit: Also limited to US.
This is the bit that I think gets at our question:
Peak Preference in SSA indicates the peak preference of each respondent based on their birth year, so if you were born in 1970 and the testing showed you favoring the 1990 song Vogue- Madonna as your peak preference, your SSA would be 20 (you favor music from when you were 20).
My impression from this scatter chart is that a lot of people liked 80s music regardless of when they were born haha.
I think it's exposure, you hear about a lot more music in high school. Now I get exposed to new music mostly by the radio (you can throw streaming algorithms in here) and it's shitty pop/rap music that they play. Like if my 90s exposure to rap was limited to Vanilla Ice then I wouldn't care for it either.
I like most types of electronica. Trance, techno, house, bounce, phonk, and even some dubstep. I still find new songs on youtube that I enjoy, even in my 40's. Growing up my dad listened to a lot of psychedelic rock. I don't really listen to rock anymore but I do recognize a lot of rock artists like dick dale, iron butterfly, and many others who created the psychedelic sound that progressed into techno and trance. I still hear a hint of miserlou in a lot of modern electronica it has a very recognizable guitar riff.
And yes Dick Dale was a surf guitarist, but his experimental creativity was a departure from what came before him. I consider him the grandpa of the big psychedelic rock artists who came after him. Many big psychedelic rock artists claimed dale as an inspiration.
Dick Dale is a legend a lot of great musicians owe something to. Most (though not all) modern surf, some of which is fucking great, follows in his footsteps while also borrowing from psych rock and other genres.
Always give Dick his due, he is the king after all.
Edit: at the same time, it'd be a mistake to ignore the influence of The Ventures as well.
Edit edit: Since this has lead me to fire up my 'face melting surf' playlist again, I'll take the opportunity to give a shout out for my aquaintence-of-an-acquaintence's weekly radio show Storm Surge of Reverb.
I still find good music, but not nearly at the same frequency I did in the late 90s to early 2010s. Absolutely none of what I find good is played on the radio (but then, it's like 80% commercials so I doubt much of anything is heard on the radio unless used in an ad); it's all from films, games and memes now. A lot of artists I am into these days aren't even known outside of Bandcamp, Spotify or TikTok where they post their music.
When I was a kid I only listened to music from the 80s and prior.
As an adult I started finding other genres of more contemporary stuff that I actually liked, but as a kid my only exposure to "modern music" was the bullshit top 40s pop music radio stations that they would play on the school bus, and I hated that stuff with a burning passion.
Even when there was an occasional song that I found catchy, I felt very conflicted inside and would never admit to liking it...
I never listen to old music, nothing from my teen 90s especially. I've heard those three million times each. Give me some new artists producing shimmering, sparkly electronic-indie and I am happy to keep eating it up. Other genres too but there's so much in just this one, it's immersive, and I absolutely think it keeps my brain sharper.
There is music from my young adulthood in the 90's that means a great deal to me because of the memories, but I'd put say Amyl and the Sniffers up there with some of the icons of Punk.
The only music that was released in my teens that I like is stuff I never heard until I was maybe 30. I look back and think it was such a shame that I missed that era when it was current/new.
Rat Heart outta Manchester has been my repeat lately. Whole album Dancin' In The Streets is great if you're after something down tempo and not super up beat. Flute haters need not apply
2026: Elder - Through Zero. Heavy Stoner/Psych/Metal
2025: Totorro - Sofa So Good. Upbeat Math Rock.
2024: Alcest - Les Chants de l’Aurore. Shoegaze meets black metal. Minimal screaming.
1977: Fela Kuti, Opposite People Africa's take on funk music. Screw western norms of 5 minute songs. Have 10 minutes of jamming before the vocals even come in.
1967: James Brown, Cold Sweat One of the first funk songs, downbeat on the 1s, one chord groove, lots of improvisation, bass forward, lots of focus on the groove and not the lyrics, etc.
But then why are gen alpha and gen z listening to music I grew up with. It is so weird. I know its tiktok but still weird that they listen to the same music.
Yes, it's Tik Tok. And it's music older than I am sometimes. But mine listen to everything, like I do. I took the youngest to see Inhaler and also to see Young the Giant. Taking my husband to see Cannons, and also got him into country music, he used to hate it but if you turn off the commercial radio and just find the good stuff it is still being made.
The 2 bands both my older set of kids (millennials) and my younger set (GenZ) wanted to see when they were middle school age were Panic at the Disco and the My Chemical Romance, I always thought that was funny. Like it's middle schooler music, I think I would have loved it too.
The music industry, such as it is today, is nothing. It was getting super fucked in the 80s, had a last gasp in the 90s and now it’s nothing.
The former pipeline of label to radio to charts is dead. Whats left is a necrotic accounting and marketing mechanism driven by algorithms and viral splashes.
Things have changed but the music industry is very much alive. The barrier to entry dropped significantly with the advent of the internet which definitely affected the established companies but they don't represent the industry. The artists do.
There's more independent labels than ever and live music hasn't changed significantly (minus the feed for "major" venues). I'd even go as far as to say the music industry is better than it's ever been.
I’m sure that’s true in many respects, but from the standpoint of putting content in front of . . uh . . earballs, that pipeline that used to exist for almost every adult person (in the US anyway) is dead.
Spotify and Youtube are two possibilities, both pay almost nothing and require lots of sandbagging to get a foothold.
Any new music I accidentally come across is more often than not a style I’m not into, and/or it sounds like everything else.
I've made a similar "rant" before on this in the hopes to change someone's mind so I'll give you the shortened version. And I don't mean this negatively, I mean it as encouragement!:
Music can be an active or passive hobby. Most people fit the latter category and the older you go, the more it skews that way. Adults have a lot less time to experiment and if you aren't actively seeking out new music, you can fall into the trap of "they don't make it like they used to"
But they do! It's out there! You're just less likely to stumble upon it because not only do you lack the time, the people around you are in the same boat. We've also heard a LOT of music since our teens so fewer songs feel fresh. There's no such thing as "derivative" if you've never heard the original!
I'm an active hobbyist who listens to 20+ hours of music I've never heard before on a weekly basis and can guarantee that music in pretty much every single genre is still around.
So I would encourage you to spend a couple hours exploring some time. Even if it's just googling "modern bands like [old band] reddit" and seeing what the music hobbyists have to say, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Don't understand graph. is dark line what people think of songs released 11 years ago? WTH is graph before age 0? Oh ok, maybe. A song released when you were 40 is rated the same as one released 45-80 years earlier.
There is huge bias in "popular music" category. Can get very sick of old songs, or just stop listening to contemporary pop after a while. I'm surprised old people would still like pop songs of their youth, after being overplayed over the years.
It's kinda true...for pop music specifically. It's gotten more same-y. There are a lot more explored genres today than before, which I believe offsets it.
Yeah, that "Lyrics style and emotion descriptors" section is absolutely ridiculous from the perspective of aesthetic judgment. No normal listener or professional critic judges music and lyrics on the basis of, I quote, "unique token ratio, repeated token ratio, pronoun frequency, line count, or punctuation counts".
I just clicked on one study as a reply to this guy being a dick.
While music and everything concerning taste is mostly subjective there are some quantifiable parameters.
Like variety of chords, note progressions, and melodic transitions.
The over use of audio compression, presets and loops,etc..
I don't think he was a dick. He wasn't very tactful, but he wasn't insulting you.
You can quantity it, but that doesn't mean the quantification is meaningful and correlates with literally anything else. Like, loops are bad? I guess I should inform all those classical music critics they're actually dumb for liking Terry Riley and Steve Reich.
TBF there was a switch in the dubstep sphere and a lot of brostep artist (which I love) moved to riddim (which I hate). As well as my biggest source of song (Monstercat) switching styles
I thought about trying this, but thinking about how to execute it already sounds painful enough.
For input data, I could use my existing library of mostly individually-selected songs, currently at size 1,662. Since I mostly listen to everything, this spans a rather large range of dates.
Then start taking random songs, and rating them on 1 - 10 scale in relation to entire library, enter ratings into 10 year buckets, and use mean of those ratings.
Probably 5 ratings per bucket to keep it short.
Unfortunately, I most likely can't fill every bucket, hell, some would remain empty. After all, classical music makes my library likely start in late 1600s, and end in 2025.
I didn't think about that. Perhaps I could leave it out, and start at, say 1920s, but that would make the data incomplete.
Problem is, I don't have the years for most of them, so that would mean looking up release dates for those individually.
Huh, what if everyone would absolutely love (old) classical music, but we don't see a spike as the graph starts at age of -40?
I have a question about electronic music only.
Since it really exploded in the 80's/90's plenty genres have evolved.
But for me I can't think of anything after dubstep in 2003 that is worth being called 'new'.
Recycling and sub-genres at best.
Like everything has been done before. Does anyone feel this way or am I missing something?
Dubstep is just as much a recycled genre/subgenre as anything else?
If you're after something new to your ears it really shouldn't fit neatly into any genre, right?
Listen to OPN's R Plus Seven. Electronic in its production, yes. But it's got a ton of orchestral structure/texture to it...on top of chopped vocal samples.
Or how about some Floating Points? Again, electronic for sure. But there's definitely a fluency in the conversation between electronic dance and jazz that wasn't there a few decades ago.
Photay. Seriously who was doing lush layered multi instrument compositions like this over electronic music pre-2000 not named Bjork?
All leap from genre to genre effortlessly enough while also having a ton of electronics sensibilities. Maybe it's recycling genres, but I think in some instances mastery in disparate areas leads to a greater sum than the parts.
Dubstep is just as much a recycled genre/subgenre as anything else?
If you’re after something new to your ears it really shouldn’t fit neatly into any genre, right?
I have to disagree.
There is obviously a use of dub basslines but how it was used and everything else about it gave me that buzz I only get from a new genre.
That moment when you're witnessing the next step in the evolution of electronic music.
Same as I had when hearing jungle for the first time, even if that also had faster recycled loops.
It was undeniably new and a genre in itself.
TBC it's not the being 'new' that is important, but the fact that I have a lot of stuff to listen to from artists exploring the new genre.
I really like floating points BTW, the rest I haven't heard of.
who was doing lush layered multi instrument compositions like this over electronic music pre-2000 not named Bjork?
I think there's a few.
You name some individual artists here, of course there are plenty with their own unique sound, for me Autechre is the best example.
So yes there's plenty of stuff to listen to, old stuff, cumbia, folk or whatever, but as I said, it's been a long time since I've heard anything that can be justifiably labeled as a new genre in electronic music leading to a wave of artists exploring that specific discovered road.
It is just so much work to dig through all that mumble rap, melodic humming - and not even melodic mumbling without rhyme or time signature...
It is even harder if you have a professional musician as an SO.
"Where is the music theory?!?"
Tho Demonhunters slaps (Golden isn't even the best song in the movie).
The best of my parent's generation cusp boomers is better than the best of my generation which is better than the best of anytime put out in the last 20 years
I don't listen to music much, but I feel like this graph would be nearly inverted for me. Didn't care much for the music I was forced to hear on the school bus, but inherited my mom's enjoyment of both oldies and classical, and enjoy some modern music (which is just much more diverse than when I grew up, so there's something for everyone)
My guess is that the big capitalists in this domain have trained their non-ML models for what the music that makes money is. This is especially easy with radio "top charts." By figuring out what is most popular, they figured out mediocrity and also had the power to create more and more of it, in a positive feedback loop. The AI slop factories are accelerating this.
hint: your emotions are a function of hormonal activity. music feeds your emotions in such a way that your hormones are run in a feedback loop that tweaks your emotions to higher levels. as you age, your hormonal activity lessens, so those feedback loops are less effective and you lose interest
So basically we all realize that music is a pointless waste of time once we get a job but sunk cost fallacy keeps us “enjoying” the same shit for a while
No fate but what we make. You can put in the effort to keep your mind and your ears open. Absolutely worth it IMHO.
Why should I bother when all the best music came out before I was 35?
Because some of that new music came came out before I was 35
Edit: Voyager is acting weird
Gosh, absolutely. I'll go on a nostalgia trip now and again, but there are soooo many artists doing such fantastic things nowadays.
Absolutely! I've discovered some amazing modern artists, mostly via film and TV (streaming series) soundtracks, especially the latter.
yep. I've come across some super cool young bands that sound exactly like the albums I love from 40 years ago!
I try my best to do this, and find lots of great new music.
I still find a lot of new popular music just doesn't do it for me, and I think it's because as you've heard more music, the it's harder to find something that sounds fresh.
When I was in the peak of that chart I was really into stuff like Spacehog, who seemed really cool to me at the time, but probably would have sounded a bit derivative to my parents. At the same time my dad loved Smashing Pumpkins enough to buy all their albums...
Certainly, of course all the old stuff is good because that is the stuff that you already curated into your personal preferences. There was a LOT of shit from pretty much any era, its just that the younger version of you already pawed through all that shit. Listening to new music means having to paw through a lot of crap, which is always harder than just listening to stuff you already like.
Plus there's so much more music each day it all gets diluted and hard to find.
I also always felt like as we move on artists will be much smaller as far as their following, like their time of fame will be smaller and shorter. Comparing like Beethoven who is world famous for generations to like metallica who is pretty big then like Taylor swift who is also huge but I feel each window getting shorter lived as more people spread out their preferences amongst all the artists and people use algorithms instead of buying an artists CD
It also can be pretty hard to find music you will actually like. Every streaming and sales service is more interested in promoting content based on who paid them off or based on what is cheap for them to stream. It seems like there are not a lot of resources geared specifically with connecting you to music that you are likely to enjoy.
I usually troll through new albums each month and just listen to a bunch of stuff until I find something I like.
Are you john conner
Maybe. Are you a homicidal AI?
i keep discovering contemporanean artists whom I love. and I'm in the "back in my day" age.
Delilah Bon, Bob Vyllan, kneecap... give me more suggestions like them.
Not just music! (Though that is probably the strongest example)
It's telling how many people are nostalgic for a society that only existed before they were born. Recent History education sucks.
Damn we humans are bad as shit as forming our subjective opinion that doesnt get extremely distorted by nostalgia
I always go back to that line from Men in Black about the difference between a person and people.
In aggregate we really are the worst.
People often forget that nostalgia is the secret spice that makes the past great.... not the actual past.
And nostalgia is nothing more than there's shit happening in our brains at 10ish-20ish that doesn't happen any other time. Hormones and energy and lack of responsibilty and first experience bias combine to create a dopamine cocktail we cannot recreate.
I mean, I'll die on the hill of 90s was the best music, TV, movies, video games, and fashion. But I know that it's not objectively true. But that's how it feels for sure.
Other explanations could just come down to the structure of our current society.
I can see a clear and quantifiable decrease in my family support structure between childhood and now. Of course that's mostly due death and moving away from home. But my answer would be entirely different if I lived in a multi-generational home or kinship group. Which was the default for about 99.9% of human existence.
Music, fashion, and tastes are a lot more subjective though.
I'm way too analytical to fall into that curve, and I'm sure most people on Lemmy are like that too. Like, we literally have data going back decades on most of these metrics, so why are people even going with their gut? Quite a few are literally numbers you can check!
But alas, your average nobody ignores data...
I’d be very interested to see the age distribution of the people who were polled. It just says 2000 adults, but if they were all around the same age then it may not all be matters of opinion, especially for things like “political division.”
Judging by the footnote, it's YouGov which isn't a very good poll typically. That said, it's likely got enough people across ages to standardize it properly. They probably do have a larger amount in one demo vs another, but you can simply weigh them differently to balance it out.
There's probably plenty wrong with their methodology if we dig deeper though; these polls aren't very scientific typically. With political division, it could be how they were asked, for instance.
The one that surprises me is TV. It has objectively improved in quality so much, it’s basically on par with movies at this point. Writing, acting, costuming, all of it. I’d never claim that TV from the 90s was superior to now, even though I was a teen back then.
I will absolutely argue that TV was better between 2006-2016 than 2016-2026. I think the detailed ratings (especially on streaming) ended up feeding studio decisionmaking into shallower works that their algorithms suggested audiences would like, and that we lost something in the process. The collapse of mid budget basic cable original programming also has hurt the genre as a whole.
Also, there's nothing quite like a high budget but mediocre show, that looks visually stunning but just doesn't resonate with you.
Absolutely, Netflix is the worst at this. They rate their in house series based on how many people binge it in the first week or two. No slowly enjoying a show. That's what so many of their good originals have been canceled. Apparently they weren't addicting enough for Netflix's tastes
TV now is kind of garbage because every show will have like 2 8 episode “seasons” with a 3 year gap in the middle. I appreciate the variety but it’s clear to me the industry hasn’t really recovered from the streaming era destroying the cash flow into the TV industry. The 90’s and early 2000’s are absolutely the peak of network TV IMO when it comes to big syndicated network shows like Star Trek Buffy stargate etc. but there are a much wider variety of shows today so it’s kind of a mixed bag
I feel like it has way more to do with how knowledgeable you were at the time. Kids generally don't have the most critical eye for any of those things and most people don't go back to see what they missed.
I just said to a friend this morning, "every kid's favorite movie is the last movie they saw"
It would be interesting to see that study carried out in other countries as well. In my country, for example, many older people will tell the tales from hiperinflation and how they had episodes of starvation when younger. I believe most people would agree with the best economy being post mid-90s, only varying on when, so it woud give a considerade skew to that chart.
Keep your statistics to yourself, I'm over 40 and love discovering new music.
"No! You're dumb and your opinions are poorly justified! You must listen to us instead!" - billionaire media
But is any of it better than CCR?
Gimme one! I'm the same way at 48!
Recently I've been banging
Sophie Hunter
And
Thot Squad
And
Hemlocke Springs
Why do I want to listen to the same shit I hear everywhere?! Give me new!
I’m only 31, but I really like bbno$, Sabrina Carpenter, AJR, and for non popular music and super queer, DAMAG3.
And then just a slew of random EDM whenever I’m in the mood.
Ditto. Im constantly finding new stuff. I think we all get a favorite music era for free since we start with none, but you gotta think about it and try to keep adding more. Takes approaching the new stuff with different points of view. New music often isn't good for the situations you listen to your original favorites. Maybe you started with electronic dance. Ambient music isn't gonna fit that goal and needs a new mentality and space to appreciate it.
I'm 'only' 26 and I've been having a blast going through Groundbreaking's collection that they've released over the years. I only recently realized there was this whole archive like a year and a half ago, but I've actually been listening to some of the songs sold on other albums for much longer than that! I've been discovering artists that pique my interest and I'll definitely look into them more once I'm all caught up.
And since I'm a huge rhythm game fan, I'll often discover new music and artists through charts on the way. The only thing more exciting than finding a new song I really enjoy is listening to one of my favorite songs
This may be true for casual listeners but it fails miserably for people who are "into music".
i'm not. it definitely applies to me. and i'm guessing it would for the majority of the public, too.
That could easily be extended to other interest areas;
The average person may exclusively eat local, contemporary foods (ie whatever everyone else in their community eats), while "foodies" go out of their way to find new and interesting flavors.
For many people, fashion is, "whatever looks kinda like what everyone else is wearing." For "fashionistas", there's a whole language around clothing choices.
But it's better to share some actual joyful experiences.
I recently started listening to "Angine de Poitrine". They're a modern band that just released a new album and still plays live concerts. According to the OP chart, they're 15 years too new for me.
For some old stuff, check out Hillery Hahn. I keep going back to her Bach sonatas and he lived in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Then there are crazy fusion versions. I recently found Ben Comeau's gem "Donald Trump is a Wanker". He took the bassline of "Seven Nation Army", gave it a choral voice, and transcribed it to a fugue format. To paraphrase an other contemporary artist; that shit is bananas.
Yeah this is almost exactly upside down for me. Most of my favorite music is from before I was born, and as I've gotten older I've only gotten more into new music.
What are your current favorites from the old and new categories?
Old stuff I'm partial to classic prog rock and jazz fusion (Yes, Chic Corea, Frank Zappa, etc.). New stuff is kinda all over the place, but the more genre bending the more likely I am to like it (black midi, KGatLW, The Comet is Coming, etc).
Thanks. I'm gonna give them a listen.
Only most people.
Some of us keep listening to new music throughout our lives
New stuff isn't tied to memories from youth though
New music is fucking incredible. People who think otherwise probably make no effort to discover new music.
Music from anywhen is great, or rather some of any ages music is great
Bro I smashed the shit out the like button for angine de poitirne, and I don't even think they're human. How do I have nostalgia bias for music that isn't from this dimension?
they're an industry plant its the olsen twins
look into it
Investigate 311 bro
Source?
I don't see any plants
They are fire
I'm right there with you.
I bet it was for you what it was for me.....part "this is crazy unique", part "AI can never do this" and "that's a musical scratch for an itch I never knew I had".
And ADHD and a gentle kiss of the 'tism.
I'm 41 and I think some of the best music of my life has released in the past few years, personally 🤷♂️
I’m a few years older. I think the best music was from before I was born 🤷
Hundreds of years before I was born, yes
You'll notice I said some. I would also say some of the best was from before I was born as well. I think art is as intrinsic to humanity as breathing and it is something we will continue to do with gusto and success forever.
Hell yeah, and forget even just individual songs, I tend to gravitate toward whole-album bangers and continue to find thoroughly dope and delicious stuff.
Xoth - "Exogalactic"
Clipse - "Let God Sort Em Out"
Two (somewhat different 😅) ones I've been getting just hours and hours of cover-to-cover listening mileage outta lately, for reference. Even got the Xoth one (new folks to me) from someone on Lemmy 😎
Sounds like we have similar taste. I really dig that Clipse album and while I haven't listened to Xoth, I love tech death: Necrophagist, Fallujah, Archspire, Inferi, Ulcerate, Revocation, Cryptopsy, Cognitive (underrated!), Eschaton (also underrated!)
I'm also an album guy, active music nerd on rateyourmusic. 👍
So I guess I'm saying based on those two picks and your pro-album taste I think you sound cool, lol
Ayyy 😎
You've given me some work to do and I'm only half happy about it, hahaha. But a buncha those are familiar (lovely).
To add a ridiculously great recent full-album-dope, sounding both "newer" and "older" than I can really imagine a death metal record sounding today, as I like to call em, "The Sangui Boggi Boyz" (a la "The Soggy Bottom Boys") -
Sanguisugabogg - "Hideous Aftermath"
It's gross and rad. Ya prolly already know lol, but hey.
Ya know, I definitely know of Sanguisugabogg and have heard a couple songs (Dead As Shit is badass), but they've been on my deep listen list for awhile and I haven't listened to any of their albums yet. I'll push them up in priority on your recommendation!
Honestly same. This one goes hard tho! Cheers.
So. Rather than DM I'll just be weird and ask here.
How'd the listen hit? I actually enjoy any amount of appreciating AND shitting on any art in this space, so feel free to let it rip.
Funny thing about heavy music, within the same space of humans, you get some of the LAZIEST people right alongside some of the gnarliest, hardest-working, most interesting music brains.
Feel free to trash anything I ever recommend - with all sincerity.
And now, with my conscience clear, I will ask - plz, gib. Lemme get 1-3 records from you I really gotta hear. Just cuz you think they're dope.
(It can be more than 3 lmao, 1-3 felt like a polite thing to beg)
I think Hideous Aftermath is great, super heavy and brutal but it's obviously not just mindless caveman stuff (though it's groovy enough even caveman-listeners could vibe with it)! I'm not gonna lie and pretend it's gonna sit at the top of my tier list or anything, but it's definitely in the better half of the 200~ albums I've heard and rated from 2025. And yeah like you said, a really great example of bringing the old school sound and feel into the new school.
Suggestions (i'll keep 'em recent-ish for now unless you want older stuff):
Horse Bitch - RIP Pistachio (2021) - Folk punk. Just a tremendous and extremely underground record that's equal parts pathos, catharsis, party, and funny. This is pretty small band and honestly I think I might just be their biggest fan, lol. I love this goddamn album.
Playboy Manbaby - Violence (2026) - Garage punk/indie rock, almost a bit post-punk. Insanely approachable punk album that still has some meat to the lyrics. This one totally surprised me but it's currently my 3rd highest rated album of 2026 so far.
Vittra - Intense Indifference (2025) - Melodic Death Metal. This wasn't my favorite album last year (it was #13 though!), but it had to be one of the most fun albums I listened to last year, especially for a heavy album. I don't know how else to explain it other than to say that it's just such a goddamn good time and the entire run of the album it really sounds like the musicians themselves are having a goddamn blast. If you want to know what I mean without committing to the full album yet, just check out 'Transylvanian Buffet,' although album opener 'MOFO' is just as fun but like 10% less silly.
BONUS 3.5. Impureza - Alcázares (2025) - Technical Death Metal/Prog Metal/SPANISH FOLK MUSIC. Okay so Alcázares and Intense Indifference aren't really all that similar, but they have a similar vibe to me; both are super playful, inventive, and experimental without feeling novelty or tacky. Overall I like Intense Indifference more, but if you really vibe with that one and gotta have something else that scratches a similar itch, this is absolutely what I'd recommend.
Anna Pest - Dark Arms Reach Skyward With Bone White Fingers II: Be (Not) Afraid (2026) - Deathcore/Technical Death Metal/Mathcore/Electronicore/Hyperpop? Real talk, this album blew my mind. I only checked it out because in January I saw it was doing well in the early 2026 charts on rateyourmusic so I wanted to see why. Looking at the album cover I was immediately worried, absolutely certain that I was about to hear something insanely cringe. Instead my face was immediately ripped off and sewn back on with a bloody manic smile. This shit is wild. It's basically the most extreme maximalist hyperpop approach, but applied to metal. You gotta be open to being like, sonically overwhelmed at times tbh, but holy shit what a ride.
Open Mike Eagle - Anime, Trauma & Divorce (2020) - Alternative Hip-Hop/Conscious Rap. Mostly just wanted to include a hip-hop album since we both liked the most recent Clipse. Anime, Trauma & Divorce is definitely my favorite hip-hop album of the 2020s so far, but it's definitely on the more like, chill, introspective side of the genre. Tons of clever, nerdy bars though, and just awesome music underneath the voice. The tracks with "Little A$e" (OME's son) are admittedly kind of pointless throwaways but I ain't gonna fault the man for including his own child in the experience of sharing his art, especially on the album specifically about familial strife, ya know? All of the rest of the album is GOLD though, imo. Although admittedly I'm like almost the same age and have extremely similar interests as OME so this is one where your mileage might vary greatly depending on how relatable you find it.
Tried to give you a little variety, hopefully you'll like a couple of those. Same as you said, I'm not precious about this shit at all and I love talking music, so if you listen to them feel free to share any opinions you have, even if it's "this shit sucks and anyone who listens to it is stupid!" 😅
Same bud. There's so, soooooo much great music being made right now. Some of it's on the radio, some of it is obscure as fuck. Doesn't matter. You just gotta fucking open your ears and listen.
Notable that this is only popular music. You might be surprised to find you follow the same trend if asked to rate Taylor Swift compared to Modest Mouse or something.
I don't think I fully understand what you mean by this, can you clarify?
They are operating under the assumption that the "best music of your life" that you're talking about does not have significant overlap with current top hits. If that assumption holds true then you may well follow the trend shown when asked to rate hit music.
Gotcha gotcha gotcha. Yes, I agree; these always filter towards the average, which is definitionally your primarily pop music listener and thus the subject group becomes that artist set
They beat me to it haha! People into jazz, classical, world music, progressive metal, etc would certainly rate things vastly differently from people who listen to pop music alone. These studies only target the averagest of persons.
I'm 31 and some of the best music I ever heard was made with vocaloids.
Notice the graph peaks in the teens, when most people's fun and social life also peaks. I was an introverted high school nerd and barely remember the music from that time, then in my late 20s got into doing theatre - suddenly had a thriving social life full of parties, dating, friends, fun... now it's decades later and the music of that era is by far my favorite.
Oh shit. That explains it for me too then.
I wonder how you could adjust the whole graph based on connections to friends.
When people are under 10, they don't have that much agency in choosing music. They just listen to whatever their parents listen to, or whatever their parents put on for them. In their teens they start getting to choose music and have a lot of classmates and friends who can be sources for hearing new music. In their early 20s that continues with university and/or first jobs. But, after a while that tails off and people have smaller social circles so they are introduced to fewer new things.
That could also explain why music from before people were born is somewhat popular. It's something you might have been introduced to by your parents, or possibly by friends in your teens or 20s, or maybe something you discovered on your own later. When you're 40+ you still might have people introducing you to music that existed before you were born, but you're probably not being introduced to the new music very much. And if you are, it's the popular stuff, which often sucks in all eras. Maybe if you have teenaged kids you hear what they like at some point, but that's a small window, and often what they like is the popular gunk.
That's really what I was thinking - that the graph probably wouldn't change much if you remapped it to personal connections because the pattern of personal connections is probably what drives it in the first place. Hence my favorite musical era is when my connections peaked around age 30. Although tbh most of what I liked then and still do is what you would call "popular gunk" - never did care much for dismissing popularity as low quality. They often go together, but unpopularity and low quality also do.
There's a reason why things are popular. People like it.
The only drawback is that to make a "Billboard #1" type hit, you need extremely broad appeal. So, often it's stuff that nobody hates instead of something that people who know a certain niche genre absolutely adore. You're unlikely to get a jazz song as a #1, or a twangy country song, or any song with lyrics that any group might find offensive,
Where the Party At? was senior year anthem. Bacardi is imprinted on me as the fun era
Somehow that reminded me of the birthday party my daughter organized for her husband. The theme was that he was running for President. She made campaign buttons with his face on them and the slogan, "Win or Lose, We Still Got Booze!"
Statistically, sure, but I’m forty and I keep finding new bangers.
I can find "new bangers", but there's also a whole lot of "holy shit, the kids have absolutely no taste in music", which I think is a often what the olds think of new music. I think that's the typical drop you see on the graph as people get older.
OTOH, to me the absolute worst era of music was the popular stuff coming out when I was 5-20 years old or so. That era just sucked. As a kid my general impression was "Holy shit, my peers have absolutely no taste in music". It was only years later that I actually discovered music that was made during that time that I had never heard about. So, I suppose there was some good music back then, but it wasn't the stuff that was on the radio, on TV, in the movies, etc. The best era for music, IMO, was 10-20 years before I was born. And, it isn't even music my parents introduced me to. They had pretty poor taste in music too, and never played that stuff. I only found out about it decades later by exploring music on my own.
"How people who only ever listen to the music that's played on the radio feel about music"
There was a period in my life where I didnt have time to listen to new music and I thought I could get by on Metallica, maiden, misfits, and (at the time) my favorite band, Fear factory. I distinctly remember telling people, I'll listen to this til the end of my days, I don't need more.
Then covid happened and I was stuck at home, no longer interrupted by random work or life stuff when I picked what music I put on for hours, and it got stale (No shit). And I started to listen to so much more.
Now my wife and I go to multiple shows a week, hearing all the latest and coolest shit from our local scene (SF); we tell all of our friends: $BAND is coming in 6 months, buy your tickets now, it'll sell out. Or: free show on Saturday, want to come?
We are on friendly terms with members from multiple local bands, we go to album release shows, we get signed merch just by being chatty/friendly, we are helping bands, promoters/venues book with each other by putting them in touch.
Honestly it's pretty incredible. When someone says "there's no good music these days" or "rock/metal is dead" i just ask them... "Well what are you into? I can recommend something". Because they're so wrong...And if thry see what I see, they'd never say that in the first place
I was a teen when Limp Bizkit was the thing for me and it's pretty sad that no other band has that sound yet. Especially the one of the less known tracks. I'm not a hardcore metal guy, so I look for guitar work with melodies. Any recommendations?
Nu Metal in general is a very broad category that was never as saturated (from a number of bands perspective). It's just that the bands that did break through got huge. So now there's a bunch of nu metal bands with unique sounds that nobody ever duplicated.
Re: the Limp Bizkit bit, how do you feel about this? https://youtu.be/qI7SAPzPVQg
I have to say, I'm not very good with specific descriptors like that, moreso (sub)genres or "this band sounds like that/these band(s)".
I agree there's not a lot that sounds quite like Limp Bizkit, not that I'm familiar with anyway.
When you say "guitar work with melodies", what first comes to my mind is Iron Maiden. My instinct was to go to my concert calendar and see what is coming up that might fit the bill to give you a rec, and I found "The Lord Weird Slough Feg" (sometimes just "Slough Feg" these days) is in a couple weeks. One track I remember loving by them is "Tiger! Tiger!". Their whole vibe reminds me of a Heavy Metal 2000 (the movie).
https://youtu.be/2qVkJOcKPmw
Give that a shot, hopefully I'm not too far off the mark!
(edit: and if that tickles your fancy, check out "Burst into Flames" by Haunt; "Time to Die" by Satan)
The fuck? Fontaines DC, Tyler Childers, Janelle Monae, Leon Bridges, I have never stopped finding new music I love. This graph makes no sense. Modern music is so good. Old music is so good. I do not have a preference for any particular time period when it comes to enjoying music.
Uh it's not an objective scale. This is the result of a survey
Yeah, i'm currently listening to my 8yo's explicite R&B tastes and perfectly happy with it. It rages in the same say my 90's stuff raged.
Time is a very good filter of what's worthy and what's not. You're living now and you're witnessing good stuff, but you're also witnessing bullshit before it's had the chance of being forgotten. If you look back 40-50-60 years, will you think of The Beatles, ABBA, Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix, or will you think of someone who maybe released a couple of songs or an album and dropped out of existence? Yes, I thought so.
What, you mean you don't still rock out to the Newbeats?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw53esk0mZc
There's been great music forever, there will continue to be great music forever.
The hard part is finding it.
Absolutely fucking not. I can't stand the music I used to listen to.
Yeah. In my XXs I still love finding new music. Very exciting thing to discover a new band I vibe with.
as if this chart had the centuries of data needed to be meaningful
it also needs centuries to express my music tastes
I assume this refers to pop music which was mainly available after mass media became a thing. They’re probably not interviewing Edward Von Dickensachen about the Chopin concert he attended when he was 12.
It's not talking about music, it's talking about humans. If this chart is meaningful, it should apply regardless of fashion. Otherwise it's not talking about humans, it's talking about recent trends in music.
I think it’s talking about human development in relation to a particular art and medium.
The art of pop music and mass media distribution (radio, tv, internet) didn’t exist 100s of years ago.
To me it’s similar to a chart talking about something like computer use in human development. Those didn’t exist 100 years ago either.
You just gotta know where to look. Music is an industry, so the people who view songs as products will push their favored products in front of as many of their target demographic as possible. They want those tween-to-twenties locked down. They decide what's cool, so if they like your products then you're cool. So if you're 40 and only listen to top 40 pop stations, you're probably in for a bad time since none of that shit is really trying to court you in the first place. I'm in my mid-late 30s and I'm still discovering bands and current releases that I'm into. Just gotta look a little harder.
I think that as we get older and consume more media, we experience a sort of fatigue of simple and easy structures, so we desire something more complex. But we grandfather in the stuff that we imprinted on in those formative years, and that's why that younger demographic is targeted; they'll keep coming back to their comfort media for their whole life.
Pop music is (usually) the middle ground between nursery rhymes and something like djent or cool jazz or math rock or whatever other more nuanced genre you're into. "Products" in those genres just aren't gonna sell like boy bands do. Some pop music is actually good and complex, but it's just not my thing and mostly never has been. I'm not trying to insult people who like Bad Bunny or Kendrick or whatever, but yeah Black Eyed Peas and Kid Rock fucking suck. Don't @ me.
Pop music now is better and more diverse than it ever has been. And I say this as a 45 year old
iHeartRadio / ClearChannel Radio destroyed the music of my childhood by overplaying the same 20 songs per station.
This graph is worse than useless to me. It is an insult.
Yeah except now the music of my childhood is on classic rock stations. And there’s no modern rock station at all.
They play Metallica and Nirvana on oldies stations now
Sad But True...🎶🎵
That's because rock stations are busy playing Imagine Dragons.
Just listen to a different radio or use a playlist instead or whatever
Theres more music out there than ever and it is so hard to find.
Hip hop, rap and RnB are very popular and very much in the mainstream, but I'm not a fan. So popular music certainly isn't to my taste.
Rock is well past its peak popularity. There's load of good rock and metal, but it takes work to find it now.
People's tastes might not reflect what's currently popular, which makes it falsely look like "all music is shit now".
Good and bad music exist since the existence of music. The problem with bad music began from the music industry massified it with criteria more commercial than artistic, this is why good music did not cease to exist, but you have to look for it more than before. Whether you like it or not depends only on personal taste, not on type or style.
Man I must be an outlier apparently, I don't listen to any of the music from my teens or even my twenties except in rare nostalgia trips. I'm constantly finding newly released songs that I like and even cringe at some of the music I liked as a youth. I don't think I can even define an era of "best music" - there're so many great songs across all music.
A few months ago I decided to listen to a few albums I used to be obsessed with as a teen. I just... didn't feel anything anymore. The music used to vibe with my teenage angsty energy, but being in my 30s now it just doesn't hit the same.
Meanwhile, I still rock out to classic rock and oldies from before my time. I was just singing Steve Miller Band and The Beatles on my way home from work - no radio, just felt like singing.
Though some stuff I listened to in my youth is more relevant now than ever. Songs written during the Bush era criticizing politics are as cathartic to scream out as they used to be...
Same. I'll rarely put on music from my teen years (90s for me), but for the most part I'm listening to stuff released from the past 5-10 years, or older stuff I've recently discovered from before my time. There is great music (and shit) from every decade.
I'm making an effort to listen to newer music by swapping albums with colleagues of younger generations (in return I get them to try records I'd just have assumed everyone has already heard). I like a lot of their recommendations but I don't know if anything's really going to stick. Maybe though!
I'm glad I still play new music and find bangers, but I've always done that. Dont think growing old will stop me.
I wonder if the difference is between people who like music primarily because of the memories it evokes vs people who just like music for its own sake. I'm sure this is a gradient, with most people probably falling closer to the former category and those at the other end of the scale seek out new music.
You're probably right, my endorphin port is tuned to fire when I hear new music I think is sicc. I still get the nostalgia stuff but only when I'm feeling sentimental. Otherwise I'm looking for a fresh (to me) beat. Just got into burialgoods and the hexcore he makes.
So what I'm getting from this is if you want success, market to 15-year-olds
Always true, in music and in everything else too.
and a banker bro dad that can grease palms at the record label
most of the music i listen is from before i was born 😕
For real, there's so much incredible music from before I was born and I'm going into my 40s.
Here's a song from 1974.
I was wondering what song it might be as I was clicking on the link. Hmm, 1974, that's the time when prog was going strong, maybe King Crimson...
My dad was like that, but the music he liked was from 1750 to 1830 or so. If there's no cello, he's not interested.
For me, my favourites are from the funk era. I don't think I knew that kind of music existed until I was in my 20s. Now it's my go-to kind of music.
Sauce: https://www.jstor.org/stable/48812575
This study builds on decades of work that makes less and less sense every minute of the digital age. Each year we're further from a semi-homogenous group listening to Casey Kasem's Top 40 (or whatever). Most people have a fairly clear, shared concept of 60s/70s/80s/90s music, but ask ten people about the 10s/20s and you'll probably get eleven different answers.
In addition to changing mass listening habits, the digital age untethers us from time and wildly diversifies "new" music. You can hop on Youtube/Spotify/etc and listen to the Glenn Miller Orchesta as easily as the newest Drake singles, which with radio/MTV/etc was historically not the case. Those platforms also have allowed a world of music diversity and access that completely changes the paradigm. For example, some of the best "80s Music" in existence was released in the past few years.
And I'm over here mostly listening to music from other countries and loving it.
Sometimes it really is that the music in the U.S. isn't as good as it used to be.
It's just that the good stuff is getting drowned out by the garbage corporations are pushing on us. There's plenty of good music being made in the USA if you dig for it.
The new Boards of Canada album came out a few days ago so I have no idea what this chart is taking about.
Isn't that proof?
They're not new artists.
And there are millions of people making music, of course there are exceptions to the general trend.
But thanks for the tip. Dusting off my chromatic dreamcoat and checking it out right now.
I went to a listening party for that last Friday, was a good time. Though, I'm never gonna put that on intentionally, it felt really... Idk, passive? Like a score for a movie where the music isn't really "the point". Great for background. I don't mean to be disparaging; I'm more of a metal guy so it just wasn't my thing.
That's fair.
Personally I really enjoy listening to BOC actively but you might enjoy it more if you put on one of their older albums like Music Has A Right To Children while on a scenic drive.
Edit: or take some LSD
I've discovered a new subgenre or other every few years and I still find music that's just as good in my thirties as when I was a kid. Trick is I don't care when it was made, I only care that it's in the style I want. I also have never listened to what anyone would really consider radio friendly music so it helps filter out the product placements disguised as artists. Stay curious and find music yourself and you will never experience this curve.
My music taste is like the inverse of this graph.
I wonder if there is any noticeable difference between different generations to this graph. Like if there is a specific time-frame, that if we account for nostalgia and calculate out this bias/distribute different generations evenly performs higher than other time frames
I was curious too so I pulled up the study.
First off, this is a marketing paper aimed at companies trying inform the industry about taste demographics.
Secondly, I think it’s relevant to note they selected sample songs from billboard top ten (excluding the top 3) so the data is definitely only speaking to ‘an average of average taste in billboard pop music’ and not to musical taste overall. Edit: Also limited to US.
This is the bit that I think gets at our question:
Peak Preference in SSA indicates the peak preference of each respondent based on their birth year, so if you were born in 1970 and the testing showed you favoring the 1990 song Vogue- Madonna as your peak preference, your SSA would be 20 (you favor music from when you were 20).
My impression from this scatter chart is that a lot of people liked 80s music regardless of when they were born haha.
I think it's exposure, you hear about a lot more music in high school. Now I get exposed to new music mostly by the radio (you can throw streaming algorithms in here) and it's shitty pop/rap music that they play. Like if my 90s exposure to rap was limited to Vanilla Ice then I wouldn't care for it either.
You need to stop, collaborate and listen!
very hard graph to follow but "popular music" means highest rated radio pop station. Nothing alternative.
I like most types of electronica. Trance, techno, house, bounce, phonk, and even some dubstep. I still find new songs on youtube that I enjoy, even in my 40's. Growing up my dad listened to a lot of psychedelic rock. I don't really listen to rock anymore but I do recognize a lot of rock artists like dick dale, iron butterfly, and many others who created the psychedelic sound that progressed into techno and trance. I still hear a hint of miserlou in a lot of modern electronica it has a very recognizable guitar riff.
And yes Dick Dale was a surf guitarist, but his experimental creativity was a departure from what came before him. I consider him the grandpa of the big psychedelic rock artists who came after him. Many big psychedelic rock artists claimed dale as an inspiration.
Dick Dale is a legend a lot of great musicians owe something to. Most (though not all) modern surf, some of which is fucking great, follows in his footsteps while also borrowing from psych rock and other genres.
Always give Dick his due, he is the king after all.
Edit: at the same time, it'd be a mistake to ignore the influence of The Ventures as well.
Edit edit: Since this has lead me to fire up my 'face melting surf' playlist again, I'll take the opportunity to give a shout out for my aquaintence-of-an-acquaintence's weekly radio show Storm Surge of Reverb.
I'm in my 30s and a lot of my favourite music came out recently. My music tastes keep getting weirder and weirder.
Have you listened to 60/70s Rock or 90s rap. I'm an earlier millennial but I'd take CCR over most nwa and Eminem or anything new
Yeah. I like old music too. My most played artist last year was Miles Davis.
But I'm not talking about Eminem here. I'm talking about artists like Boards of Canada etc
Much like every YouTube comment section for an SNL skit has at least 147 "SNL hasn't been good since..." comments.
Of course 95% of the rest of the comments are literally nothing but them typing out a funny line followed by 🤣😂
I still find good music, but not nearly at the same frequency I did in the late 90s to early 2010s. Absolutely none of what I find good is played on the radio (but then, it's like 80% commercials so I doubt much of anything is heard on the radio unless used in an ad); it's all from films, games and memes now. A lot of artists I am into these days aren't even known outside of Bandcamp, Spotify or TikTok where they post their music.
When I was a kid I only listened to music from the 80s and prior.
As an adult I started finding other genres of more contemporary stuff that I actually liked, but as a kid my only exposure to "modern music" was the bullshit top 40s pop music radio stations that they would play on the school bus, and I hated that stuff with a burning passion.
Even when there was an occasional song that I found catchy, I felt very conflicted inside and would never admit to liking it...
Obviously biased data, I'm not in it. >:(
I tend to listen to music from before i was born, but then again that's the music I listened to in my formative years.
I never listen to old music, nothing from my teen 90s especially. I've heard those three million times each. Give me some new artists producing shimmering, sparkly electronic-indie and I am happy to keep eating it up. Other genres too but there's so much in just this one, it's immersive, and I absolutely think it keeps my brain sharper.
Interesting. Spotify said my late 30’s ass was a 17 year old by the music I listen to and like.
There is music from my young adulthood in the 90's that means a great deal to me because of the memories, but I'd put say Amyl and the Sniffers up there with some of the icons of Punk.
I didn't discover music I liked until I was 21. I got raised on church garbage and the oldies channel.
My favourite music is indeed released when i was in teens. However, i did not listen to that music when i was in teens.
The only music that was released in my teens that I like is stuff I never heard until I was maybe 30. I look back and think it was such a shame that I missed that era when it was current/new.
I think this only applies to some generations, almost all the music I like has been made before I was born
Post your finds so that this graph may die
Rat Heart outta Manchester has been my repeat lately. Whole album Dancin' In The Streets is great if you're after something down tempo and not super up beat. Flute haters need not apply
2026: Elder - Through Zero. Heavy Stoner/Psych/Metal 2025: Totorro - Sofa So Good. Upbeat Math Rock. 2024: Alcest - Les Chants de l’Aurore. Shoegaze meets black metal. Minimal screaming.
I'm going to attack the other side of the graph.
i find a lot of music i used to think was hot shit back in my heyday is Very Dated now, would not generally recommend
Iḿ from 90s and like mostly 60s/70s. psychedelic & prog rock
But then why are gen alpha and gen z listening to music I grew up with. It is so weird. I know its tiktok but still weird that they listen to the same music.
Yes, it's Tik Tok. And it's music older than I am sometimes. But mine listen to everything, like I do. I took the youngest to see Inhaler and also to see Young the Giant. Taking my husband to see Cannons, and also got him into country music, he used to hate it but if you turn off the commercial radio and just find the good stuff it is still being made.
The 2 bands both my older set of kids (millennials) and my younger set (GenZ) wanted to see when they were middle school age were Panic at the Disco and the My Chemical Romance, I always thought that was funny. Like it's middle schooler music, I think I would have loved it too.
The music industry, such as it is today, is nothing. It was getting super fucked in the 80s, had a last gasp in the 90s and now it’s nothing.
The former pipeline of label to radio to charts is dead. Whats left is a necrotic accounting and marketing mechanism driven by algorithms and viral splashes.
Things have changed but the music industry is very much alive. The barrier to entry dropped significantly with the advent of the internet which definitely affected the established companies but they don't represent the industry. The artists do.
There's more independent labels than ever and live music hasn't changed significantly (minus the feed for "major" venues). I'd even go as far as to say the music industry is better than it's ever been.
I’m sure that’s true in many respects, but from the standpoint of putting content in front of . . uh . . earballs, that pipeline that used to exist for almost every adult person (in the US anyway) is dead.
Spotify and Youtube are two possibilities, both pay almost nothing and require lots of sandbagging to get a foothold.
Any new music I accidentally come across is more often than not a style I’m not into, and/or it sounds like everything else.
I've made a similar "rant" before on this in the hopes to change someone's mind so I'll give you the shortened version. And I don't mean this negatively, I mean it as encouragement!:
Music can be an active or passive hobby. Most people fit the latter category and the older you go, the more it skews that way. Adults have a lot less time to experiment and if you aren't actively seeking out new music, you can fall into the trap of "they don't make it like they used to"
But they do! It's out there! You're just less likely to stumble upon it because not only do you lack the time, the people around you are in the same boat. We've also heard a LOT of music since our teens so fewer songs feel fresh. There's no such thing as "derivative" if you've never heard the original!
I'm an active hobbyist who listens to 20+ hours of music I've never heard before on a weekly basis and can guarantee that music in pretty much every single genre is still around.
So I would encourage you to spend a couple hours exploring some time. Even if it's just googling "modern bands like [old band] reddit" and seeing what the music hobbyists have to say, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Don't understand graph. is dark line what people think of songs released 11 years ago? WTH is graph before age 0? Oh ok, maybe. A song released when you were 40 is rated the same as one released 45-80 years earlier.
There is huge bias in "popular music" category. Can get very sick of old songs, or just stop listening to contemporary pop after a while. I'm surprised old people would still like pop songs of their youth, after being overplayed over the years.
They did the survey repeatedly over 11 years and the line shows the average across all years.
Well there have been scientific studies showing music became more shitty.
That sounds pretty implausible, from so many angles.
@NigelFrobisher
@Bloomcole
It's kinda true...for pop music specifically. It's gotten more same-y. There are a lot more explored genres today than before, which I believe offsets it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho%5C_IYc&t=884
Well then decide after looking at the studies.
Are these studies in the room now?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55742-x
I'll post one, just to humor some pretentious asshole
Yeah, that "Lyrics style and emotion descriptors" section is absolutely ridiculous from the perspective of aesthetic judgment. No normal listener or professional critic judges music and lyrics on the basis of, I quote, "unique token ratio, repeated token ratio, pronoun frequency, line count, or punctuation counts".
I just clicked on one study as a reply to this guy being a dick.
While music and everything concerning taste is mostly subjective there are some quantifiable parameters.
Like variety of chords, note progressions, and melodic transitions.
The over use of audio compression, presets and loops,etc..
I don't think he was a dick. He wasn't very tactful, but he wasn't insulting you.
You can quantity it, but that doesn't mean the quantification is meaningful and correlates with literally anything else. Like, loops are bad? I guess I should inform all those classical music critics they're actually dumb for liking Terry Riley and Steve Reich.
Lol that’s a study into lyrics becoming simpler over time (for some given set of music) not music becoming “more shitty”.
Well... Guess I peaked. https://listenbrainz.org/user/RustyNova/stats/?range=all_time#music-by-year
TBF there was a switch in the dubstep sphere and a lot of brostep artist (which I love) moved to riddim (which I hate). As well as my biggest source of song (Monstercat) switching styles
Listen to better musicians?
This is pretty spot on for me. I don't even know who the latest artists are, I just listen to the same old stuff over and over.
I have moods for genres though. Currently going through a chiptune phase again (YM2612 specifically, so give recommendations).
oh yeah, chiptunes are the best.
i remember a song called "cydonian skies" (part 1 & 2). i played it a million times while playing minecraft. artist is dubmood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIxRDU_l8Bc
I thought about trying this, but thinking about how to execute it already sounds painful enough.
For input data, I could use my existing library of mostly individually-selected songs, currently at size 1,662. Since I mostly listen to everything, this spans a rather large range of dates.
Then start taking random songs, and rating them on 1 - 10 scale in relation to entire library, enter ratings into 10 year buckets, and use mean of those ratings.
Probably 5 ratings per bucket to keep it short.
Unfortunately, I most likely can't fill every bucket, hell, some would remain empty. After all, classical music makes my library likely start in late 1600s, and end in 2025.
I didn't think about that. Perhaps I could leave it out, and start at, say 1920s, but that would make the data incomplete.
Problem is, I don't have the years for most of them, so that would mean looking up release dates for those individually.
Huh, what if everyone would absolutely love (old) classical music, but we don't see a spike as the graph starts at age of -40?
Honestly I don't like the music I listened to in my teens anymore, but also rarely hear new music I really like. I'm usually listening to older stuff.
ALL Americans are exactly this?
Mozart was actually peak piano tho
I have a question about electronic music only.
Since it really exploded in the 80's/90's plenty genres have evolved.
But for me I can't think of anything after dubstep in 2003 that is worth being called 'new'.
Recycling and sub-genres at best.
Like everything has been done before. Does anyone feel this way or am I missing something?
Dubstep is just as much a recycled genre/subgenre as anything else?
If you're after something new to your ears it really shouldn't fit neatly into any genre, right?
Listen to OPN's R Plus Seven. Electronic in its production, yes. But it's got a ton of orchestral structure/texture to it...on top of chopped vocal samples.
Or how about some Floating Points? Again, electronic for sure. But there's definitely a fluency in the conversation between electronic dance and jazz that wasn't there a few decades ago.
Murlo
Photay. Seriously who was doing lush layered multi instrument compositions like this over electronic music pre-2000 not named Bjork?
All leap from genre to genre effortlessly enough while also having a ton of electronics sensibilities. Maybe it's recycling genres, but I think in some instances mastery in disparate areas leads to a greater sum than the parts.
I have to disagree.
There is obviously a use of dub basslines but how it was used and everything else about it gave me that buzz I only get from a new genre.
That moment when you're witnessing the next step in the evolution of electronic music.
Same as I had when hearing jungle for the first time, even if that also had faster recycled loops.
It was undeniably new and a genre in itself.
TBC it's not the being 'new' that is important, but the fact that I have a lot of stuff to listen to from artists exploring the new genre.
I really like floating points BTW, the rest I haven't heard of.
I think there's a few.
You name some individual artists here, of course there are plenty with their own unique sound, for me Autechre is the best example.
So yes there's plenty of stuff to listen to, old stuff, cumbia, folk or whatever, but as I said, it's been a long time since I've heard anything that can be justifiably labeled as a new genre in electronic music leading to a wave of artists exploring that specific discovered road.
It is just so much work to dig through all that mumble rap, melodic humming - and not even melodic mumbling without rhyme or time signature...
It is even harder if you have a professional musician as an SO.
"Where is the music theory?!?"
Tho Demonhunters slaps (Golden isn't even the best song in the movie).
Basically the opposite for me.
totally tracks. that would be the 80s for me and i still listen to it more than from any other decade.
Have you gotten into The Darkness?
The best of my parent's generation cusp boomers is better than the best of my generation which is better than the best of anytime put out in the last 20 years
I don't listen to music much, but I feel like this graph would be nearly inverted for me. Didn't care much for the music I was forced to hear on the school bus, but inherited my mom's enjoyment of both oldies and classical, and enjoy some modern music (which is just much more diverse than when I grew up, so there's something for everyone)
My guess is that the big capitalists in this domain have trained their non-ML models for what the music that makes money is. This is especially easy with radio "top charts." By figuring out what is most popular, they figured out mediocrity and also had the power to create more and more of it, in a positive feedback loop. The AI slop factories are accelerating this.
Because human brains are finally fully developed by your late 30’s.
i can confirm that. fuck that pop music. i want early electronic back
My favorite band's first album released when I was 10, their genre got big about 5 years prior. So yeah, this is pretty accurate.
And theres me, who prefers music from before I was born
Se should arrest every regaetton singer
hint: your emotions are a function of hormonal activity. music feeds your emotions in such a way that your hormones are run in a feedback loop that tweaks your emotions to higher levels. as you age, your hormonal activity lessens, so those feedback loops are less effective and you lose interest
Do you have a source on this? Music playing a role in hormonal feedback loops sounds sus to me and if it’s not I’d love to read more into this.
not really. i just go by personal, i.e., anecdotal experience.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/feel-good-hormones-how-they-affect-your-mind-mood-and-body
In other words, you lied about the scientific basis of your comment?
This take is a Rick Sanchez type beat
I love songs from 2008 and I love songs from 2026, Idk where this came from
I see you. I'm so high on my own farts this doesn't get to me.
Nostalgia needs to go back to its old status as a form of mental illness.
So basically we all realize that music is a pointless waste of time once we get a job but sunk cost fallacy keeps us “enjoying” the same shit for a while
That is so far from the point of this graph it's in another universe.
It's not only a bad take but an incorrect reading of the graph lol