I think about all the experiences and feelings I associated with music back in the day: Thriller, Sign of the Times, Ammerikka's Most Wanted, Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders, Velvet Rope, SoundBombing III, ATLiens, and the list goes on but then it kind of stops at a certain point. Listening to new music that I loved use to have this transcendent, mystical feeling in which I could sit alone in my room, zone out and get lost in the music. I don't get that feeling anymore.

I mean there is a lot of new music I still enjoy (fcuk it I'll admit, Drakes first mixtape) but nothing moves me the way it use to. Old tracks can still give me goosebumps (I am reminded of this as I listen to this Dilla Mix), but nothing made in the last 6 or 7 years.

I think the easy thing would be to blame it on the decline of music but I think that's a cop out. I am sure that there are kids zoning out to Frank Ocean the way I do with Brown Sugar and I am not going to waste time arguing the sh*t that moved me is superior to the music that moves young folks today.

I am also aware that feeling that a lot of older music inspires me is also a reflection of fond memories from those periods. Which inevitably makes me think that it is a function of age and getting older.

What I am wondering is if it is possible for a person to be as moved by new music coming out today as they were moved by music 20 years ago when they were a teenager. Is that true for anyone here?





**********
"naive as the dry leaves on the ground looking past the trees to the blue sky asking 'why me?'" -Blu

Why I still fuzz with the Lesson
http://open.spotify.com/user/brothersport86/playlist/3DhEhilho77Z0UCPbJlEJf

* The seeds of it existed but it hadn't become as fully realized as it is now.

When I was young I was inspired by the music that was just being born hiphop and through that inspired by its inspiration, i.e. early black music (jazz, funk, r&b).

Today most of those have run their course and while I still get ampler for folk that approach them in a way that's in line with the traditions but keeping fresh new takes on it, I'm mostly inspired by the sounds which are emerging that didn't exist for me when I was young.

Most of this revolve around electronics and experimentation as for me that is the natural evolution of music in this era of humanity. Much of it isn't for the masses and goes well under appreciated, much of it is retreads of things which were around later in my younger years but i was too busy with my head stuck up my hip-hop ass to notice, but there is a huge pushing forward which I love and keeps me amped.

My favorite album of 2012 was Keith Fullerton Whitman's "Occlusions". You have no idea the musical orgasms I have listening to that. On par with discovering "Giant Steps" or "Inner City Griots".

There's a lot to be excited for if you're invested in music. I think a big part of growing older is just realizing how big that investment really is for you.
________
Big PEMFin H & z's
█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

trying to get excited about music nowadays
would be like a junkie trying to find another high.

i can't get excited about music
the way i did when i was discovering earth, wind & fire.
it's like the pleasure circuits in my brain are blown.
music just can't hold the same meaning for me.


i've used this metaphor before,
but i think it's like movies.


the first time i saw luke skywalker levitate a light saber,
my mind was blown.

same goes for when i saw neo dodge a bullet.



i've seen great movies since then.
i've seen great special effects since then.
some even gave me chills.


but trying to get excited about music the way i was as a kid
would be like trying to replicate the thrill of losing your virginity.



you just can't.
you can have good sex again, but you can't be as excited about it.
the circuit was blown.

i still love music,
but i can't sit down and listen to it for hours.
spending all day listening to records used to be my favorite pastime.

now, i only do that once in a blue moon. i just can't.
i'd rather do other things.


that's okay.

good music is still out there,
and i love it when i find it,

but i can't be as excited when i do.

What's the flip upside for a life long relationship with music? in other words finish this sentence:


I use to have my mind blown away by new music, that doesn't happen anymore but at least now_______.



**********
"naive as the dry leaves on the ground looking past the trees to the blue sky asking 'why me?'" -Blu

Why I still fuzz with the Lesson
http://open.spotify.com/user/brothersport86/playlist/3DhEhilho77Z0UCPbJlEJf

>
>I use to have my mind blown away by new music, that doesn't
>happen anymore but at least now_______.



i don't feel COMPELED to get my hands on everything in sight.



when i was younger, i tried to have a "complete" music collection.
i made it a point to go out of my way to get up on all of the artists
that i felt like i "should."

i also found myself buying (and later downloading) more music
than i could possibly get around to listening to.



and don't get me wrong, that was a cool phase.

but you do get to the point where you are sitting in front of your albums
trying to figure out what to play next
and then you realize you've been sitting listening to nothing for 20 minutes
because you can't decide what to put on next.


it gets overwhelming
and the irony is that the more music you have,
the less you actually absorb it. it's just too much.



nowadays, i strive to have an INCOMPLETE music collection.
i actually don't own some of my favorite albums.
it's better to have some of my favorite albums be a memory
instead of looking at it knowing i don't want to play it.


i also enjoy not feeling obligated to study up on new music.
it's fun to just get to it when i get to it.
for instance, i enjoy billie holiday, and i have a few compilations,
but i don't feel bad that there's a lot i don't know about.

i didn't run out to get that complete box set.
i'll get to it when i get to it, if i get to it.




in other words, the coolest part is the ability
to just slow down. it doesn't bother me that i don't know
every single radiohead album. i just enjoy what i've got.

which ironically, is more similar to the way it was
when i first fell in love with music.


i didn't feel compelled to get EVERYTHING.
i couldn't get a hold of everything even if i wanted to.
i just listened to what i could pick up on my allowance
or from my parents collection and that was that.


the best part of not being in love with music constantly
is that you get to actually slow down and actually
listen to the music that you have. casually.

and without always wondering if there is more that you're missing.

----------------------------------
www.maxptah.com
"you gotta be real white to hate on a nxgga for eating." (c) okp infin8

I'll listen to one, or maybe two or three, albums from one artist a lot for months. I'll listen of subtle aspects of the music, like rhythms, melodies, instrumentation, meaning of lyrics, etc.

At this point, I get more out of that than trying to devour the entire ASCAP vault of recorded music. It's like going to an art museum and spending all your time with a handful of pieces, rather than laying eyes on each and every thing in the building.

I don't know that I've done that consciously, but it feels like I change my CD player out far less often than I used to.

I'm not sure that brings more repeat listens though, since the CD player isn't on.

-------
so I'm in a band now:
album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases
Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband

avy by buckshot_defunct

Reasons-

1-Alot of the music I listened to as a younger man(18-28yrs) was received during a more or less "care free" "responsibility free" era in my life. Point being, I had more time to research what was fresh and new, what was on it's way and in the case of hip hop, what they sampled, when they would be touring in or near my city...etc. Now, I got grown man stuff to worry about so Common's new album is less of an item of concern.

2-Much of the stuff I then thought and considered to be "conscious" and "positive" I later learned was pretty bogus and in fact, not so "positive".
Example:I LOVED Brand Nubian "Sunshine" but now that I fully understand the content of the song, I can't mess with it at all.

3-The admittedly "non-conscious" or "negative" music I use to listen to is now view as rather destructive to my community when viewed from my now "Grown Man" eyes.

4-Reason #3 being said, I now search the music for not only, sonic and lyrical quality, i'm now judging the "ethical" quality as well.

5-Much of today's "black" music that is front and center pretty much sucks and is tacky and somewhat irresponsible.


Over all though, I'd say my decline in interest is mostly due to a shift in life priorities.

That "golden era" for most people is from ages 17-28. Whatever you had going on during those years ends up being what you typically hear people referring to as "the good ol' days".
So I guess it's only natural.

peace
HIM
www.PlazaMelodic.com
"Lo-Fi Holiday" Now Available!!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lo-fi-holiday/id985794237
https://plazamelodic.bandcamp.com/album/lo-fi-holiday
http://soundcloud.com/beatroom88

Not at the same fan boy level...Hehe... but still get excited (like hunting down leaks)

http://da-dk.facebook.com/BoomClapBachelors

Mostly, getting older and having a family and a career and simply not having the time to care about music like you used to.

Plus when you're younger, you're going to shows and festivals, the artists are usually in the same age range, you might even wear the t-shirt, you are a lot more "connected" to the music.

-------------------------------
If life is stupendous one cannot also demand that it should be easy. - Robert Musil

I really like a lot of the responses here...

I think it has to do with:

1. Getting older and getting a job, career, different priorities.

2. Maybe music burnout a bit. I've been a music freak since I was like 6 years old and, at a certain point, the excitement fades a bit and you just want to do other things.

3. As you get older, you're a little more out of touch...whether you admit it or not.

4. The quality of "popular hip hop and R&B/Soul" has plummeted so far it's really hard to find anything good out there.

>4. The quality of "popular hip hop and R&B/Soul" has plummeted
>so far it's really hard to find anything good out there.
>
>


i PERSONALLY feel that the quality has dropped,
but then again, my grandfather didn't like motown...

he thought big band and jazz was better.


to a degree, every generation feels this way.
music is always defined by the youth.
and the old(er) folks always feel that the youth are fucking up.

>
>>4. The quality of "popular hip hop and R&B/Soul" has
>plummeted
>>so far it's really hard to find anything good out there.
>>
>>
>
>
>i PERSONALLY feel that the quality has dropped,
>but then again, my grandfather didn't like motown...
>
>he thought big band and jazz was better.
>
>
>to a degree, every generation feels this way.
>music is always defined by the youth.
>and the old(er) folks always feel that the youth are fucking
>up.
>
>
I had this wierd thought today...if modern commercial hip hop is this bad today, what will it be like in 20 years?
>
>
>
>

>I had this wierd thought today...if modern commercial hip hop
>is this bad today, what will it be like in 20 years?
>>


20 years ago, a lot of people said the same thing about rap.

again, i dislike new music as much as you do.
but i suspect that has more to do with age than it does with the music.

>
>
>20 years ago, a lot of people said the same thing about rap.
>
>again, i dislike new music as much as you do.
>but i suspect that has more to do with age than it does with
>the music.
>
>
I think, back in the day, most of the criticism of rap music didn't come from rap fans...it came from rock fans maybe "not getting" the new(ish) music form...or just hating it.

I think now a lot of the criticism of current commercial hip hop comes from rap fans, people who really know the music.

Just my 2 cents....

I'd imagine, anyway.

When I was younger, I used to get home from school and look up, say, Flaming Lips or Elliott Smith in my iTunes (I'm probably the first generation to use iTunes...over a summer I spent $2,000 because the charges past my $20 allowance weren't showing up...I still regret not having that allowance for actual CDs or records, but I digress) and just listen to their whole discography front to back. I couldn't really imagine listening to an artist any other way.

Oh, I want to listen to Pink Floyd today? No problem, let's just fire up Piper at the Gates of Dawn and get ready for a wild ride. The other rule was no starts and stops. If I couldn't finish everything Bob Dylan in one day, then god damn it I'm listening to more Bob tomorrow.

But of course there's just that fire you'd have to pick the right line of work to maintain. You leave high school, and for me even in college there's not that much to talk about musically (I went to a fairly diverse state school, Nebraska, but I've never been one to hunt right fits so I spent most of my time in frat houses listening to Fat Joe and Hello Nasty) so you start to insulate that enthusiasm.

The biggest problem for me right today is that about two years ago, maybe almost three, I embraced the mixtape WAY stronger than perhaps I should have and now, like Joe said above, often I can just find myself staring into an abyss of cover art unsure what to do about it. I still LOVE shuffling my iTunes, but...I'm not positive I should be allowed to have 10GBs of free and label promo music in 2013 already. 4 days worth, 1,500 songs. That's already more than most regular people are willing to stuff in their computer across the memories of their entire lifetime.

...Another thing worth mentioning is that until I upgraded my RAM yesterday, I spent about 6 months discouraged from playing music by the fact doing so made my 2008 iMac nearly unusable due to the size of my library. Imagine that. Unable to listen to music because you have too much of it.

Truthfully, I believe most of the types of people who end up posting on a site like the Lesson do this to themselves, one way or another.

I still love music, and get giddy to hear new things, but you're not going to find me lying face down in my room with Sennheisers on, cranking that new TV on the Radio album Return to Cookie Mountain while blazed out of my mind, passing out from sheer ecstasy around track six.

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." © Jay Bilas
"I don't read pages of rap lyrics, I listen to rap music." © Bombastic
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

pleases us.

I feel like most of us believe that the Genres we enjoy the most have peaked, and a lot of what hits us hardest now is when these Genres sort of cross into each other and bring out the best elements together in ways that we haven't heard before. When that doesn't happen..I feel it's hard to really get excited about it like we did before, back when we heard songs and could literally say "I've NEVER heard somethin like this before!!!!" It even feels like most music that we get hype about now has to remind of us something we enjoyed before, otherwise, we might just feel out of touch with where it's going.

I think Terrace Martin is a good example for me and what I'm speaking on. For Rap, 90's West Coast is probably my favorite style...but I grew up in a Jazz house. So hearing Terrace incorporate the Jazz in there, just as Quik did, will tend to hit me and have me more hype than anything else, even if the overall quality isn't as strong as what I've heard before, or as strong as other artists who are out.

------------------------------

50+ FREE Mixes on www.DJR-Tistic.com!

Twitter and Instagram - @DJ_RTistic

there cant BE another Endtroducing
DYWM???!!!?? aint walkin through them doors

plus im older

-------------------------
“The other dude after me didn’t help my case. It was just like…crazy nigga factory going on.”
Dre makes no apologies for his own eccentricities. “I was young, and searching, trying to find myself,” he says. “Never did.”-- Andre B

younger but it's still an important hobby for me and yes...new music still excites me

...as I got 'em when I was younger. Nowadays it's here and there whereas when I was younger, it seemed I got that rush often. I still get those moments where I can play a song over and over due to the feeling it gives me. Unfortunately, there aren't too many songs that make me do that nowadays. I noticed that if I hear an old song, that I deem a classic, and it's been a grip of time since I heard it, I may get that rush again. Of course not on the same level as when I first heard it but still.... Anyway, while I don't always get that hard buzz like I used to, I still find myself enjoying a lot of music to this day.




Since 1976

to it.

There was never any: "WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS??????????!!!?????" reactions to music unless I had that reaction when I was a toddler.

Since childhood, I heard a lot of good music, some of it would hit me more than others.

Same thing now.

The cool thing now is that the more I go through phases, then I can rediscover stuff I wouldn't have liked before while I was in a certain phase.

Like I said a few weeks ago, I couldn't really appreciate what Miles Davis did on some of the tracks on the "In a silent way" session box set or the "Bitches Brew" sessions box set if I didn't get over a Mahavishnu Orchestra/Herbie Hancock Headhunters phase.

Now I also can appreciate pop music more than when I was in a punk phase, etc. etc.

it's true that most of my favorite artists and albums i heard when i was a teenager. that's a product of having the right or wrong set of personality traits to develop a serious interest in music and the means to discover it as well as what DJ R-Tistic said about it raising my standards for everything to come after. just because i don't discover artists i like as much or more than my favorites as a kid doesn't mean i have less eureka moments. every year there is at least one new album that blows my mind and is as good as anything i've ever heard, whether it's an actual new release or more likely just new to me, every year i discover so many great artists that are likewise either new or new to me, and i even hear with new ears and rediscover music i've heard before and didn't think so much of. i'm up to my ears in good music every day, and i couldn't be happier. "i wish i could give you this feeling." (at least i try.)

that said, it's hard to argue against traditional musicality being on the decline along with general effort put into craft. music used to be bigger, both in the money invested into making it and the attention it received on its own merits, so it makes sense that the downsizing would mean less great music by volume. i also think people are more cynical now and don't really know what they want out of music, so movements aren't sustained.

>i also think people are more cynical now and don't
>really know what they want out of music

The former deriving from the latter IMO. So many have had their relationship to music shaped by outside forces which in latter years have been on the decline leaving them with out a clear direction or purpose for music in their life. There's still the natural attraction to it as an experience but without the internal motivation they find less and less reason to feel attached to it as an experience and as such become easily dismissive of everything presented as such.

I think of people talking about the quality of music declining and have to wonder. SOmeone above paralleled an elder relative's dismissal of R&B for the jazz of their generation and on an objective level it could be argued that R&B lacked the musical sophistication of jazz and similarly hip-hop lacked the musicianship of its priors. But they were all evolutions of what preceded them. For the lay listener it appears that change is not an acceptable norm. They gravitate toward their musical comfort zones outside of which everything can be dismissed as either old sounding or not surpassing what they like.

I thought hip-hop with its absorption of style from so many musical arenas would have the birds eye view of musical progress to avoid this pitfall but alast it was so commercialized that its fans become no less blind than the old jazz heads who think it has no soul.

The changes in instruments, the means of playing, voicing, performing and capturing music over the past century have been absolutely insane and redefined what music is a thousand fold. But at the same time there has been an industrialization which has branded what music 'is' to the point that in the ears of the masses there can be no change, nothing so radical that it seemingly scoffs at the notion of what music used to be. That is not music. But the true frontline has always been in the area called 'not music' be it niggers making sex music, white boy noise, jungle 'music', musical thieves, or those guys that just talk and want to call it music. The not music is always the next music, but today with everyone looking for validation before risk, fewer are willing to explore the not. But the not can never not exist. Yin will always have its yang.

________
Big PEMFin H & z's
█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

but i think i agree with a lot of it.

>today with everyone
>looking for validation before risk, fewer are willing to
>explore the not.

A topic in and of itself.

>The changes in instruments, the means of playing, voicing,
>performing and capturing music over the past century have been
>absolutely insane and redefined what music is a thousand fold.
> But at the same time there has been an industrialization
>which has branded what music 'is' to the point that in the
>ears of the masses there can be no change, nothing so radical
>that it seemingly scoffs at the notion of what music used to
>be. That is not music. But the true frontline has always
>been in the area called 'not music' be it niggers making sex
>music, white boy noise, jungle 'music', musical thieves, or
>those guys that just talk and want to call it music. The not
>music is always the next music, but today with everyone
>looking for validation before risk, fewer are willing to
>explore the not. But the not can never not exist. Yin will
>always have its yang.

This is a powerful paragraph with a lot going on... going to try to come back to this later, but I love the notion of musical outsiders = "not music" even if I'm not sure that it's entirely sound...

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

and if it's not always clear, I really do appreciate everything you send my way. So, thanks... you're an excellent tastremaker (I was going to say filter, but that didn't sound respectful enough.)

I think when I was your age a decade ago I was probably more like you are now (changes in access/availability withstanding), but in retrospect it's pretty amazing how fast that shifted.

-------
so I'm in a band now:
album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases
Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband

avy by buckshot_defunct

but its just harder to find something worth listening to

as good as many of the highlights of my youth and I would be batty over it if I heard it 20 years younger, and yet its hard for me to get too lost in it when I listen to it now.

**********
"naive as the dry leaves on the ground looking past the trees to the blue sky asking 'why me?'" -Blu

Why I still fuzz with the Lesson
http://open.spotify.com/user/brothersport86/playlist/3DhEhilho77Z0UCPbJlEJf

The way I enjoyed music when I was younger was as a past of the fabric of my life. It was always on - in my room, in the family's living room, in my car, in my dorm room, on my headphones when I was on the bus or train or a plane.

The way I enjoy music now is as a treat, because my life has evolved in such a way that it can't be part of the everyday fabric. I've got kids (and a wife) going to sleep at a time when I'd be playing music full blast for two hours. I've got books-on-CD for the kids in the car (on now: book 2 of the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place), and usually news when they're not in it with me so I don't lose our place in the book-on-CD. And I work all day, and while I waste plenty of time, it's not as conducive to having music on as, say, studying was. And on the home front, a lot of the free time I have for music is spent playing my guitar or banjo, since that's become more important to me.

So it's something special when I can put some music on and really concentrate on it, or share it with friends, or listen to what friends want me to.

As far as actual tastes go, if anything I've gotten more catholic in the years since I was young, but at the same time over the past few years I've gotten more and more skeptical... instead of seeking out new stuff that gets hyped, I let it percolate and ingest what's still on the radar after a few years. I'm probably quicker to decide I don't like something - a result not of digital listening, I think, but rather of having less time & energy to devote to music - so if something doesn't hit me on first listen, I'm less inclined to keep giving it a try.

But the main thing is the fact that how much I enjoy music hasn't changed. It's still probably the hobby (and yes, as you get older, the hobbies are too easy to drop) that's most ingrained in my heart & soul & head & body, and even though I'm listening less and playing less, I still think about it as much as ever and fall in love with stuff over and over again.

-------
so I'm in a band now:
album ---> http://greenwoodburns.bandcamp.com/releases
Soundcloud ---> http://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

my own stuff -->http://soundcloud.com/lonesomedstringband

avy by buckshot_defunct

In the summer I try to catch up by posting on the porch. but if I am at home I usually watching the tube.