"Why Do Old People Hate New Music?"

[SoCalSurf]

Originally Posted by RP

The more I read the title of this thread the more the word "hate" bothers me. For that matter, as a guy pushing 70, I'm not real wild about the "old people" characterization either....

OP here. You're not the only one who said this, and I am sorry about that. I was just quoting the article, which was a quote by a 14-year old. I, too, dislike the word for the same reasons cited earlier.

Hopefully that doesn't take away from the meaning of the thread.

[RP]

This may sound overly narcissistic, but I think less about the stated theme of this thread and am more amazed that 50s-70s music seems to have captured the interest of subsequent generations....

[Simon Fay]

I stated:
"hypocrisy of opinion from older generations toward the music of younger generations"
In the context of my post, this absolutely DOES NOT semantically imply that ALL people from an older generation will display hypocrisy of opinion. It doesn't even imply a percentage (majority or minority). There could be 5 people from an older generation and my comment would still make sense. I don't mind folks disagreeing with me but calling me closed-minded is certainly a bit frustrating.

To further clarify:
When individuals from an older generation wholesale criticize or diminish the value of music from a subsequent generation, I believe that is "hypocrisy of opinion". I briefly discussed why in my first post and encouraged myself and everyone to try and be open-minded and always open to learning and expanding our horizons. BTW, the "older persons" in the Thomas Szasa quote refers to people that are in adulthood. I think it is an amazingly insightful quote but it that offends you, then we will simply just have to disagree and move on. No hard feelings either way.

------------
Now moving on, I know quite a few folks over 65 that love contemporary/popular music. In fact, my Dad is often telling me about new music he's discovered. And I'm still discovering "new" awesome music from previous generations. I've always got music on while I'm building guitars - if you stepped in my shop for a bit then you might hear Etta James or Marvin Gaye followed by Paramore, David Gray, or Billie Eilish. Lots and lots of good stuff out there AND there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a preference or dislike for certain genres or musical time periods.

[Simon Fay]

Well, let's give this one more shot ...

Hi Frank,
My initial post was largely generalized and uplifting. I can't imagine you could possibly take umbrage with any of it except for this one section -- and I'm gonna take it apart and explain it one more time. Here it is:

The point of this post mostly lies in the hypocrisy of opinion from older generations toward the music of younger generations. Your music really wasn't any better but 30 years from now - most people in my generation will still think the new music is mostly crap. It truly is a human characteristic.

I could have worded this a bit better but I spent a few minutes tops, making the post. I was trying to mention that when the older generation criticizes the music of the younger generation, I believe that it can be a form of hypocrisy. By criticizing, I mean something like "The music today is awful. In my day, we had great bands like the Beatles, etc ..." The music from previous generations isn't much different in terms of quality than subsequent generations. There's always been good, bad, and everything in between. (BTW, I started my post by discussing this very thing). So for the older guys on the forum, I don't believe your music is better than my music and I don't believe "my" music is better than what will be my young nephew's music. Nevertheless, many people in my generation will deride/dismiss the next generations music just like many from the current older generation does to my generation. And this pattern will be repeated long after we're gone.

Communicating the above paragraph was my intent for that particular sentence. If I had taken more time to edit, I would have said something like this and in fact, I edited my initial post for better clarity:
The point of this post is to highlight the inherent hypocrisy of individuals from an older generation outright dismissing a younger generation's music. In my opinion, the music from 30/40/50 years ago wasn't much different in quality from what we have today. Nevertheless, decades from now you'll still find the same type of wholesale critique - this time from my generation. In short, it's a human trait.


------------------
Frank, even without editing and as I explained in my 2nd post - my comment by no means generalized and extrapolated hypocrisy to all "old people". I absolutely do not mind that you took it in a way that I didn't mean as this gave me a chance to clarify my original comment. I'm all for civil discussion and debate.

--------------
To the OP, sorry for the derailment - not what I was hoping for when I posted.

[SoCalSurf]

Originally Posted by Simon Fay

--------------
To the OP, sorry for the derailment - not what I was hoping for when I posted.

No need to apologize, and my intention of this post was not meant to cause conflict, although in retrospect it seems obvious of the potential.

I have an interest in behavioral science and am fascinated by things like this, and was excited to post something that had some connection to this forum. I also work with college populations and "get to" hear some of the music they listen to, on occasions some pretty repetitive and [often times] highly inappropriate lyrics, and find myself turning into my father, who loved music from his day but seemed to be tortured when we put on my own generation's music in the car or at home.

However, I do find a lot of new music to be fantastic. Gregroy Alan Isakov, for example, was mentioned in the this thread and has inspired my guitar playing quite a bit.

Thanks to all for your thoughtful responses and I hope this continues to give us an opportunity to self-reflect.

[FrankHS]

Today, seems anyone who expresses a cogent criticism about anything can be called a "hater." I simply imagine they really mean "a disliker" and I proceed to participate, giving those "haters of we haters" the benefit of my doubt.

Originally Posted by Simon Fay

Hi Frank,

The point of this post mostly lies in the hypocrisy of opinion from older generations toward the music of younger generations. Your music really wasn't any better but 30 years from now - most people in my generation will still think the new music is mostly crap. It truly is a human characteristic.

(Different user "Frank" responding now, btw. There are 3 or more Frank members.)
I'm rarely ever offended by being called a hypocrite, because it's approximately the easiest sin to be guilty of, and also the easiest, safest thing to accuse others of being. I'm satisfied just to know I'm not as BIG a hypocrite as (the collective) "you" are!

Nevertheless, am I a hypocrite? I criticize today's popular music, however I never was much imprinted with the pop music of my own generation (born 1960.) Instead, at age 14, I was into the likes of Duke Ellington, and was supposing the music of my parent's generation, and their parents, and THEIR parent's generation was way "better" than my own. (Radio presented way more variety back then, obviously.) Today, I claim the same thing, except I continue back to aprox. 1685 (JS Bach.) I'm pretty sure any good musicologist could explain these claimed differences of (degrading of) quality in modern popular music better than I. Given, much of this is about taste (unaccountable) and the imprinting during our youth, but much about music is objectively demonstrable, at least to the musically literate. (Consider the difference in STORY between a RR song like "Jack and Diane" compared with storyline of "Private Malone." Don't Country music writers in general simply create better stories than Rockers do, apart from our opinions? Same thing with many other elements of music--melody, harmony; it's not ALL about opinion and what generation you belong to. When melody is replaced by just talking with an urban cadence, it's less musical.)

One poster was offended at being called "old people" in thread title. Why? You mean after I dismiss a younger generation's claim about what is "good", I'm then going to be offended, thus empowering their dismissive attitude toward being old? "Old" means I no longer have to sort through hours of mediocre music looking for the next "good stuff." It already exists in my collection, my memory, a quick YT search, or even just on my own guitar and hands. Old is good, thus far!

[FrankHudson]

Well now I have to add yet another Frank opinion/observation

Yes, the "imprinted" phenomenon seems pretty well understood. At certain parts of our lives which correlate fairly well with age we are open to gathering an understanding of how things are "supposed to" work and along with that admiration and comfort with examples that taught us that. That understanding can be modified, but even in cases where one might think great change has occurred later in life an underlying relationship to that imprinted "home" ideal is likely still there.

My imprinted musical years were fairly broad, so I've remained a musical eclectic. I suspect certain elements of social change along with greater availability of media in "The Greater Sixties" (an era I outline between the middle 1950s and the middle 1970s, which I assume covers a large section of folks on this forum, at least the active posters) made this a greater possibility as I passed though this imprinting age range, but then people the same age living in the same places didn't expose themselves to as many musical ideas or react to that variety of ideas as I did. I'm hopeful that the present wide variety of music available will engender more widely experienced eclectics from our current youth.

I think some of our pride in the music of "The Greater Sixties" is from an appreciation of how that wider availability of influences and styles allowed some new combinations to become widely listened to. That continues.

I'd maintain that there is little I hear in modern music or modern commercial music that I didn't hear 40 or 50 years ago. One example: every oft-decried (or in other places and cases, praised) content element in rap hip/hop made around the turn of our century was present in blues/R&B records made before 1960. The music doesn't sound the same but means the same way. But of course sound isn't immaterial to music.

The modern use of spoken, shouted, and chanted words vs. legato and harmonic/melodic vocals is another thing I often hear as unprecedented and "wrong/inferior/limiting" choices. Though the successors to rap hip/hop of the late 20th/early 21st century have shaded away from that more than some of you may realize, and the prevalence of it in empirically popular music was different, it's also not unprecedented. One of my father's favorite records was 1955's "Hot Rod Lincoln" by Charlie Ryan--is that a rap record? And how nutty was that record's "horn part"--that was, well, a car horn? And was the siren at the end a sample from Varese's "Ionisation?" No, I guess not. Well, maybe Bob Dylan or someone heard that record when they kicked off "Highway 61?" Still those were three records I heard in my teens.

As a word guy as well as music guy, I want that sort of non-sung vocalization to work. Some texts when set as art-song bug me like some here are bugged by chanted vocals. Legato/bel canto styles are problematic with some texts I feel.

The repetitiveness of modern pop hook lyrics bugs me when I don't like it--and pleases me when it does. I think it's often overused, but since it's empirically popular I can't really knock artists that use it too much too much.

As I've gotten older, the time and focus that I have to put into listening to new commercial music has decreased, if only because I'm working on new compositions more. Perhaps I'd be more bothered if I had to listen to more limited formats involuntarily for long periods of time. When that happened to me back in the golden age of the "The Greater Sixties" it bugged me then. And that imprinting I had in my teens and twenties is a real factor: it means certain things remain "comfort food" for me.

Final disclaimer: none of this means that others here and elsewhere can't like the music they like and not like the music they don't. I think everybody does. What I dispute is the idea that this is based entirely on empirical elements present or absent in modern music, commercial and otherwise.

[KevWind]

Stereotyping is by definition "oversimplification"
"Old" is state of mind as much or more as chronological category.

And "new music" is too vast an arena, try to pigeonhole into a simplistic box like good, bad, or ugly.

As someone noted, there are plenty of "youngsters" playing both new and old music with great creativity.

For example this ain't yer daddies bluegrass or string band, but dam sam if this ain't a great rendition of a classic. And IMO everybit as good maybe better than the original.............
I would have paid to see these folks perform

[frankmcr]

Originally Posted by KevWind

maybe better than the original.............

Ooooooooh.

And you were going along so well, I was all nodding in agreement & stuff, and then . . .

[RedJoker]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

Ooooooooh.

And you were going along so well, I was all nodding in agreement & stuff, and then . . .

....you loudly shouted "Yes! I totally agree!" like I did?

[catdaddy]

Originally Posted by RedJoker

....you loudly shouted "Yes! I totally agree!" like I did?

...and like I did too!!

[tbeltrans]

"Why Do Old People Hate New Music?"

...because we are old and the music isn't.

Tony

[frankmcr]

Originally Posted by RedJoker

....you loudly shouted "Yes! I totally agree!" like I did?

Originally Posted by catdaddy

...and like I did too!!

No but thank you for playing and please take this home version of the game and a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax as a consolation prize.

[catdaddy]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

No but thank you for playing and please take this home version of the game and a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax as a consolation prize.

Thanks! Now I won't have to risk salmonella poisoning by lick-polishing all of my turtles!!

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

Ooooooooh.

And you were going along so well, I was all nodding in agreement & stuff, and then . . .

Originally Posted by RedJoker

....you loudly shouted "Yes! I totally agree!" like I did?

Originally Posted by catdaddy

...and like I did too!!

I lost my decoder ring and am completely lost ,,, guess I am old after all