When Do We Stop Finding New Music? A Statistical Analysis

This is fascinating. My taste hasn't changed since I was 17ish, but I continually seek out new music even at 39.

 

My taste has "evolved" in my 30s. Still very much like what i've always liked, but i'm more tolerant and open to other genres. Country, for example, i'll occasionally check out (and sometimes enjoy) a country artist that i see getting a lot of attention here.

I seek out new music as much as i always have, but i find that i'm "floored/moved" by albums way less than my teens/20s. Would need to reflect on that a bit but i think that's for a mix of reasons.

 

The excitement I got from scanning Bestbuy ads from Sunday's paper seeing what new Tuesday releases there were is still there on Fridays. However I despise that 9 songs get released as singles and Spotify often lumps them into an "ep" that is actually just titled from the most recent song. I try to hold off until the full album is out but it's so hard to tell if/when there will be one. Also the sheer volume of music means I don't spend nearly as much time with records even if it is a high quality album. The days of having one cd in the car for the week and really soaking it in is gone and I usually end up with at least 10 albums plus another 15 singles to check out and over half get missed until it randomly pops up again.

 

I feel like the pandemic gave me a major second wind. Streaming and getting into vinyl in my thirties definitely played a part too.

I still listen to all the artists that shaped me from the typical teenage age range through grad school when music discovery peaks, but then I branched out significantly around 33-36 to artists both new and old.

This site also played a major part in how I now have the most variety in my musical taste as well. In that way it’s similar to how AbsolutePunk played a major part in shaping my tastes during my teens and early twenties.

 

This website (and the old one) have helped me plow through my 20s and into my 30s still discovering new bands. And it rules!!

 

I ADORE music statistics, and I absolutely have a millennial bias with my usual music listening habits. That said, I absolutely struggle to make time for new music--especially music that's just "pretty good." As a teen, when I used to spend my hard earned money and gas on a new CD, I would wear that sucker out even if it wasn't an all-timer. Do any fellow time crunched obsessives have advice for organizing or prioritizing new music?

 

I've always, always loved discovering. New authors, new bands, new movies, etc. I'm very thankful that this sort of curiosity has not changed into my 30's, but loads of my friends are the opposite. Especially when it comes to music.

 

I'm also an outlier in my friend circle, who depend heavily on me for music recommendations.

I have a scorched earth approach to music where every time we switch to a new year I completely clear out my Spotify library and start afresh. I only add albums if they are released in the current year or an older release that I haven't listened to keep me in the mindset of listening to new music.

I've been making monthly playlists since 2013 which are 2 hours in length and almost act as a journal to my life. They feature new music from that month, older music I've revisited, my favourite song from any gigs I attended, along with music from movies I've watched or games I've been playing. I sequence the tracks to help me connect with the music a bit more meaningfully during the playlist construction too.

Given how brutal I am with clearing out my Spotify library every year, the monthly playlists give me something to return to and I love picking one at random and being able to place where I was and what I was doing during that month.

Example of my most recent one:

This website is the key to my discovery. I've been on here since 2005 and always make a habit of checking the new release thread and seeing what people are talking about. The mid-year and end-of-year lists have also led to discoveries of some of my all-time favourite bands.

@IAmMikeWhite - I'd recommend checking out the new release thread every Friday if you don't already. You can usually gauge what is worth your time based on the discussions in there. I usually grab a few albums and chuck them in a playlist and set it to play all day on Friday and see if anything grabs me. I do have the luxury of a desk job with lots of time to listen to music while I work though.

 

Interesting? How often do you go back and listen to albums you loved from previous years? I personally find that I need to balance my "listen only to albums from the current year" days and my "listen only to older stuff that I love" days, to make sure I'm keeping my discovery side alive while also not jettisoning everything I discovered the moment the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve.

 

I'd say I still listen to albums I loved from previous years most days. I just make it more convenient to hit play on the newer albums so I'm more likely to play them. Older albums are always just a search away and I'll save / download them if I can feel myself wanting to binge them for a few days. It also helps that I have vinyls or CDs of most of my "all timer" albums so they always feel as though they are part of a greater library of sorts.

There are definitely a few wrinkles to using the new year as a hard reset for the album library (late releases in the year, discoveries from end of year lists, etc). It won't work for everyone, and you could almost flip it the other way by just creating a massive playlist of [Insert Year] releases and only adding the albums you like to your library.

I forgot to say I don't just delete everything. While I clear out the library I pick a favourite song from each of the albums I liked and put into a "Best of [Insert Year]" playlist, which I try and put into some semblance of order. I know most of us do that anyway, but that helps me look back on what my library would've liked like that year.

 

full albums for life!!!! Absolutely.

 

One of the things that I like about still being an iTunes/local files guy is that I can have a playlist with everything from, say, 2024, but then the entire library is also there. So it sounds like we actually do similar things, just in different formats.

 

Feel that second wind thing. During that time, COVID, I fell in love with the British Neo-soul movement, and it like rekindled my love of music.

 

I've definitely thought about this throughout my life, even being concerned of it happening to me at a young age, knowing that a lot of people never really move on from the music they listen to in their foundational years. I'm definitely on the opposite end, I usually end up with 30-50 albums I enjoyed each year, and I always make effort to expand beyond bands I already enjoy. (That new Cindy Lee record is great, and I've just found a new slight obsession with Hey, Nothing after hearing Maine/Sink.) That really does make it hard to decide what records to buy when there's a huge amount that I really enjoy. I can't purchase 50 records a year despite wanting to but my collection is already past 600 and I'm running out of shelves.

I just had a conversation with another one of my good friends though who stated bluntly that they don't make good music anymore after telling me he was listening to some band we enjoyed in high school. I asked him what albums he checked out last year and obviously, none. That being said, I get it not being a passion for people, and following the music can be hard, but it's one thing to say you don't know of any good new music and a whole other thing to say good music doesn't exist anymore.

I do have the benefit of having close friends and brothers who are very active looking for music along with me, so that absolutely makes it social too. I also do a record night with some friends every month where we pick a random genre, year, whatever from a list and then try to bring something we don't think the others have really heard before. I probably see 15-25 concerts a year on average and I would say nearly all of them are actively touring new material, if we're excluding Riot Fest from skewing that metric.

 

I was thinking about all my IRL friends after reading this article, and I could not imagine literally a single one of them doing the psychotic shit I do to keep up with music. So, that probably illustrates how rare people like us on this website actually are.

 

I cataloged my entire 284-vinyl collection on New Years Day and promised myself that if I haven't listened to something within 18 months I would sell it. Has done wonders getting myself to throw records on more frequently!

 

Super interesting read. Part of it is how Spotify is presented on my phone now but I do find it harder to discover new music. I’m 37.

I’ll say I lean in my favorite artists/bands and spend a significant amount of time with 90s stuff that I love.

 

Super interesting. I'm 41 and still enjoy/love discovering new music. However all my friends, family and acquaintances around my age now rarely listen to music, let alone try to discover anything new.

 

I've been making my Pow! Mixes since 2001. I take my top songs and put them on a mix. I try not to have more than one song per band and the mix has to fit a CD, so 1 hour 20min max.

These essentially become my music time capsules. I can listen to one and remember pretty much exactly where I was living and what life was like at that time.

I named them Pow to be funny as an 18 year old. Instead of Now! That's What I Call Music, I named mine Pow! That's What I Call Punk. ;)

 

I love your attachment to old media restrictions. Helps trim down the playlist to nothing but absolute bangers.

I used to make mixtapes on old cassette tapes, but my name for those was a lot less cool than yours and just went with "Ricky's Fave Hits Vol. [Insert Number]" (I've never called myself Ricky outside of that...)

I only know about half the bands on your playlist so interested in diving in to it and subbing along to your Spotify. That's a hell of a long time to be making mixes!

 

I used to make them and give them to all my friends. Most of which couldn't give a shit about my taste in music, they were listening to Hip Hop and top 40 while I had mixes with MxPx, the Starting Line, Homegrown and Audio Karate. I eventually gave up trying to convert them and did it only for my pleasure.

 

Yeah the 80min max helps trim the fat. I also used to make a mix 3 times a year or more. Now it's one, maybe two. This has definitely created ones that I'd go back to more often.

 

I usually listen back to a random one of the older mixes I've done when I want something familiar. I do a Google search for "random number between 1 and 130" and whatever it returns I'll whack on that number. Definitely adds a sprinkle of excitement to slow days at work.