Psychology tells us why older people don’t enjoy new music

https://qz.com/quartzy/1717718/why-do-older-people-hate-new-music/

by velmu • 7 years ago

12 44 7 years ago

bloak• 7 years ago

The other day a song came on the radio that I hadn't heard since I was a teenager. I recalled how much I hated it all those decades ago. After a few seconds I realised that I hated it now almost as strongly as back then. But I'm in charge of the radio now, so I turned it off, and that made me feel quite happy.

cobweb12• 7 years ago

Partly because they are smarter. The flynn effect is actually only on the non-g-loaded parts of tests. In reality we're getting dumber and can't sustain the sophistication of past music.

awayyyythrow4• 7 years ago

Except:

-There's doubt that the Flynn effect was real to begin with and isn't just an artifact of a measure that never really made sense to begin with (IQ)

-Plenty of "sophisticated" music is being made right now, perhaps you are not aware of it but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist

-Old people have always hated younger people's music - see the moral panic over the second summer of love, people thinking rock n'roll/metal/techno was satanic etc.

-Most of what people think is youngsters' music (e.g. most electro genres) is actually quite old

Your response is pretty disturbing on many levels I have to say

cobweb12• 7 years ago

If measuring something like the visual reaction time of people makes sense, then so too does measuring IQ. Nobody is claiming that the Inuits ability to see far away objects in intense glistening brightness of their snowy lands doesn't constitute real intelligence just because it isn't measured on IQ tests.

Your response is pretty disturbing on many levels I have to say

Well then I guess I will have to worry about the very real loss of genius in shame and silence.

gamblor9562• 7 years ago

It would be very difficult for Generation X and Y to experience moral panic over younger generations' music, considering that we grew up listening to music with explicit sex, violence, and depictions of drug use.

Music these days is tame by comparison.

SuoDuanDao• 7 years ago

Are you saying that musical intelligence is more highly G-loaded than most other dimensions of intelligence? That would be pretty interesting if true, any research you could point us to?

pcdoodle• 7 years ago

It's because it really does suck (for the most part). Product placement and lyrics about consuming culture are at an all time high. This is the radio stuff though, there's still lots of great music coming out.

user_rob• 7 years ago

Not in my experience and I am in my late 60s. I think current trends are not radical eno

Porthos9K2• 7 years ago

I'm in my forties and still looking for and discovering new metal, jazz, and classical artists. You don't have to get stuck in the past listening to stuff you discovered as a teenager. But you've got to make an effort.

awayyyythrow4• 7 years ago

Even music people think is new is actually quite old. I have yet to discover a genre whose origins don't extend at least two decades back (unless you cheat and name an extremely specific subset that sounds like 'hard dark psy tech core' or something)

nefitty• 7 years ago

Well, art is iterative. It would be weird to create music with no ties to the past. It's hard to imagine what that would sound like because there would be no precedent!

The closest thing I can think of to that though is the album Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective. The song Bonefish is a good representative sample. My brain couldn't process it at first... It made no sense until after a few listens and a hit of weed.

Porthos9K2• 7 years ago

I'm using "new" in the sense of "new to me". For example, there's a New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) act called Satan that I had never heard of until I was browsing Bandcamp and saw they had a new album called Cruel Magic. They aren't new, but they're new to me -- and they kick ass.

Likewise, there's this Japanese pianist named Hiromi Uehara. She's been performing and recording for at least 15 years, and has worked with artists like Chick Corea, but I hadn't heard of her until this morning. She just dropped an album called Spectrum, and it's absofuckinlutely brilliant. If I didn't make a point of looking for new music, I'd still be missing out.

zupreme• 7 years ago

Because enjoyment of any music requires, at a minimum, subconscious comprehension of its core pattern and timing and brainwave generation in complement to the same.

Older people have brain patterns which are trained, by tendency, to comprehend and and complement patterns and timing which are quite different from currently popular ones.

The old brain, when induced to produce complimentary brainwaves to new music, usually finds this process very uncomfortable while younger brains remain more malleable in this regard.

Crinus• 7 years ago

But I believe there are some simpler reasons for older people’s aversion to newer music. One of the most researched laws of social psychology is something called the “mere exposure effect.” In a nutshell, it means that the more we’re exposed to something, the more we tend to like it.

Yeah, the entire article wouldn't apply to me (35) if it wasn't that little part. I didn't paid much attention to music until my late teens/early 20s, though while i have some genres i like, i always find myself going to different stuff over the years - but that is usually learning about new genres.

But that part explains it really - i learn about music by listening to random music videos made on YouTube (often by unknown artists or channels that mainly promote unknown artists). And YouTube tends to repeat the same (or similar) videos if you leave it by itself :-P.

Though if the topic is popular/mainstream music... i never liked that outside when i was ~12 or something but that was mainly because nothing else was on the TV. Once i had control over what i could listen to, i went my way :-P.

rsj_hn• 7 years ago

The issue isn't that older people hate new music, but they hate most new pop music. There is music, good music, that survives for many decades, or even many hundreds of years, that people of all generations love on first hearing. This music is the best of classical music, Jazz 'standards' -- stuff that passes the test of time. I do think that some rock music is looking like it will pass the test of time. For example, songs before my time, like "Sympathy for the Devil" or "Son of a preacher man" or "Fortunate Son" started out as pop, but they are appreciated by every generation since they came out. Time will tell, but we may be listening to these songs for a long time.

Here is a lovely pop song from the 1920s that appears to pass the test of time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iYOu8MPY6Y

Here is a pop song from the 40s that has passed the test of time so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBrwaCjJIFU

And there are songs like that from every decade.

OK, so if everyone loves the timeless songs, what about the other songs? Well, most songs are formulaic, repetitive and just not very interesting from the point of view of time. Old people have already heard their share of that. They don't need to redo it. They are looking back at those songs from the perspective of all the songs they've heard and aren't seeing anything special. Sort of like someone who just started reading novels might get blown away by a formulaic novel because they've never seen the formula before. But the 10th novel that tries to repeat the formula will just not be enjoyable. You've seen it all before. You need something really new by that point. That's one of the things that comes with age. I was listening to Lorde's "tennis court" and nearly threw up at the lyrics.

Adding to all this is the notion that the world isn't homogeneous. There are 'moments' that are peak moments. That period of time in the Elizabethan era from 1590-1620 when Shakespeare, Marlow, and Ben Johnson were all writing plays was a golden age of English drama. It's just not the case that someone born in the later 17th or 18th Century would be able to see their contemporaries perform just as well. There are dry spells. And there are also dry spells for different types of music. The 70s may have been a golden age for rock and roll. The 80s for pop. The 90s for rap. Maybe -- maybe not, but you can't assume that there is always the same amount of timeless standards being produced in every decade, because there isn't. Some decades are more fecund than others. Some decades might not be surpassed for a very long time. In that case, it's understandable that someone growing up in the 18th Century might prefer to read plays written in the 16th Century, and if this is true for drama, there's no reason to believe that it's not true for music. Expect dry spells, during which heavily produced formulaic stuff will wow virgin ears but leave older listeners non-plussed. And don't even get me started on classical music. The stuff being written now, compared to the baroque period, it's shameful how bad it is. There are some good pieces, but the quantity of amazing music written between 1650-1750 so completely dominates classical music written between 1900-2000, and I'm a fan of Ives, John Adams, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Satie. But it just doesn't wow me as much as Baroque music. Listen to these minor baroque pieces that wouldn't even make most "best of" lists:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkJC8p48g6g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fac_egTqLAo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2SVwTjNAFg

magduf2• 7 years ago

I'd like to say that this is a brilliant and insightful post, and really explains the "old people don't like new music" phenomenon succinctly.

The only minor things I'd add are that the music industry has changed a lot over the decades, and Autotune did not exist before a couple decades ago, nor was the internet a factor back then the way it is now. It just isn't fair to say that older people "don't like new music" when the music itself has changed, as has the industry that produces it, and the way it's usually listened to as well.

awayyyythrow4• 7 years ago

I think most of the explanations fail to account for a very important point: music doesn't exist in the abstract but comes with a setting, a context and a community. You don't just listen to music, you experience it. Whether it's an opera house or a jazz club or a rave or a rap battle or a dive bar, all music comes with an associated experience. It can be hard to truly 'get in' a genre and understand why people like it if you can't experience it the way most people who listen to it do.

I think the reason many people get stuck with the music they listened to as a teenager is because their most intense experiences involving music occured when they were teenagers. Then they move on, and if they don't obsess about music, they won't have stronger feelings about the new stuff.

dandare• 7 years ago

Surely a lot of it is context, but my anecdotal evidence tells me I don't feel music as much as I used to when I was younger and when I feel something it is rarely with the new stuff.

WarOnPrivacy5• 7 years ago

I think it's unlikely for people to first hear (or first attach to) their favorite songs in a strong environment like a club/rave/bar. We're most likely to hear something new in a setting we control.

djaque• 7 years ago

Sure, but at least for me, the reason they become a favourite song is that they become associated with good memories.

CrackerNews• 7 years ago

There's an element of that psychology, sure. However, for current new music, I think the more convincing answer is that analysis done a while back where new music started sounding the same and louder.

soylentcola• 7 years ago

I do subscribe to the "music enjoyed during your formative/more emotionally-intense years tends to imprint on you" theory...

...but at least for me, the combo of ubiquitous instrument/vocal quantizing and loudness-war compression really does turn me off to much of modern pop music.

Still, that may just be because it doesn't sound like the stuff I had already "trained my model" of good music on. I prefer a little bit of swing in my drums compared to playing to a grid. I like albums that sound like people playing in a room rather than people plugged into a DAW.

But I also don't have any logical reason why one is better than the other. To someone else, the more "perfect" alignment of quantized beats and vox may sound better than the "sloppy" stuff I like.

WarOnPrivacy5• 7 years ago

From the Article: " 'mere exposure effect' means that the more we’re exposed to something, the more we tend to like it."

From my perspective: This is evidence something is broken with humanity.

I do understand that we need a period of familiarization to better understand and appreciate a new piece of music. I get that we can relive that initial appreciation - after a period of forgetfulness.

From my perspective, that period of forgetfulness should last months or years, not hours or days.

I am strongly, sometimes physically repulsed by Clearchannel music programming, because of repetition. Most genres seem to be equally abused but Oldies/Classic stations are the worst.

As I am well into my 50s, I've heard most "Classic" songs thousands of times - mostly involuntarily. They became unpleasant after a score or so. By the 100th relisten they transition to the sort of torture that the CIA uses against enemy combatants.

I'm in FL; Classic/Oldies playlists are pervasive here. You can't complete a day of chores without traversing countless retail and public spaces poisoned with it. It's like living with a family member who's abusive when they drink and they drink every day.

I like every genre a lot short of hip-hop and opera (but I'm warming up to them) This fall I'm working thru a list of 100 more progressive bands I haven't heard. New favorite finds are Crust (whoo yeah), Milos Makovsky and maybe The Steve Bonino Project which I can't figure out if I like or not. I just listened to Gil Scott-Theron's B-Movie for the first time and it was amazing.

So - all of this is just me making this point. I don't disagree with the article. However, I think it points to a deep psychological malfunction in people (or whatever is the opposite of robust mental health). I'm not even saying that those who are content with their bad mental health, shouldn't be or that it shouldn't ever bleed over to me. I do wish I didn't have to experience it every day and that people I love weren't afflicted with it.

non-entity• 7 years ago

This tends to be a very hot take, but I really hate "classic rock" stations. The songs tend to be dull and full of boring cliches, much like how I see pop music today. That said, I try not to discount any "genre" completely and admittedly do enjoy at least a few songs from most.

WarOnPrivacy5• 7 years ago

There thousands and thousands of talented (sometimes well known) bands from the "Classic Rock" eras that you haven't heard. Listening to them might tell if it's the genre or that era or if Clearchannel just ruins everything thru overplay.

WarOnPrivacy5• 7 years ago

I'd agree that I tend to see much more talent, skill and creativity in modern bands.

Fnoord3• 7 years ago

From my perspective: This is evidence something is broken with humanity.

Or not. I mean, it allows us to like basically anyone or anything as long as we put in the effort. It reminds me of this quote by Ghostcrawler (Greg Street): "Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom."

I like every genre a lot short of hip-hop and opera

Actually, let me comment on these two genres.

Hip-hop is incredibly diverse. It does not have to be in English, or about violence. There is nerdcore, too, for example (my fav is Dual Core!), and all kind of hiphop/rap in different languages. (Personally, I like Spanish a lot, but as a Dutch person I am also fond of early Dutch "nederhop" such as Osdorp Posse.)

Opera, I thought I don't like either. Turns out the other evening, whilst I prefer female singing voice in general, that the opera (female singer) my partner was listening to hurt my ears very much. We then tried Luciano Pavarotti and a myriad of other opera, and I got no problem with these. I could enjoy them. But not the specific one she was playing. It felt like a saw (needle) through my ears.

growlist2• 7 years ago

For me, less-commercial electronic music is still pushing the boundaries and developing (in no small part down to technology), but popular music is less catchy, less exciting, less sophisticated, less tuneful, less imaginative, more derivative, lacks humour, is more vulgar, covers a far narrower set of themes, and is of a far narrower range in terms of genre than in the past. I still discover popular music from the 70s, 80s and to an extent the 90s that is new to me and that I rate highly. Every now and then I catch TOTP2 and what really stands out to me is the sheer diversity of what was on offer: virtually every genre one can imagine, novelty acts, one hit wonders, cult acts having one big hit, super-groups, the utterly commercial, all races and sexes represented, etc. etc. Contrast that with today. Western culture has gone backwards.

lawlorino• 7 years ago

There's a large survival bias at play here - only the "good" music from the past decades is going to be relatively available for you to find in the present day.

Western culture has gone backwards.

Oh come on...

WarOnPrivacy5• 7 years ago

Assuming you're not being sarcastic, this is easily disproved thru listening to skilled, non-hit musicians.

Popularity isn't tied to "good" so much as it is "catchy". Hooks are easy to package and sell, skill - not so much.

growlist2• 7 years ago

I mentioned TOTP2, which is a showcase of everything, not only the good. And you haven't refuted my claim that pop used to be more diverse.

Oh come on...

So take Hollywood then: hardly thriving with originality these days, is it? All we seem to get is more and more of the same boring overly scripted kung fu style fight scenes, amongst other tired clichés. I am so utterly bored of violence but American film making seems to be addicted to it. The cupboard of (permitted) ideas is bare.

quirkafleeg3• 7 years ago

My issue is that many mainstream pop songs around now seems to have meaningless, lazy or silly lyrics.

dagw• 7 years ago

Come on. Pop songs have had meaningless silly lyrics since shortly after the invention of singing. I doubt there has been any significant decline in lyric quality.

axilmar• 7 years ago

It's all about emotions (as the article explains). If the music brings back the emotions of youth, then it is more accepted than the music that creates no/less strong emotions.

tabtab• 7 years ago

My youth sucked. I had insufficient social skills to handle the transition from childhood into teenhood. Maybe it's why I like a lot of the new music. A catchy tune is a catchy tune.

I wonder if dislike for new music is proportional to a fond youth.

Fnoord3• 7 years ago

My take:

Basically, because older people find it harder to relate to the music. Especially pop music, which is catered to pristine, insecure teenagers and youth. They're well past that stage of life.

As a consequence, they already have nostalgia embedded for previous music. Someone else already commented on the atmosphere (and whole zeitgeist) being part of that. Based on my experience with music (been an avid listener ever since I grew up) I believe it is also instruments (and certain patterns of genres) which can be part of that.

Another explanation is because older people have less of a hearing range (Hz). You can try a test to figure out where you're standing.

hashberry• 7 years ago

Also, 92% of Top Ten Billboard Songs Are About Sex[0]

Younger people obsess about sex more than older people.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/09/92...

Akinato• 7 years ago

I'd agree with this perspective honestly. Older people no longer relate to finding as many "bae" or partners as possible. They're generally not looking for a teenage boy band to sweep them off their feet and make their dreams come true. They no longer find ___'s bad boy attitude alluring, as it seems childish.

Popular Music just isn't targeted towards the older age groups, which is why we always look back on it on rose-coloured and sex-hungry glasses. That doesn't mean it's not still relevant to some of them, but it doesn't have the same relevance it did from when we were teenagers.

Plus, songs about how your boss messed up a paycheque calculation, how your child cries for 6 nights straight, which foods give you heart burn, or how hard it is to save for retirement aren't as attractive topics.

DannyB2• 7 years ago

Here's another theory:

Q. What music will be popular with the NEXT generation of kids?

A. Whatever is the most shocking to the parents!

winternett• 7 years ago

It's the packaging... Most new music is made by children of label execs, and children of rich people where they use money to polish a turd... Great music comes from people who are "hungry" and suffering, now Labels don't do A&R (Discovery) to find that kind of tested talent... They just pick a kid off the Disney or America's Got Talent circuit, give them a salary, and teach them how to be musicians, and write their songs.

Social media sites push down good indie music in favor of pop machine record label artists, and listeners are flooded with examples of how modern music sucks, and buying music has now become a process of needing to sift through different music sites just to hear audio clips, and then registering an account that tracks your every move and sends you spam. Click farms boost hits for "chosen" artists to make them look popular even before they have an album out now.

We used to be able to just go to a record shop and listen to CDs based on simple genres, and buy albums at unreasonable prices, but all of that is gone now. It's an endlessly repeating cycle for people. The Recording Industry keeps shooting itself in the foot by practicing Payola as well. We may not have another great artist like Prince, MJ, Led Zeppelin, etc.. for a long time until all this eats itself or gets sorted out.

Psychology tells us why older people don’t enjoy new music

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