Why do we stop listening to new music as we get older?

I’ve been a professional musician since the 60’s and I hear new music all the time. I don’t like hippity hop much but I’m not the target audience for that anyway and it’s not "musical" enough for my attention span so..meh...Get out to the "folkie" or jazz clubs to see what’s what in the real music world. I fell into small venue sound mixing maybe 20 years ago and was floored at how superb people are in the "unpopular music business," many of whom are far better than the pop stars you may hear. Far better. I don’t privately listen to many of these people as I’m a jazz freak and my tastes have gone in that direction mostly...classical also...but that’s what might happen when your taste matures or takes a turn. New jazz (and old jazz) is astonishing and as good as ever, and that can keep my interest for the rest of my days...as does a new guitar here and there.

I usually limber up with a few tracks from the 1960s and 70s for nostalgic reasons and then broaden into the latest tunes when enjoying music for an evening (which is more or less every evening). Having two young adult daughters has really expanded my musical enjoyment, i listen to bands i would normally never know about and there is some fantastic stuff out there. Not sure i entirely get their love of Taylor Swift but at 60 i guess i’m not supposed to! We have fun every year sharing our Spotify ‘most played’ - we all have really diverse tastes which is great for sharing.

I read the article, thanks for link.

I had noticed that all of my friends musical tastes seem to have got stuck in the era of their youth. My dad only had 5 records, all by the Beatles, and he only really liked 3 of those.

I would like to argue that my love of HiFi has had the side effect of keeping my musical taste buds fresh.

When I was young, my system was a means to an end, it was cheap gear, but it let me play “my” music. Then, once I got a job, and was earning money, I got into the kit itself. I bought better gear. I would use my music to show off my kit. I started buying audiophile records, some of which sounded amazing (in a Hi-Fi-show-off way), and I slowly came to like the actual music itself. This is how I came across classical music and jazz. I now listen to such stuff for enjoyment.

Admittedly I could never get into some of the weebly plinky plonky demo tracks one hears at shows, but the hobby did introduce me to new stuff.

Over the last decade, HiFi lead me to modern electronic music. Again I started buying/playing it because it made my system sound amazing, but again, I came to love the best of it. There really is some fantastic new music out there.

Yet I never see the good new stuff in HiFi magazines. Could we use this forum to swap pointers to good new stuff?

The music I listen to is reflecting the mental place I‘m in, mostly. At some point high-energy music for venting feelings was what I needed. I experience much less need to delve into - for example - frustration and sadness nowadays. Now the music is more open and outgoing or calmer and relaxed. Styles come second so to speak. This change is gradual and I‘m not sure what will be next but it definitely and naturally keeps me looking for music I don‘t know, mostly new.

Having said that, there are also bands whose output I‘ll keep following and sometimes I go back to comfort food good old music. That‘s when I go looking for more of the same I already know and end up buying „Mad Dogs and Englishmen“ or the n-th Elvis live record because I like the sound of a big band with background singers from the early 70s.

Modern music is rubbish compared with yore

Some chap analysed it and found it was repetative, more simple and less of everything