Are You a Swifty?

@wesheadley Again, this is very interesting stuff.  
You’re describing current popular music as, “boring,” “lazy writing,” “absent of melody,”  “dull,” “narcissistic,” “lazy,” and “sounding like it came more out of a corporate boardroom than an artist’s imagination” while also saying you “you have to try new popular music all the time,” and that you’ll “never give up” on the stuff. 
 

Why?

If modern popular music is all of these very negative things, then why would you “have to” “keep trying?”  
“Have to”?  
Why?  
Where is the net gain in subjecting yourself to some cumulative 10-20 hours/year or whatever undertaking self-punishment for such little gain?
There’s waaaaaay too much good music as it is from, say, the early 18th century (as just one example of one period of music) to deeply engage with in a single lifetime, let alone the 19th century, the early 20th century, the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘90s, etc., etc., etc….

If I consider an experience to not only be so dreadfully inefficient but also so incredibly punishing (personally, not I’m merely non-plussed by 21 Savage, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Bad Bunny, Justin Bieber, Morgan Wallen, I feel almost violently assaulted by the awfulness of that music), then I would not undertake such a task.  It would yield a very disadvantageous cost-benefit ratio.  

@wesheadley Perhaps what you’re saying is, “there is great potential for personal growth in exposing oneself to stuff they typically assume to be crap, as one may surprise oneself and avoid a certain stagnation of musical awareness,” or, as Werner Herzog likes to say, “the poet must not close his eyes.”  
These things I can appreciate.

You have to try new things all the time if you're really into music IMO, or you just silo yourself into a comfortable, but eventually boring and too safe little world.
 

I stumbled upon an interesting article a few months back that may explain some of this: Why Do We Stop Exploring New Music as We Get Older? I feel like I’m guilty of this, especially with my Ed Sheeran and Justin Beiber Spotify Playlist that’s been on constant rotation for the past two years :) Some interesting parts:

A major 2013 study involving more than 250,000 participants confirmed these changing behaviours. It also showed that the significance we ascribe to music after adolescence declines, and the amount of music we listen to reduces from a high point of 20% of our waking time during adolescence, to 13% in adulthood.
 

These same researchers point to age-related changes to hearing acuity – specifically a lowering tolerance for loud and high-frequency sound – as one cause for a reduced interest in new music for some people.
 

There is consensus that people are highly likely to have their taste shaped by the music they first encounter in adolescence.
 

Adolescence shapes musical taste firstly because our brains are developed to the point where we can fully process what we’re hearing, and secondly because the heightened emotions of puberty create strong and lasting bonds of memory.

What we think of as our “taste” is simply a dopamine reaction arising from patterns our brain recognises which create the expectation of pleasure based on pleasures past. When we stop actively listening to new or unfamiliar music the link between the musical pattern and pleasure is severed.

It may take a decade or two to get there, but the result is, eventually, “young people’s music” will alienate and bring no pleasure.

I don’t necessarily believe in absolutes; I’m sure there’s quite a bit of variability between the lines above. I found it interesting nonetheless.

Give me a break.

@tylermunns "Perhaps what you’re saying is, “there is great potential for personal growth in exposing oneself to stuff they typically assume to be crap, as one may surprise oneself and avoid a certain stagnation of musical awareness,” or, as Werner Herzog likes to say, “the poet must not close his eyes.”  
These things I can appreciate."

That is pretty much what I'm saying, and the reason I linked to my Discogs collection was so that you could see that. I buy a mix of old and new releases.

For female pop artists I'd put Lana Del Rey up there with the very best of them-- from any era. There just isn't as much of it -- and algorithms now often drive artistic and production decisions, whether we realize it or not, and that very idea kind of repulses me.

There is still incredible music being released today-- but it's at a much lower volume and pace than say the 70s, 80s, or 90s I'd generally say. 

Newish releases that I'm liking a lot are:

Real Estate - Daniel
MGMT - Loss of Life
Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Past Is Still Alive
Woods – Perennial
The Smile – Wall Of Eyes
J Mascis – What Do We Do Now
Peter Gabriel – I/O (Dark-Side Mixes)
DC Gore – All These Things
Waxahatchee -- Tigers Blood