The Pop Corporation

As people get older, many just give up. They’re just not as curious about music as they once where. They fall back into familiar albums and even with the advent of Spotify and music never being so simple to explore, they just bed down into the LPs of their youth like elderly rodents in hay. And you might think ‘well, obviously‘ but older people watch loads of new films and buy new books don’t they?

SO WHAT GIVES?

Thankfully for you, so this isn’t purely an opinion piece, there’s some research. Let’s say it’s by some boffins because that’s fun. It’s actually by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which sounds like a cool place to work – they represent the international music industry. The good news from recent findings is that the average amount of time people listen to music in a week is up to 20.1 hours (from 18.4).

How much of that music is new to the listener though?

These boffins use the term ‘open-earedness’ when talking about people’s willingness to listen to something that’s new to them. Obviously, children are up for anything, because it’s all new to them. Early adolescent years are also a fertile listening period, however, accompanied by more intense scrutiny as they develop their personalities.

During young adulthood, open ears are still super prevalent, but then, it starts to wane.

You have to assume that, in the most optimistic of scenarios, music nuts find it harder to find more music they haven’t heard of if they’ve been fanatical in their youth. Or indeed, maybe too much of what they find sounds too much like something else, and they just stick with their source material. However, you know there’s a load of borebags who are all ‘URGH! THIS ISN’T PROPER MUSIC!‘ and dismiss entire genres and then turn immediately grey skinned.

One thing researchers note is how music changes its function as we age. Music, for the young, is a way of bonding and a societal grease, but not so much when you’re an adult – you’ve got knee pain and finances to bitch about instead. For this reason, music may be less of a driver. Worse news for the old is their hearing. When you get older, you’ve less tolerance for loud noises and high frequences.

Another take is that there’s just less leisure time for older people, and a greater variety of ways of filling that time than young people.

One of the more interesting thoughts is that it isn’t wise to use chronological age as a predictor for stagnating musical tastes without considering the different ways people use music. While teenagers are feverishly hoovering up every tidbit and fact about the bands they’re getting into, adults may be listening more passively, using music for workouts and commutes – so they’re still into new stuff, they just might not be able to tell you all about it.

Either way, it sucks when people think the only good music that exists is precisely the music they listened to in their particular adolescence.

Sure, good music should throw old people off the scent, but we shouldn’t give up finding cool new things to listen to – even if the new things remind us of the things we listened to years ago. New bands need fans regardless of their age. Be cringe. Be the tragic old guy at the club. Pogo with a bad back. It’s all good.

Long live whatever you’re listening to.