the slow realization that your music taste is becoming oldmusic•4w ago
you try to keep up with new releases. you make playlists, read the reviews, give the hyped albums a fair shot. sometimes a track lands and you think “okay, i get it.” most times you listen politely, then go back to the same ten albums from your early twenties that still feel like home. it’s not that new music is bad. it’s that the new music doesn’t know you the way the old stuff does
i used to judge people who said they only listen to “older stuff.” now i get it. it’s not about being stuck in the past. it’s about the fact that those albums were there when you were becoming yourself. new music might be technically better, more experimental, whatever. but it didn’t soundtrack your first breakup, your first apartment, your first real taste of freedom. that’s hard to compete with.
i think part of it is energy. when you’re younger, you’re hungry for identity. you latch onto sounds that define you. later on, you’re more stable.
i’ll listen to the hyped album once, nod respectfully, then immediately play track three from that one record that changed my life at 22.
i’ve always been someone who looks for what isn’t popular. the first posters i hung in my room were of metal bands. then my taste shifted to hip-hop and rap culture. later, it moved toward indie and alternative. now, i can only listen to classical music.
please login to comment.