Anyone else stopped hunting for new music?

[Akos89]

I'm checking out new bands on multiple Youtube channels, on Bandcamp, etc. And I start to realize it's a waste of time. Maybe once in a year I find something interesting, buy their digital album, and never listen to it again...

I have my handful of favorite albums from a few bands that I listen back and forth, never get bored from them.

But some way, it's kinda sad. That's it, I have these 10 albums, and there will be nothing new that comes close to them...

Anyone in the same shoes?

 

[MaxOfMetal]

It's 2024, the new music finds me.

 

[Demiurge]

Like Max said, it's gotta be the other way around.

I miss the hunt, though. One of the positives of no longer having the time is that I have such a staggering backlog of music to listen to that I'm never bored when I do have a chance to listen to music, so there's that.

 

[budda]

Theres so many bands I would have loved that I simply missed, that I try not to dwell on it or Im gonna lose my mind.

I have lots of friends with lots of good suggestions so I can hit them up if Im looking around.

Music is still “my thing” but I have less timr and energy to devote to it.

 

[nightsprinter]

Yeah. I've been too occupied with trying and failing to make my own new music tbh. I just chance into new stuff these days.

 

[Lozek]

It's fits and starts. I go through dry spells where I don't find anything that grabs me despite looking for months, then two or three albums come along that completely infatuate me. I never stop looking though, in the 35+ years I've been a music fan, there's always someone doing something that I can't imagine living without once I've heard it.

 

[SalsaWood]

I check stuff out here and there online. Local bands can be really good, but rarely have anything in hard copy. Most of the online stuff are just slight variations on the meta pop/metal/hip-hop style that I don't find compelling, retentive, or unique. 90% of the time the songs are just tropist dins, but there's some artistic innovation out there still.

I have an absolutely demented amount of music in my collection so I can very easily find something that's good, but I haven't heard in awhile. I tend to go through phases with styles that I listen to and known-knows are just easy. I guess I don't really look for new stuff either, it just finds me.

 

[wankerness]

I personally feel like when I totally stop looking for new music, that's when I'm officially old and given up on life. I occasionally go on Apple Music and listen to playlists of new stuff in whatever genre I'm in the mood for, or their radio stations or whatever. There's almost always at least a couple things I haven't heard that jump out at me. They play WEIRD stuff depending on what you listen to. I would assume spotify has the same but I don't use it. My favorite albums of all time list is still very heavily weighted towards stuff I got into when I was young, but on average I do keep finding new great albums at least once or twice a year.

I also find new stuff I like through liberal use of Shazam when I'm at certain coffee shops and restaurants (mostly independent/local ones run by weirdos). Until 2023, I used to regularly get new stuff from going to record stores and hearing what they'd play there, but no record stores exist around me anymore besides vinyl places that exclusively play classic rock.

If you have any colleges in your area, they tend to have at least a couple guest artists a year that will likely not be anything close to rock and thus are good to expand horizons. One of the best things I heard the last few years was this weirdo group that all played berimbau called "Arcomusical." I never, ever would have happened on that if I hadn't gone to the concert. And these concerts are usually really cheap, if not free.

 

[cthsqd]

Well it's directly connected to the desire to develop, which is usually connected to the age, and difficult to fight against.
The truth is there is s#itload of great music everywhere, but the more we know the less we need. In youth people feel the music, while grownups understand it more than feel it. It's shit, but that's how it is.
I personally love to seek new music, but it always comes from the mood i'm in. Some of it stays with me for years. There are so many worth mentioning, but if I had to choose one I'd probably point to "Miracle of Sound".

 

[SalsaWood]

Dear brothers in Christ, get adblockers and watch YT music playlists. Just cruise em, there's tons of music on there.

Also stop paying taxes, I'm sick of voting in circles.

 

[Zer01]

Yeah, I think it’s a getting old thing. My last favorite album I was truly excited about and inspired by came out in 2008.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

Mostly it comes to me. I think part of what people are experiencing is a combination of the free time of their youth being spent otherwise, and the fact that the scope of the unknown in what they like is narrower than it once was. Every doomed/sludged/shoegazey post-metal band isn't exciting anymore because I already know the big players, for example. On the other hand, there are still gems to be found and it's a beautiful time to branch out and experience new genres or even new art forms. I've got a coworker who's one of those stereotypical old metal heads who squawks about how there's no good music anymore and then says he's going to see five finger dick punch. Don't be that guy.

 

[Emperor Guillotine]

Because the technology to produce and create music is now dirt-cheap and readily accessible for anyone, combined with the archaic barrier for entry of music creation being totally smashed, the marketplace for music has become so immensely overly saturated with endless new music being put out daily via distribution and streaming services. Most of it is absolute rubbish made by untalented or unskilled individuals who should not be making and releasing music in the first place. But hey, we opened the market up to them, made the technology cheap and accessible for them, and destroyed the barrier for entry for them. Plus, now we humans have AI-generated music to compete with. It’s literally impossible to wade through all of the endless garbage to find new stuff that is actually “good” or worth your time nowadays in 2024.

Everyone is so busy nowadays; and we all only have a limited amount of time in our days. Do you really want to spend some of that limited time sifting through endless oceans of new garbage music in hopes of finding something that you deem as “good”?

There also is a psychological reasoning as to why as we age as humans, we eventually hit a point where we stop actively seeking out new music and just grow very comfortable with what we currently listen to on rotation in a rather habitual manner. We embrace the entertainment value or personal/sentimental/nostalgic value in what we have discovered thus far; and after we hit a certain age, we don’t bother to branch out and make attempts to discover new stuff that we might potentially enjoy, which (to circle back to my previous point above) already is an absolutely damn difficult task due to the excessive inundation of music being put out constantly.

I can’t recall the exact psychological reasoning or what it is specifically called; but I remember reading up on it a while back. I’ll try to do some digging and return back to this thread if I find anything (article, book, published study, etc.) to jog my memory.

 

[AwakenTheSkies]

I don't think I've ever actively looked for new music

 

[Matt08642]

I don't listen to much new metal because I have my favorites and:



I don't really need new music for the context in which I listen to metal, which is pretty much just the gym these days. For other genres, I find stuff everywhere. I've found a bunch of song's because they were used in memes, and the song itself ends up being cool. Sometimes I'll be listening to EDM on Spotify and it will throw together an amazing playlist I can grab 5-10 songs off of that end up staying in a rotation for a while.

I also don't always want new music, I'll just run some stuff in to the ground for a few months. All part of the fun!

 

[gasolinedreams]

I personally feel like when I totally stop looking for new music, that's when I'm officially old and given up on life.

I feel the same way.
I'm 33 and I'm still actively looking for new music all the time. I love finding stuff that gets me excited. What's changed is the ways that I look for new music, I guess.

 

[jaxadam]

I occasionally go on Apple Music and listen to playlists of new stuff in whatever genre I'm in the mood for

I have just started doing this. I pretty much had given up for years and years and just listened to either old playlists or whatever people were sending me, but I somehow managed to get the trifecta of audio subscription trials via Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon. I have since stuck with Apple Music and I'm either grabbing a song and letting them do the rest or getting a playlist and going from there. It has been refreshing.

 

[thebeesknees22]

I've been stuck in a death loop on youtube and spotify where nothing new pops up anymore. It's been like this for a year or two now.

I'm finding I have to dig pretty hard lately to find new stuff I like.

For a while though, a few years back, I had a really good run of great stuff just popping up all the time across the spectrum.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

When I think back to my youth, I would hear an album that kicked ass and then scour the stores for whatever else that band had. I'd feverishly anticipate new releases and whenever I saw an album cover that looked cool or morbid or controversial, I'd buy it. If it sucked then I wouldn't seek out anything else by that band. This was the 80s and vinyl and cassettes were king.

Into the 90s, live music took hold and with the local scene offering night after night of cheap, good, eclectic music, discovering new music was as much a part of life as eating and sleeping. CDs started hitting the stores and old and new music became more and more accessible. And most of what I sought out, I pretty much automatically knew I'd like b/c we were all sharing the latest CDs that we'd just bought... like if a buddy was into GnR or Megadeth or Slayer or whatever, and he told me to check out Vulgar Display of Power, then I pretty much knew I'd like it. Genre's were still more easily categorized although the whole new "alternative" and "grunge" movement was adding some complexity to it all.

Then beyond the 90s... it all slowed down, age caught up, responsibilities and adulting became more the norm... and although the music didn't die, it was often or for long stretches, no longer as prevalent. I would occasionally seek out new stuff but the days of concert-going and being crazed about the latest group, album, song, etc... just wasn't there like it once was. And I would find myself revisiting older stuff more and more. Friends moved away, the rent was due, my body didn't heal as quickly... and music became much more nostalgic and more like a comforting pick-me-up when times got really tough rather than an exciting quest.

I'd say that for me, there was very little music beyond the 90s, that made my heart race, or that I just had to get my hands on, or that anyone excitedly shared with me or visa-versa, or any bands ( old or new) that I felt like I HAD to see live... at least not like in my youth where music drove just about every aspect of my life. And I guess that carries into where I'm at now... so fucking much music out there... just a click away... for free. But once my youth and my mental/ physical health began to noticeably deteriorate, so did my enthusiasm to seek out new music. I still do... but lazily, out of boredom, or because it seems quirky or something. And even if something strikes me, I rarely seek out to listen to the rest of the album or find other albums by the same band.

It's just life and with the highs and lows that go along with it, when you really start to age... nothing is quite as exciting or awesome as it once might have been.

 

[gabito]

It depends. Sometimes I enjoy new, sometimes I enjoy known.

There are times I'll listen to everything I can find whether it's rock, metal, hardcore, punk, pop, hip-hop, or whatever. And sometimes I'll be listening to the same 3 or 4 Sepultura records for two months straight.

I don't torture myself about it. I know what I like more than when I was a kid, so I don't feel like I have to find new stuff all the time. But at the same time if something new shows up, whether it's new music because it was just released or if it's just new to me personally, I won't say no to it.

There's good music released all the time. It's sometimes difficult to find it. And impossible to listen to all of it. I can barely remember the names of some of the new bands I like, let alone their albums or songs. But that's why I just let Spotify or whatever app remember my listening history for me.