A recent article in The Guardian [‘Bring that beat back: why are people in their 30s giving up on music?’ by Daniel Dylan Wray] highlighted research which purportedly show that as people today reach their thirties, music becomes less important in their lives. It’s a sign of the times that music is not so much of a priority anymore as people get older. But I can’t help but think that music would have a lot more potency and relevance for Millennials if it still remained a driving force in our culture.

Sadly, it isn’t.

A 2015 study of listening habits on Spotify found that most people stop listening to new music around age 33; a 2018 report by Deezer claimed it was 30. It’s easy to chalk this up to simply getting older, as the rabid enthusiasm, naivety and passion of youth dwindles. But that has an ageist presumption baked into it.

The fact you may still be into music, movies, stamp collecting, building model railways or whatever has absolutely no bearing on how actually ‘grown up’ you may or may not be. There may be more hurdles to committing to cultural discovery and I think people become fundamentally less curious as they get older. For some reason, music seems to be something that more commonly slips away – or is perceived as something you’re supposed to “grow out” of. Music is a key part of youthful identity formation: once your idea of yourself becomes fixed, perhaps by distinct markers like marriage and kids, the need for it slips away?

The idea that part of ‘growing up ‘ means losing interest in everything that doesn’t revolve around your work, material possessions and family is depressing enough. I’m sure we all know people who would consider themselves ‘grown up’ who’ve put away ‘childish things’ – but who also have the emotional maturity of a 14-year old. They’ve lost their curiosity about everything.

I don’t expect others to maintain anywhere near the same level of interest as I do – but not everyone reaches their 30s and gives up on music. Not that there’s anything wrong with tapping out, sometimes, either: interests and priorities change. A parent with two young children obviously has more important things to do. Gigs become less attractive when a small person screams you awake at 5am. I get it. That’s your fucking problem.

But I think the main reason why people care less about music these days is because most of it is just plain awful.

Music seems to have lost a lot of its magic, its raw edge. I’m not saying that none of it’s any good; just that it’s rare to hear something that is truly new and unique or inspiring, so it’s impossible to feel that same level of excitement about contemporary music.

Recording artists today feel pressured to do what the Corporations want – industry consolidation means there are only a handful of them left, and the label ownership of Spotify means they basically control what people listen to via playlists. There is no longer a significant independent sector – because the only distribution that matters is Spotify, and it’s controlled by Majors.

The result is corporatization and the avoidance of taking risks: boring, safe, un-challenging music; hits that replicate other hits rather than anything new. Small labels used to give unknown artists a break. That break no longer happens unless you smash it on social media in a 15 second TikTok or whatever…

Prior to The Beatles, the pop music scene, especially in the USA, was eminently forgettable: the charts were filled with crooners, hacks and second hand crap: Peggy Lee, Bobby Vinton, Pat Boone, The Four Seasons and the like…

Luckily, at least we did have Buddy Holly and the Everlys…but most of the really good stuff was being made by Black artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and BB King…to name a few.

But then the Beatles and their contemporaries came along and the music scene came alive again – aided by Pirate Radio in the UK. In the USA, radio, like everything else, was segregated, although there were lots of great stations in the big cities. This was despite the fact that the payola scandal involving several famous DJs exposed the endemic corruption of the US airwaves…

Over the next half century there have been waves of good and bad music, but mostly still enjoyable nevertheless. But then it died with all the crappy vocal-centric ‘music’ being promoted by The Industry, and it left a really unpleasant taste in my mouth. What killed it for me was the emerging dominance of rap music. That’s when I checked out – the genre does very little for me.

It’s not just music, either: the same thing has gone on in multiple sectors. Take book publishing: there used to be a huge number of publishers. Now, there are only a handful. None of them want to take risks – they are aiming exclusively for the best seller lists. A whole host of great writers with smaller publishers have few outlets.

The movie industry has certainly coagulated into an endless search for the next BLOCKBUSTER. But Hollywood has zero motivation to suddenly start making GOOD movies when the public will apparently watch virtually anything put before them. A lot of this can be blamed on the highly successful Dumbing Down program and the total eradication of quality, innovation or integrity from American society.

The corporate ownership of creativity has been an unmitigated cultural disaster wherever it occurs: the result is fewer artists, fewer playwrights, fewer musicians, fewer authors, fewer venues, fewer everything…and that was BEFORE the pandemic.

I think it can sometimes be a sign of depression, though: losing interest in the things you once loved. One thing making it more difficult for older people are all the technological barriers. So many events now only use fucking Apps or go ticketless, and this can be a real struggle for technophobes…or folks like me who don’t own a stinking Smartphone..!

But for the most part music just isn’t new or exciting nowadays; it’s more often than not incredibly repetitive dance music with no message or musical innovation whatsoever involved. Contemporary music is simply boring, and basically more of the same old same old.

Anyone with the slightest bit of musical training knows that songwriting has declined in complexity in recent years. It is almost exclusively diatonic, and generic to the point of being totally homogeneous. Worse yet, deluded ‘artists’ are suing their peers for stealing their material without realizing that they stole it from someone else…

I was born in the early 60s and I grew up in the 70s and 80s and music was awesome; constantly changing with brand new sounds and beats. I’d hear something and have an instant gut reaction to the way the music was performed, and the arrangements could be so different and unique. This uniqueness and the creation of brand new genres totally unlike anything that had gone before died a death somewhere around 1990, and everything seems to have been on an endless loop since then.

Anyone who experienced the 60s, 70s and 80s has been lucky indeed and I can understand why so many young people are looking back and listening to music from these eras.

Back then, music MEANT SOMETHING. It wasn’t just background noise, or something to ‘work out’ to…

It pains me as a working musician who performs and composes original music to see how devolved musical tastes have become. My relationship with music runs deep but I dedicate my time to delving into the history of music and I work hard to find new music that excites me. The music industry is currently in a superficial race to the bottom and there is a complete lack of sophistication and risk taking at the forefront of The Industry.

Alas, I don’t see that changing any time soon.