Why do we stop exploring new music as we get older?

The hardest part for me in exploring new music is the ‘discovery’ process of new music that I like.

Most of the algorithms just want to reinforce giving me recommendations of either mixes of the same music, or just slightly different but overall still similar music in the same genre.

Like, who knows, I may really like scandinavian metal bands, but how much time will I realistically spend going out of my way to find it or get recommendations if I know nothing about it? Especially as one gets older with more obligations and has less time to spend.

M/45, n=1.

Most of my purchases[1] are considered new or recent-ish and have come from exploration on Bandcamp. Finnish breakbeat, Icelandic ambient, New York techno, many wonderful things.

Most of what I listen to by time spent is 90s and 00s electronic music. Good times.

[1] https://bandcamp.com/petecooper

People are saying "that's not me!" and I think that points to the research being poor or over generalizing.

I think most people who are actively engaged in music are not going to follow this pattern at all. Whether that's being a highly active collector/listener or being someone who performs or takes music/singing/instrument lessons as an adult. All that stuff is going to prime you to keep discovering and appreciating new music.

Nothing makes you appreciate the music of others like learning to play/perform the music of others & creating/performing your own music.

Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and other related games have greatly widened my musical tastes as I’ve gotten older (game was invented in 2005, and I’m 42 now). Definitely recommend.

Very strange.. I am 32 and still find great joy in discovering new music - not just new artists but different genres as well. There is just SO much good music. And contrary to some others, I find most of the music I listened to growing up to be pretty cringe, but I still enjoy it from time to time purely for the nostalgia. So this is news to me..

When you're young, you can pick up a new topic, sleep on it and be better at it in the morning. When you're older with all sorts of cruft in your head, this ability retards. Music can "un-clog" but only to a certain extent, it needs some plasticity to function in the first place. If you have just enough but not an excess of plasticity, then new music (really, new sensations) will be almost impossible to integrate. Plug this into disdain for a civilization winding down on its basic tenets of family and community, and you get complete disinterest in whatever's new. And anyway, there's quite enough music to last one's lifetime. Some people don't feel like they need new music at all.

n=1, but FWIW... I'll turn 50 in a few months, and I still explore new music. Both new bands (including "new, old bands" that I missed previously, as well as "actually new" bands) within my long-favored genres (hard rock / heavy metal and hip-hop), as well as entirely new genres. I took to listening to a lot of synthwave, horrorwave, darkwave stuff a couple of years ago and am still exploring that genre. And I listen to a little bit more jazz now, and some blues, where both of those are genres I never listened to at all in years prior. And of course I'm always learning more classical works that I enjoy that I had not been exposed to yet.

What all this means? I dunno, but just keep the flow of new music coming, please.

"Most Americans don't play badminton? I call BS, I play badminton all the time, at so do all my friends at the Badminton Society"

(Most responses to TFA from people who can't possibly fathom that they're among the exceptions)

I'm a graybeard, but I have never stopped exploring new music at all.

That said, I've also experienced enough music that I have a pretty good idea of what sort I like and what sort I don't, and I don't tend to spend a lot of exploring styles I'm not fond of. That's different from when I was younger and had less of an idea of what my tastes actually were.

My tastes haven't changed since high school but Spotify has introduced me to many new bands I wouldn't know about otherwise.

Speak for yourself, I was recently the second-oldest person at a concert. A friend of mine, a year older than me, was embarrassed when we noticed that. I take it as a point of pride. I still enjoy the music of my youth, but I really love new music.

What I haven't done over the years is significantly expanded the genres that I listen to.

> 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.

This can't be right, because I'm still stuck on 1980s heavy metal.

I think people into computers will naturally not fit this as a huge part of our jobs is to keep up with trends and learn new things, so we do that outside of computers too. More so than most careers.

My dad still actively seeks out new music in his 60s.

Betteridge’s Law Of Headlines strikes again.