The Precipice of Becoming a Musical Dinosaur

When Do We Stop Finding New Music? A Statistical Analysis | Stat Significant

I’m an outlier with regard to these statistics, which is to say they don’t really apply to me. It’s probably the way I seek music, which is usually to come upon a style or genre or artist and then dig in exhaustively. Another factor is determined by what kind of music I want to make myself. So, for example, the last 10 or 15 years, roughly ages 40-55, have been a time of breathless discovery, ranging from West African and high life music to Salsa to the drone compositions of Lamonte Young and Tony Conrad to creative and improvised music of all sorts. I listened to almost none of this stuff prior to my 30s, a decade spent in discovery of other kinds of improvisation, jazz, americana, post-rock, and more. What does ring true for me is “From 30 onward, we listen to more music outside the mainstream.” I think the statement originally refers to listening to music from mainstreams past, but in my case its application is my journey into much farther out territory than I used to occupy.

I imagine that some of the despair the author faces stems from listening habits and streaming as one would have listened to radio, from trusting the algorithm(s) to do the legwork.

But it’s still interesting to think about, to consider how much of what we’re after sticks with us from earlier and more formative times. I’m doing this myself in a way with My Life with Peter Gabriel, following a single artist through my own life and music, examining the formation and extension of that influence.

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