September 15, 2009

  • They say that one thing which defines that a person is "old" is when they are out of touch with the music of the day. I suppose I see the logic in that rationale, as people tend to relate to a span of music that they "grew up with." Music after all reflects a certain age generation, so it's not surprising to embrace that. A particular age group might stick to a particular era like the 70s or the 80s as examples, and doing that definitely makes them seem old and out of touch.

    Here's a question though. What does define the music that you grew up with? I'm guessing one of the top answers for people would probably be the music they listened to in High School and College. For some people it's defined by age, from early in their pre-teens to their late 20s. Do people really relate to the music they listened to when their age consisted of only one digit? Can you still embrace or discover new music in your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond? I know for sure I can, as I'm still discovering and loving new music artists that are coming out today, and I'm near my mid-30s. I am however noticing that I am starting to lose touch with what's considered popular music nowadays. Am I showing my age?

    Part of the problem with not knowing what's considered popular nowadays, is because the medium of discovering music has been splintered so much. You can discover music through live concerts, listening to the radio, hearing particular artists through word of mouth, internet popularity like in youtube, exposure through TV and Movies, etc... But what if you aren't making much effort listening to several of those mediums? In my case, I don't listen to the radio much anymore, and just opt to plug in a music CD or mp3s. Radio in particular is important though right? Because it supposedly defines what's popular in music today. I can understand why the radio plays particular songs over and over and over again, because it increases it's chances of being heard to people like me who hardly turn on the radio anymore. Of course that's one of the reasons I stopped listening to the radio, but whatever.

    Going to the Billboard.com website, and looking at the top 10 songs from the "HOT 100," "Billboard 200," "Digital Songs," and "Radio Songs," I admit that I have no idea what half of the songs were. In particular it's the teen stars and the R&B / Hip-Hop songs that I'm definitely out of touch with. Jay Sean, Pitbull, Jason DeRulo, Drake, Trey Songz, etc... These are just a sample of top ten artists of today that I am going "WHO?" I'm not completely out of touch though, as I am familiar with Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Silversun Pickups, Kings of Leon, or Colbie Caillat, and some of them I actually consider myself a fan.

    So despite the fact that I'm showing my age by slowing moving away from knowing what's considered popular today, I'm not completely out of the loop just yet. In fact I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone in this with people in my age group, or even people much older than me. Music can after all be ageless, and the key here is that as long as you are actively still discovering new music, being "old" makes no difference.