Why do most people like the music they grew up with best?

Is there any known theory about this?

the world hadn't ground your innocence under its bootheel yet. So things looked and sounded great :)

and categories of music ARE exclusionary.

A friend of mine is the mother of Richard Hell. And she went to see one of his movies at a theatre and folks there actually asked her what the fuck she was doing there - she was probably 70 years old at the time, and she said, "I'm Richard Hell's mother." Well, they didn't believe her, so they asked her his real last name and when she knew they all had the vapors.

I think music is also associated with specific types of dance and dress that do not span generations.

And look how so many older stars disguise their ages - Deborah Harry and Chris Stein were not in their 20s when Blondie made it. Fred Schneider of the B-52 and the two women, same thing. They're around 60 now. Most folks don't know this.

Male singers - U2, Paul McCartney, etc. are permitted to age as are their fans. Grace Slick always said she'd never be singing "Somebody to Love" when she got older. She didn't think it would work.

Susan Boyle's called 'old' but she's 4 years younger than Madonna and young enough to be in U2. U2 seem to revel in looking older.

So, artists have to make a choice - will they try to stay 'young' or will they age with their fans?

about listening to tunes at the beach, or roller skating, or while hanging out with friends, or being glued to the TV watching music videos for me.

many songs in the sixties and early 70s came out just by thinking of where I was.

"Downtown." 1967. Newport, RI.

"In the Summertime." 1970. Groton, Conn.

etc...

I can hear an old song and tell you EXACTLY what year it was released.

I'm sick to death of late 60s/early 70s music. And my youngest loves "Classic Rock"!

Eighties pop music. :puke:

80's music is now coming back at wedding receptions.
First dance bride and groom "Girl You Know It's True" by Milli Vanilli

The Cure
New Order
Echo & the Bunnymen
Hoodoo Gurus
Jason & the Scorchers
The Alarm
Simple Minds
Translator
X
The Blasters
Del Fuegos
English Beat
Guadalcanal Diary
Tommy Keene
Let's Active
Midnight Oil
The Neighborhoods
Sidewinders
Dream Syndicate

I didn't listen to it, but you couldn't help being aware of it.
I just got this for Christmas:

and I'm from LA, X was the house band. On your excellent list, you neglected to put UB-40.
And you inspired me to buy "Rat In The Kitchen" on CD right now.

I got that same cd (along with Simple Mind's "New Gold Dream" and a Siouxie and the Banshees compliation) with my Christmas gift certificate!

..and many more...


Tikki

and agree that all the ones I know are anywhere from good to great( and so assume the few I never really have heard much of, are most likely worth listening to also). Even fortunate enough to have seen a few of these in person; The Alarm and The Blasters were absolutely fucking great ( but disappointed in the Del Fuegos; maybe just an off-night for em; I've had plenty of those myself), and have seen 3/4ths of X in various incarnations, enough to know how great especially Exene and DJ were back then...Guadalcanal, Midnight Oil, Cure.....yep, great stuff from my 30's . No nostalgia there for me; just great music, and I gotta give a shout out to The Replacements too.

If you were busy listening to hair metal and vapid pop, that's your fault. There was a lot of amazing music being made in the 1980s if you knew where to look. Janglepop like the Connells, Let's Active, and O-Positive; neo-rockabilly like Scruffy The Cat; cowpunk like Jason & The Scorchers and Lone Justice; artsy postpunk like Echo & the Bunnymen and New Order; passionate folk-influenced "big music" from The Waterboys and The Alarm; gritty rock from The Replacements and The Pixies.

:eyes:

I did say pop, did I not?

the 80s. I love it with a passion.

I'm 42, and my favorite albums still include U2's "War", Big Country's "The Crossing", The Alarm's "Declaration", REM's "Reckoning", etc.

And my Christmas haul proves the point. Simple Minds, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Cure, and Siouxie & the Banshees. Two and a half decades later, I'm still the weird kid who listened to postpunk bands on WUNH.

Yes, sirree

Now that I'm older , I KNOW it. :hi:

So, having listened to the music of that time more regularly and intensely, I connect with it more than something new out of the blue that might get a passing listen in the car with frequent interruptions.

And once that voracious phase passed, anything new would have to measure up favorably on first or second listen in order for me to pursue it.

And given the choice between an unknown, and a known favorite, it's sometimes easier to pull out the old favorite again.

Plus, when I only had 25 albums or so, I listened to each of them more frequently than when my collection expanded into hundreds.

I've found some really great shit over the last few years thanks to the internets.

You are one cool cat

but then, i also love much of the current stuff .

It certainly holds true in my case.

I think that it may have an effect on brain chemistry, perhaps recreating the chemical milieu that existed during adolescence, or an approximation thereof. Endorphins, perhaps.

But there is definitely *something* going on, no doubt in my mind.

:thumbsup:

I've been listening to Americana/Roots/Blues for the past eight years or so and I'd never go back. :hi:

perhaps nostalgia plays a bit as well

:shrug:

;-)

As we grow the music we listen to defines a standard by which we classify music. Rock sounds like (insert bands), Rap sounds like (insert rappers), Country sounds like (insert singers), etc., and we classify those sounds as the genres. As time marches on and music evolves our definitions no longer fit the current molds and we don't like it.

I got into a dust-up with the 14 yr old on what was punk and what was not punk. We were both right, but I think she may have even been more right because hers is now and mine was before, know'm say'n?

I was never a fan of Punk, but I know it's a damn shame what counts as Punk anymore. That's the same feeling I have about Metal.

like we do with our parents and our first loves. Things are so much more intense when we're young.

I know a guy who has 4 CDs.

4.

Count 'em.

And he listens them all the time. I can't wrap my brain around that. It doesn't matter how much I love some music, I can't hear the same thing daily for long. Even when I get new CDs I tend to play it every other day as I learn it, except for a few bands. But within a couple weeks I've moved on.

I still like a lot of the stuff I liked then, but maybe 10% really holds up as something more than just a trip down Nostalgia Lane and is something I still play regularly. More old stuff comes up when I have ITunes on shuffle, but if I'm picking I don't listen to too much old stuff very often.

I do like some 60's music...but rarely go out of my way to just listen to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba7a9pZM6_I
"Needle In The Camel's Eye"....Brian Eno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSo98Iyxh94
"Pretty Please Me"....The Quick

Tikki

when it sucks.

Simple, when you really look at it.
mark

that your music sucks.

You could always listen to classic rock....

mark

Chris Daughtry sucks? :eyes:

10cc's "I'm not in love" always brings back the memory of me driving my '68 Plymouth III one nice evening when I first heard that song on the radio. Others will remind me of Daytona Beach or Key West, Florida.

Build Me Up Buttercup doesn't really do anything for me.

Just like the ability to learn languages. You can learn a new language after adolescence, but it's much easier before. The brain may well parse music in a similar manner.

In my teens, it was Kraftwerk/Tangerine Dream/Klaus Schulze or bust.

I am nineteen years old, and my favorite albums are from 2000 (The Moon & Antarctica), 2004 (Funeral), 1997 (OK Computer), 2002 (Source Tags & Codes), 1999 (Lost and Gone Forever), 1994 (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain), 2004 (The Lost Riots), etc. etc. etc. Which is odd, because I was a little too young to really appreciate them at the time they were released.

But this does not always hold true by any means...For myself, I think the music I grew up with kicks ass because it just does. Random chance of having been born when I was...but my teen years were the height of creativity of an astounding number of great bands and artists; The British invasion groups, Motown and Stax/Volt, surf music, the San Francisco bands,the L.A. bands (Arthur Lee and Love, Doors, Byrds,B-Springfield etc), Bob Dylan, and countless great garage-band one hit wonders....For those of you who dismiss these and other similar artists, hey, to each their own...I have many unhappy memories of those days, so in my case,it's not nostalgia; I generally make a conscious effort to AVOID memories connected with all that great music,and therefore think it was the best in spite of it being from my youth, not because of it. I also think there have also been other periods that produced a lot of great rocknroll, and in fact, my two favorite bands ever both had their advent , and peaks, when I was well into my twenties( The E Street Band , and The Clash). I also think the original rocknroll/rockabilly era was great , although it was just a little "before my time". I also love a lot of 80's stuff, when I was in my 30's and again, thought there was another burst of great creativity around the mid-nineties ( Rancid, Soul Asylum, just for a couple off the top of my head) . ( P.S., thanks again to the person that PM'd me last night for helping me see that maybe I did have something worthwhile to contribute, at least for the time being , to DU, both re:politics and other areas such as this one).