Musical Musings of 2019

When this blog first hit the web way back in 2005 the original quote posted under the title was "The more you love music, the more music you love." It was from Tom Moon's book, 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die. The music Moon wrote about were his bucket list works and the quote sometimes made me feel like I was not a true music fan because no matter how hard I tried, and no matter how often I listened to certain genres, they just wouldn't connect with my brain or my heart. Yet I believed the opposite was also true. I knew I was a true connoisseur of the art form because at the same time I listened to a substantial amount of music that the average man in the street never even knew existed.

Why am I telling you all of this? It's because I want to continue publishing Bloggerhythms but I now feel odd because, after decades of wanting to be exposed to all kinds of new music, I don't receive the same satisfaction pursuing current stuff as I have in the past. As a result, older music has been featured here more and more. To paraphrase David Dye, one of the founders and the original host of NPR's syndicated World Cafe when he retired from that show, "I no longer feel the need to chase down the next new, big thing" and that is the case with yours truly.

According to data accumulated in 2015 on mostly American Spotify users people stop listening to new music at age thirty-three. Two factors account for the researcher's findings. The most obvious one is that people continue to prefer the music they grew up with and, secondly, they discover new genres that were unfamiliar to them when they were in high school or college.

Further results show that couples with children stop listening to new stuff earlier than those who have not yet procreated and men drop out of the mainstream sooner than women do.

I'm still head over heels in love music. There is still lots of rock, jazz, pop, country, folk, and whatever else I feel like listening to seeping into my soul, but as singer-songwriter Eilen Jewell posted on her website, "I like all kinds of music as long as there's the word 'early' in front of it," and something similar seems to be happening to your friendly Bloggerhythms host.

So, look for more activity on this blog real soon (some of it will even be current) and I hope you enjoy future postings. In the meantime here is some truly great work from the past. Enjoy!