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Comment by tayo42 | Hacker News Reader

Funny I'm the same way I think. I used to be so into music, I was always listening to something. I had a massive collection of pirated music lol. Always looking for something new to check out.

When edm and dubstep blew up I was always out at shows, festivals, random dj nights. Tried writing a lot of my own music, even had small release

Then idk I got my first job out of college around 24 and stopped searching or even listening. I only have music on in my car and like stuff from high school, concerts I go to are just bands from high school

I think part of it is there is no scene for music any more? Or I'm so out of touch. But bands used to be big on the radio, but there's so many release sources. there's no filter anymore. Everyone used to listen to the radio. Now everyone's Spotify is custom and completely different

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> I think part of it is there is no scene for music any more?

There are plenty of music scenes, but I do think they are not as big and influential on overall youth culture anymore.

What subcultures revolve around changes over time and we might have had an oddity in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s were the subject was primarily the music genres that evolved during that time? When I was a teenager, pretty much everyone that was in a scene, associated themselves strongly to one music genre with basically no overlap. You were either into Techno, Metal, Hip Hop, Goth or Punk and the life/fashion styles that come with it.

But when I asked my mother, who was a teenager partying hard in the 60s/70s when bands definitely were big on the radio, what the subcultures revolved around, from her perspective it wasn't music, but political and socio-economical stances. For example hippies: Music definitively played a big role in that scene and many iconic songs came from it, but it was not the main thing the scene was about.

And I think it could be the same thing these days. Music is still important to people and evokes a lot of emotions, but it is not the main thing the youth cultures are build around.

> "I think part of it is there is no scene for music any more?"

> There are plenty of music scenes, but I do think they are not as big and influential on overall youth culture anymore.

I think what changed is that gate-keeper, hyper-promoted acts don't hook as much of the youth as they once did.

We have this one local music festival that's made up of hundreds of acts playing in dozens of small venues. The audience is huge but it's dispersed over 10 city blocks so you don't really get that crushing mob feel.

I'm sure if you speak to an 18 y/o today they'll tell you there is a scene. But give them 10 years and they'll be saying the same as you.

I think it's just how our brains change. When we're in our late teens, striking out into the world everything is new and full of possibilities. We hoover up new experiences and crave novelty as we find our place in the world. But later on in life that's no longer necessary - we enter stable survival mode instead.

I think evolutionary biology can explain a lot of this (the same happened to me too btw).

I have seen it being referred various times that musical interest and emotional connection to it really develops and peaks around the age 14

E.g.: https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/is-14-a-magic-... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/opinion/sunday/favorite-s...

I think the book "This Is Your Brain on Music" also talks about it, but I haven't read it yet. https://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/04...

I have never dug deeper on it, but it rings very true for my own case and friends I talked with about it. To the music that awed me when I was a teenager, most intensely so Scandinavian melodic death metal, I still to this day have a stronger emotional reaction than anything I listen to before or after that period of my life. Even tough I don't listen to those songs anymore that often and there are plenty of modern songs in similar styles that I do think are better in many aspects, that just don't have the same goosebumps effect anymore.

And I think the main difference here is me, not the music that has changed, that has gotten better or worse.

I don't know if that's true, around 14 I did emotionally connect to music ofc, for some reason I was into nu-metal at the time. From then on I've made several 180° turns and the music I listened to back then falls somewhere between cringy to kinda alright, depending on the song. For me it feels as my music taste is evolving the emotional connection is actually going up. Well perhaps 14 is the average but it's certainly not true for everyone, the tail can be pretty long.

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