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Comment by Zancarius | Hacker News Reader

I don't think you're completely alone, but you're probably statistically insignificant (don't worry, I'm right there with you).

Like you, I can't stand the music I grew up with all that much (maybe a few songs here and there), but I went through the trance/electronic fixation in the 2000s. Now it's almost anything that I enjoy, which probably doesn't say much, but I'm presently listening to some chillstep and was listening to metal covers of the sea shanties "Santiana" and "Roll the Old Chariot Along." A few weeks ago, I was listening to Norse-inspired works by Einar Selvik.

I can't imagine we're that statistically significant or if streaming may have some impact on availability and interest. I'm unwilling to believe it's a personality trait, for instance. (For another data point, I was born in the early 80s.)

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I actually wonder if staying receptive to new music into or past middle age is enhanced by autism. I am a male on the spectrum, in my late 30's, and absolutely nothing about this article rings true to me. I generally operate on a 5 year cycle where I completely reinvent my musical interests, stop enjoying lots of tracks that I used to love (I hate just about eveything I loved at 14), and hang onto a handful of tracks that I consider timeless.

I am already feeling myself reach the end of one of these cycles where I am digging through netlabels and indie internet radio stations looking for the next niche subgenre to become addicted to.

Brains have to have repeated exposure to a stimulus before they find it pleasurable. This is why you may need to try a new food a few times before you develop a liking for it, and the same goes for new music genres.

If you purposefully go out and listen to new music, you'll quickly get accustom to the sounds of new genres. On the other hand, people who are not in the habit of trying new things never train their brain to enjoy new types of music.

It seems plausible. I'm not on the spectrum (so far as I know), but my receptiveness to new music generally has some association with previous genres I enjoyed. I definitely don't experience the "reinventiveness" trait so much as gradual evolution. I don't like early 2000s electronica anymore, some trance I used to enjoy I don't, but now I just love some other genres that are tangentially related (chillstep, etc). On the other hand, I still enjoy some of the same metal groups that I used to (Disturbed, Epica, etc) even though I don't listen as often.

Perhaps there is, if you pardon the expression, a spectrum of receptiveness.

I'm thinking there's something to your speculation, though.

I'm going on mid 40s and could have written a very similar comment, except my five year cycle is more additive than reinventive.

Anecdotally for me it's that music is now more complex the simplicity of older music just doesn't please the senses as it did back then.

Kind of the same feeling where you upgrade to two monitors and if you have to use a workstation with one just isn't the same.

You know... this makes a LOT of sense to me.

On the other hand, I really appreciate the minimalism of some modern ambient scores, but I'm not sure me from 15-20 years ago would have had any tolerance of it.

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