Well, I thought that I’d talk about why – for anyone who was a teenager during the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s – you might find yourself listening to your favourite bands less often these days.
For context, I’m a mid-late thirties millennial, whose teenage years took place during the 2000s. My favourite bands are the heavy metal band Iron Maiden and the punk band The Offspring. I first discovered the former in about 2001-2 and the latter in 1998. Both bands were regular fixtures of the soundtrack to my teenage years.
But, in early May this year, I was surprised to find myself “rediscovering” the song “Truth In Fiction” from The Offspring’s 2024 album “Supercharged“… and shocked that I’d almost forgotten that this excellent album was even a thing. Likewise, although I’m literally wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt whilst I write this, I’ve only maybe listened to two or three of their songs in the week before preparing this article. And I hadn’t even really noticed this until an hour or so before preparing this article.
It isn’t that I listen to less music than I did when I was a teenager – if anything, I listen to more. And I think that this is why I was listening to my favourite bands less than I used to. If you were a teenager during the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s, then you probably listened to music on cassette or CD. Yes, MP3s were a thing since some point in the 1990s – and I still buy and listen to MP3s regularly. Still, physical media was king back then.
And, when you were growing up, you had a lower music budget and fewer options for discovering music. There wasn’t Youtube, with millions of music videos on it and a recommendation algorithm. No, you found music by either hearing it on the radio, reading about it in magazines, spotting some cool-looking cover art on a shop shelf, getting a recommendation from a friend etc… And this meant that finding music that you really loved was not only more difficult but it also felt more precious when you did. If you found a band you liked, you bought any albums or singles you could find and afford by them and pretty much just listened to it a lot of the time.
This was helped by the album and/or single format. Even if you just listened to your favourite CD track on repeat, you still had to put the CD into your CD player or computer. This meant that all the music you could listen to was by that one band until you physically changed the disc. Often, if you were listening in the background, it was just easier to keep the CD playing. And, with cassettes, you literally had to listen to everything on the cassette in the proper order as well.
Yes, there’s also the famous “Reminiscence bump“, where things – including music – from your teens and early twenties are more memorable than anything else. But this just makes the fact that you probably don’t listen to your favourite bands as much these days seem even stranger. But I have a theory about why this is.
If you enjoy listening to music, then you probably still enjoy the feeling of discovering amazing new songs.
And, not only is this much, much easier to do these days – thanks to websites like Youtube and the dreaded “subscription streaming services” having recommendation algorithms – but there’s also just a lot more music than there used to be. Not only do you probably have a larger budget for buying music, but the internet has also levelled the playing field a bit and given indie bands and/or musicians more of a chance to be discovered. And there are a lot more of them than there used to be.
Case in point, in the two weeks before writing this article, I have found or rediscovered – amongst other songs – a heavy metal cover of Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue” by Marcin Jakubek, a hilarious punk song about an anime maid with a gun (warning – “explicit lyrics”) and a fan mix of a “concert-only” Sisters Of Mercy gothic rock song.
And, whilst I’ve still got most of my old CD collection, I mostly buy music on MP3 these days and my MP3 collection is larger than my music collection was when I was a teenager. So, if I’m in the mood for a song with a particular mood, theme or genre, then I have a lot more options to choose from.
My favourite bands are still my favourite bands. It’s just that, when I was a teenager, their songs were maybe like a good 50% of my music collection. These days, they’re maybe 5% at most. Because there’s just so much more music than there used to be. And it’s really, really easy to find new music and bands these days.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
