Is music better when you're a teenager?
 

I don't think I'll ever enjoy a record as much as I did Soundgarden's Superunknown
when I was about 14 years of age. Is that normal? I'm 28 now. Am I getting old?

no, you dont have enough experience. when yr a teenager the songs are your experience vicariously, as you get older the songs reflect yr own experience, have more meaning, have become a fixture in yr life and are thus better. For example, I listen to a lot of roots reggae. Songs about biblical narratives and religious events are only really significant after you have experience and understanding of these things, so that when you first hear the songs, that are your exposure, but when you listen to them later, they are your memories and reflections [ie, when I hear "it was Elijah, who prayed that it did not rain" from Bunny Wailer, it did not mean as much to me when I was 17 then now when I have had much more experience and understanding of what the narrative of Elijah means to begin with]

I literally said aloud to my friend last night (and I've got a decade+ on you) that I was buying more music than I ever have and I enjoy it as much as I ever did, though I did note a lot of it is not song-oriented.

I do think the neurochemistry of your brain changes as you get older and as you experience life your enjoyment and dislikes flatten out a bit. I don't think I enjoy anything as much as I enjoyed the swingset when I was 3 or 4, you know? I was playing peekaboo with a 18 month old last night and I don't think ANYTHING has ever given me the joy this little tot was getting from our little game.

yeah i enjoyed everclear's so much for the afterglow a bunch when i was 14 because i didn't know all the sounds the world kept. it has a special kind of nostalgia for me because i was musically retarded and dug it then, and I guess i'm still 19, but I don't think I'd enjoy hell songs by daughters any less if i were to hear it for the first time when I'll be 25 then when I did when I was 18 or whatever.

when you are younger , if you have not heard a ton of music, certain things hit you with a full emotional force. human beings do not begin to make decisions using their logic until age 19-22. Before that, most decisions run thorugh the emotional cortex of the brain.
that is why when you are younger, the music can bring out so many emotions in you, you react emotionally, it feels IMPORTANT, and it feels like YOU, as if the band was writing a song specifically for you.

I used to think peace sells but who's buying was the most genius album ever. i listened to it flipping the tape in my walkman over and over and over again for months. the album is not that good to be worthy olf such adoration but tell it to the kid I was at 14.

no, it just takes more time to find those records that mesmerise you the same way as you get older.

anyway, the older you get the greater one's ability to appreciate music becomes, so i would say music gets better as you get older.

14 years ago, I was listening to a buncha emo/HC shit. Glad I grew outta that. And I'm glad so many of those bands and musicians grew out of it, too.

When you're a teenager, music is often an important part of your identity, and it goes hand-in-hand with style of dress. If you're into punk rock or metal or hip hop, there was a certain type of clothing you'd wear to put up a sign: "THIS IS WHAT I LISTEN TO." If you were a new face at a new school, it's how other kids might decide to let you hang out with them.

If you found gateway bands like the Cure or Nirvana or Soundgarden in the 90s, surely that might seem refreshing compared to the ubiquitous Whitney and Paula and NKOTB, Poison, Winger, etc., but for kids that stuck with "alternative" music (in the strict Webster's Dictionary sense nd not the 90s advertising buzzword sense), how much deeper might they dig? It depended largely on their own self-initiative and level of interest in music, plus the accessibility of portals to a wider world of music than what they knew and what their friends knew from MTV or reading Spin or Alternative Press.

Most kids (and adults, actually) need new music to be spooned to them by a trusted source, be it the media or influential friends. There are casual fans who rate music's importance in their life below other hobbies, and there are dedicated crazies out there (like a lot of us!) who perhaps rate it #1 even about our jobs and personal relationships. Some crazies are content just to collect every album by Madonna or U2 on every possible format. But some, once they are into the portal to "underground" shit get curious about how far it goes, and by age 14, most people aren't even into the portal yet.

I know that for me, I was very lucky to find one of the world's very best freeform radio stations by accident while looking for something to breakdance to, and I wound up falling in love with Wire and The Fall that day, and then the next carrot on the stick was Crispy Ambulance, which taught me the important lesson that the record stores at the local mall didn't have every record and cassette ever made.

I also saw a picture in a Thrasher magazine of Ian Mackaye screaming into a microphone, and he was extending the mic toward the crowd, and about six kids were lunging toward the mic to shout together, and Ian's eyes and their eyes were fixed together with so much determination, it was very intriguing to me. It seemed so different than the live concert footage you might see on MTV, where the audience was separated and relegated to idol worship. I became curious about live music a more democratic experience because of a picture in a magazine.

So, to answer your question, I think it depends on your circumstances and experiences growing up and listening and finding new music, but I can only guess that for most people here (and especially the most opinionated people here), your taste in music will revolutionize in your 20s and leave many teen favorites in the dust. And if you stick with it into your 30s beyond the casual observer level and keep an open mind and keep striving for that next fave, you'll keep finding it, and even more of your archive will become obsolete.

Music is so often such a socially divisive thing as a teenager. I know that at my school, the tables kids ate lunch at were segregated into musical appreciation societies as much as anything else. Even subgroups of jocks and brainy kids were divided that way. Kids I talk to today say it's much the same way at school today. But a serious music fan will learn eventually that all the music under the sun shares some kinda common ancestry. And the more you understand about where music's been, the better you can figure out where it might be going, and the better prepared you are put new music in a perspective. Surely, many fans burn out into their 20s, 30s, or 40s and get jaded, and perhaps they quit listening to new music altogether, but if you keep finding new music to please you, you will recognize when we are in the midst of another one of those halcyon ages. And I do believe we're in the midst of one right now. While rock music will never be as dynamic and exciting as it was between 1965-1968 or maybe 1977-1980, the last couple of years have been the best time I've enjoyed as a rabid record collector and compulsive show-goer.

With understanding comes even deeper appreciation of old faves that remain strong. Wire and The Fall are to this day very important to me. They sounded cool to me when I was a kid, but now I really know that they are great.

Too many words there.

I only read soundbites.

To answer the original question: EVERYTHING is better when you're a teenager apart from sex.

Nice writing, Dead-Air.

And to think, I deleted a post somewhat recently because I mentioned my checkered ha breakdancing past as a teen.

But about music and age...
Yeah, young is good. Tabula Rosa ha and all that. So is old. Wizened, quirky, and so on. Everything's relative. Although, sometimes younger means anything, and sometimes older means conditioned. Okay, yeah, I'm keeping it brief here.
I usually like to order my little hierarchies, but this one's too broad to do so in any conclusive way other than write at length as a few have.

Writing when pissed is a bad idea. I'll start with that caveat.

The problem is that the majority of rock/ pop music is dumb, and while the aesthetic sensibility may mature beyond this, the worrying [perhaps in the archaic sense of 'worrying'] majority of people don't sophisticate their tastes to match their time of life. It concerns me that most people here seem stuck in the musical infantilism of rock music. I don't have a problem with that in itself, and some of you may have noticed a certain puerilism to my [projected] tastes, but the fact that four million [pop-cultural] years on a [musically] simple record is still somehow better than a very similar but newer one. For instance - Loveless is simply an ok record. Nothing more, nothing less. It's the gravitas with which an ok record is imbued that concerns me. Obviously, if you're actually capable of appreciating something at the teenage ground-zero of emotional intensity that is teenhood, then more power to you. But I rarely believe that to be the case.

Again - writing hammered = bad idea.

Sightbites.

noo

i was gona just say no, but they said the text was too short

"He said that faith is like a glass of water. When you're young, the glass is small, and it's easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of liquid doesn't fill it anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled." - Dogma.

This applies somehow.

no way, i love music a lot more now.

and by the way, i never got that "outgrowing" thing, i pretty much listen to everything i have been listening since i was like 8 or 9, some stuff more, some stuff less. and not for nostalgia reasons.

ive grown out of stuff, i definitley think thats normal as you get more mature, develop your identity, etc..

Sure, when I was 13 and discovering Melt Banana, Merzbow, Dillinger Escape Plan, Mr. Bungle, the Locust, Atari Teenage Riot, and shit like that, it blew my mind and I never thought I'd find anything better...

But as I've matured in the past 8-9 years, I've been able to appreciate a lot more. Stuff like John Fahey probably would have bored me to tears when I was 13, but now I can't live without it. So, I think as I grow older, I can appreciate more and I definitely love more and even the old stuff I liked when I was younger, I can still appreciate it for what it was. So, no, it's not better when you're a teenager.

that's never really happened to me.

it's sometimes like i hear something and i'm like "i'm so tired of hearing that" and then a few months later, i get to listen to that again or i get an itch to listen to it again and go "yeah, this is pretty awesome, i know why i liked this in the first place".

i'm a weirdo, i know.

Led Zeppelin is better when you're a teenager, but otherwise no.

I've had essentially the same tastes since I discovered Sonic Youth, Sun Ra, and the like when I was 18 some twenty-odd years ago. I definitely listened to a bit more "rock" music back then than I do now, and listen to more experimental, noise, ambient, and electronic stuff now. But those are just the proportions, the overall range is the same. I thankfully don't have the angst I had back then, but I still like to fuck shit up.

I don't grow out of stuff necessarily, but I do look back on things as "well, that interested me more at the time than it does now." The Locust, for example... I was making weird music when I was 13 in this band stagedive suicide, mixing sci fi keyboards and techno bleeps with grindcore screaming and fast drums... and then someone said, "Oh, you might like the Locust" so I checked them out and I really loved it.

But looking back, I don't think their music is that great, I just thought it was cool that they were doing that stuff. In fact, I think most of their songs/records are pretty shit, though Plague Soundscapes and Flight of the Wounded Locust have some good stuff. Really, that band's all about the drummer.

So, yeah, it's not so much "growing out" of stuff.. another thing is when I heard Strikeforce Diablo a while back and thought they were cool and then I listened to Fugazi and Jawbox and a bunch of bands that they sound identical to... I'm not saying Strikeforce is a bad band, just.. you know... I don't have an urge to listen to them because thier sound was bettered by other people.

ohh yeah, there's bands that you go "hmm, not as good as when i first heard them" but i can still say i like a bunch of songs still.

the locust, yeah, totally, but the thing is, i still think plague soundscapes is a masterpiece, as much as i hate new erections, i still think that album is one of the best albums of the decade. and yeah, i know there's better bands than them but i still love plague soundscapes.

same with tons of bands and albums.

I like Plague Soundscapes pretty well, I love Alex Newport's production, he's amazing (he's produced At the Drive-In, Ikara Colt, Polysics, and is in the great Theory of Ruin).

But man............... I hate to beat a dead horse, but jesus.. NEW ERECTIONS was the most worthless piece of shit ever..

One reason I enjoy keeping up with music is that finding a new amazing band is always around the corner, no matter how much you think you know. I wouldn't say that my appreciation of a particular band or album then was any greater than a new appreciation for a new band.

However, I will admit that my excitement with the possibilities of music was greater back when as I did not know as much as I do now as I was naive to the power of music. It then comes to a comparison of naive enthusiasm versus an informed appreciation. Of course it is up to the individual to decide which of these feelings are more gratifying. Do you think it is better to just binge drink beer to get drunk and have fun or to cultivate a taste and appreciate on a more sophisticated, more intellectual level? I say both are equally worthwhile as they are essentially the same energy. Only difference is that one is engaged in the activity while the other one the understanding.

I have a much better relationship with music now that when I was a teen. I listen to anything that I fancy listening to without a care in the world. I've always liked finding out about new bands as a teen and that hasn't gone now, it's just that I have less time than I used to have.

As a teenager myself, music is a damned large part of my life, but too many people my age are concerned with finding their niche or their 'specialism', if you like, in the music world. They see it as important to know every band in said genre, and don't focus enough on buying and enjoy the records. I see my music collection as a lifetime undertaking, and it will be in middle-age or later I may get even close to owning all the music I want to. Musics important to me, and it's as good as it will ever be, but I realise now I'm still scratching & sniffing all the music out there, and in the future I will be alot wiser the musical universe, if not enjoying more or less...

don't count on it the more you learn about music the longer and longer your shopping lists will grow.

This is the 2nd time my writing has been mistaken for his. Does our freeform-radio-nerdness make us so alike, I wonder?

Something else to consider is how the experience of being a curious teenager today is different than curious teenagers of previous generations.

Nowadays, with the media saturation and such a wide variety of music available for free online, it's so easy to take music for a short test-drive, and the tendency is to listen for immediate gratification. Young listeners often do not develop any patience when it comes to music appreciation. Maybe their first taste of a new band has a long plodding intro, and maybe that gets dumped for the next download of a song that starts off right away with the urgency and aggression that might excite a more typical youngster.

Back in the olden days, the best we could do was READ about music or hear it on the radio or see the video of the one single and then buy the album. I know that I trusted my reading and my local freeform community radio station to put the band on my to-buy list, and then I'd buy it, and if I didn't like the album at first, I'd hafta listen to it and listen some more and try like hell to make it worth my money.

I think I've told the story here before.....I was 14 and curious about where this punk rock thing had come from, and I was reading about a band called Television which so many writers had called "great" and "influential," so I bought Marquee Moon. I put it on and listened and was surprised at how unpunk it sounded. Here I was, still dumb enough to think that The Exploited were some kinda rightfully legendary band, and now trying to wrap my head around a much more mature masterpiece. Well, it did eventually dawn on me that it was great, and certainly, that was some kinda watershed moment of developing a more informed sense of taste.


So, certainly the Exploited were better when I was 13-14. The stuff I liked after the Exploited were dead to me....SO MUCH BETTER!

Blank Generation is still boring.

but blank generation the song is still a masterpiece.

yes, in a tepid, leeched-of-it's-vitality-due-to-age kind of way.

nah, it still sounds great.

the rest of the album, i agree.

I was just teasing. the song is great, until the guitar solo. then it is as I describe.

no, as you get older you just apreciate it more and it takes longer to find things that you like more than others. some people never get past the teenage years and seem stuck to like the music they liked then which is a real shame as there is so much other studff out there.

As I get older, it takes less time to find new stuff I like.

im only 18 now, but i have to say, i dont think any record has hit me quite how Nevermind did when i was 13. Such a powerful record, I may have since wandered off into the world of indie snobbery and rarely listen to it now, but i was completely obsessed with it at that time.

there are a handful of bands that i've liked since being a teenager though and those bands will always have a special place in my heart

Quote of the millennium maybe?

Is music better when you're a teenager?

Well, I think music sounds best when you're not constantly exposed to it [i.e. you don't own the album]. Before I started buying CDs, I only heard music on the radio, MTV and BET. Usually, I would be lucky to hear my favorite songs, like, "Fade into You" by Mazzy Star and anything by the Wu-Tang Clan from their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang. Now, though, when I listen to certain songs from the early to mid-90's, I'm not moved by them in the same way because I'm so familiar with them and because I have such easy access to them.

I miss that.

So from now on... the next song that moves me the first time I hear it, I won't listen to it again for 15 days, or maybe a month.

What was the other time? That is an interesting phenomena. Maybe it's just the denseness of the text, since I often launch into the long diatrabs of a guy who's been around the block too many times as well.

That said, while I find your tastes and how they were founded completely interesting, our stories are actually rather different. I got into post-punk in my late teens straight from a pathetic art-rock / AOR prog background when Sonic Youth woke me the fuck up that there was a whole world that the FM radio of the day hadn't been telling me shit about. From there I reverse engineered from their influences that punk rock was cool and proto-punk even cooler, but I was already far too old for the Exploited. I'd probably enjoy them more today than I would have back then.

Yes, and no. What I mean is that at first as a teen one gets into music, but has no direction where to go. As one explore more and more, they enjoy other kinds of music, thus branching out. Leaving bands one heard as a teen behind, and liking newer music. However, I do agree as it have been mentioned, that some do just get stuck in their teenage years and never go past that.

True.

I think I will never be blown away by great music as much as when I was a teenager (I guess I got blasé in time).