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Recently there's been some discussion about how one's music tastes change over time, which seems to have been kicked off by a post on Senders' Gemlog (which itself is a response to a video by Rick Beato on Youtube).

It's a fun read that's gotten me and a few others thinking about how our music tastes have changed with time already and wondering what they'll be like years from now.

Initially I wanted to say that of course my taste in music has changed over the years. But the more I think and write about it, I don't think that's entirely true.

I grew up listening to really just whatever my parents were listening to at the time. The Cure, U2, Coldplay, The Church, and Cake are just a few bands that I remember pretty well. At some point I was given my own mp3 player as a gift so of course I also needed my own music. My dad set me up with this program that I think either he or someone he knew wrote. Or maybe he just found it online somewhere? Anyway, it was basically a wrapper for Slacker internet radio that would save each track that played, tag it, and organize it by artist and album in your music folder. It wasn't like Spotify where you could just browse and listen to whatever you like, but my dad also made a radio station for me that had some artists he thought I'd like.

It was the beginning of an era of music discovery for me and I'm sure it's part of the reason I'm as into music as I am today. I'd start up my radio station any time I was at the computer or playing a game (which at the time was usually Starsiege Tribes) and hope that new songs would come up. Then about once a week I'd go through my music folder and copy any new songs that had downloaded to my mp3 player. A few bands I remember going through at this time were Muse, Coldplay, U2, The Kooks, and Linkin Park -- but I'm sure there's a few more I'm forgetting.

Before too long I started wanting to make my music collection more complete. I only had random songs here and there, no more than a few songs per album. Because I was still just a teenager at this point with basically no income this usually meant tracking down uploads of complete albums online, but there were also plenty of times I'd go to CD stores with friends to find new CDs to buy and rip. I was also starting to branch out to some completely new bands. I started joining online communities for Radiohead, who I got really into, and was introduced to a lot of bands through word of mouth. Stuff like Sigur Ros, The Flaming Lips, Portishead, Weezer, Deadmau5, Madeon, Low, and The National.

These days most of my listening is through Spotify. Their recommendations are just spot on for me and it's convenient to have everything in one place. I'm finding new bands I like sometimes on a weekly basis. That might make it sound like my music taste is quickly changing, but I actually feel like it's the same as ever. Maybe just more refined. I've got playlists full of the old stuff that my parents used to listen to for example and honestly I like most of it more now than I did back then. One genre that I've been getting more into the past year is shoegaze. Part of that is that I just really like its sound, but part is also that it makes me a bit nostalgic for some of the songs my dad listened to and played on his guitar when I was young.

So I don't have any reason to believe that 10, 20, or even 40 years from now things will be any different. Sure there's plenty of bands I've stopped listening to as much or altogether for various reasons. I expect to keep branching out and expanding my taste in music, keeping up with new stuff. But will I always keep coming back to the same old classics? I'm betting on it -- especially when you take nostalgia into account.

Re: Am I Going to Listen to Metal When I'm 80?

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