I have some friends my age still listening to the same bands they used to 20 years ago, complaining about how music today sounds all the same. However I discover something new almost every day and I’m not kidding.
It’s true that some of my discoveries are bands from decades before I was born, so they can’t be considered new, although they are new to me if that makes sense.
What about you? Still listening to the same tunes you used to listen to when you were a teenager?
For me it’s both, and it depends on what I’m doing. I have a lot of tolerance for returning to the bands and songs I love and relistening to the same albums over and over again. I’m the type of person that will listen to a song 10x on repeat if I love it. But in those situations, the music is the primary activity. I might be driving or something but most of my mental processes are focused on the music.
I love discovering new music, though, and I find that it’s better for me to listen to new music while I’m focused on something else, the opposite of my “old” favorites.
It seems counterintuitive, but every night I play video games for a couple of hours before bed and that’s when I put an album I’ve never listened to on. Maybe I’ll hear something that will pull my attention away form the game and I will repeat that song a few times (this happened recently with ‘That’s all for everyone’ from Tusk), or I will be humming it the next day, and that will kind of form the neural pathway in my brain to cause me to seek that album/song out for more active listening.
It’s been a great way for me to discover new (to me) music.
But there is nothing like the comfort of a well-known and well-loved song at the right moment.