It was ALL new to me. It was the early 90s at the time so that was all new to me, and all of the 80s music was relatively new to me. Everything before that was new to me. I had entire days to listen to all of it all the time: While I was on the train to / from school, while I was on lunch break at school, while I was on my paper route or eventually whatever other mindless teenage job I was doing, while I was failing miserably at understanding BASIC, while I was in my room drawing, writing, doing home work, or literally just sitting and listening to music - as a full-on activity.

And then the internet was just starting to get popular. Sure, it took an hour to download a wav file via modem, but it wasn't unheard of to download a few songs overnight (pre-mp3) from various sources. And then the next day we would talk about the new music, and I'd play it for my friends and they'd play what they found recently, and we'd talk some more, and then we'd head to the record store to find the best of it and more, and talk to people at the record store about it, and then pass it on to others and play the music at parties and so on.

I don't have anywhere near that much time on my hands now. I don't have that many people to talk about music with, nor do I have the time or inclination to talk about it with them.

I'm very fortunate to be working full-time right now, but I sure would love to take a couple months off to catch up on the last 10 years worth of music. It's pretty damn easy to be open to new music when you have the time to listen to everything and build a nuanced opinion.

On a completely related note, if I were a musician, I would do everything I can to release music far and wide right now. A lot of the world suddenly has nothing but time to consume music.

Gnoosic is a band recommender - a quick & dirty way to get a few new bands to check out (Google & DDG point right to it).

And he was right (although I’m not totally over with that journey as I like listening to classic music, but I’m not completely into it)

Music is technical and cultural. You can always be true to your roots and stick with the heavy metal.

My favorite piano trio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e52IMaE-3As

As a fan of dissonance, I’m more listening to Stravinsky, but I also like some Dvorak (not sure to spell the name right). But I still think I’m not ready yet (despite being nearly 50)

Thanks for the link anyway !

Dvorak is a favorite of mine as well. I'm a fan of Dumky. I haven't listened to Stravinsky while knowing it was him, so I'll have a look!

Edit: listening to the soldiers tale of Stravinsky. It sounds like video game music that could almost be in a Zelda game.

For me it has been the exact opposite, at least so far. When I was in my teens, electronic music was all I cared about, and stuff like Guns N' Roses, Nirvana and whatnot that the other kids were listening to was just crap.

As time went on I discovered I've shed my prejudice, and will listen to most things with an open mind. As such my collection now spans a lot of genres.

To get an idea, here are my most recent purchases off Bandcamp:

http://xirecords.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-fires

http://dakhabrakha.bandcamp.com/album/the-road

http://delvonlamarrorgantrio.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-kexp

http://okkotomusic.bandcamp.com/album/fear-the-veil-not-the-...

http://monolord.bandcamp.com/album/no-comfort

http://thesoftmoon.bandcamp.com/album/deeper-2

https://secondstill.bandcamp.com/album/equals-ep

James Taylor Quarter just dropped a new album which is getting a lot of repeat plays here. Also the most recent (2019) album by Incognito is great too.

The Raven That Refused To Sing by Steven Wilson somehow merges jazz with prog rock quite effectively. An unusual pairing and not to everyone’s taste though.

As for vocal jazz, I’m a big fan of the relatively obscure Beady Belle. Latest album is good, personal favourites are Belvedere and debut album Home.

New music - as I age, most of the "new" music falls into a handful of categories: 1) Sounds like band/song from the past - in fact I get driven crazy by my brain's pattern recognition trying to remember where that melody is originally from. Or older favorite band/musician singing the same old thing. 2) Just another male emo voice. 3) Autotuned. It's like unrealistic movies with too much CGI. Nothing there once you take it away. 4) Instrumental/jazz/weird, will let it play through but very rare to add it to a playlist

But ultimately, it's 98% boring out there. I want to be wrong, but I don't think there is ever going to be another year like 1969 or 1991 where any one of 10 albums would have been album of the year any other year.

It was really refreshing when Guitar Hero came out and that generation fell in love with older music. I didn't have to yell get-off-my-lawn for a few of years.

Well, as we age there tends to be an accumulation of experience, so it's also to be expected that it becomes more rare to come across a genuinely new experience in everyday life.