Music Preferences Less Flexible with Age?
 

After what age (if any), do you think most people's music preferences don't change much? Age 25, maybe? (That's when the brain is about fully mature, and many people are too busy with life to follow the music scene as much as they used to.)

Probably around the time they settle into a familiar routine, or where other obligations overtake the curiosity and explorative elements of music. I can't imagine it's a lot of fun using your free time taking chances on new bands or styles when you've got a 1 year old child, or a new house to pay for. As for specific age points, I'd say probably anywhere from 28-35 is where you'll see most people settling into this kind of routine.

I'm 41 and my music preferences are more diverse now than they ever have been. There are people that only hold on to the music of their youth, because it makes them nostalgic. I prefer to explore new and different styles and witness how music has evolved over the course of history and how contemporary music reflects the cultural zeitgiest of the day. If had to listen exclusively to the music I was listening to when I was 17, I'd likely have my ears surgically removed.

yeah prob around the time u start a fmaily and settle down whit picket fence thing


but im not married or have any kids so yeah right now my music taste are wider then ever

For a few years, around college age, I mostly stopped listening to new music. Later I returned to music television, etc. - but I rarely like what I hear and mostly still enjoy what I did as a teenager (with the exception of some bland hard rock and soulless pop). I've never gone looking for underground or obscure music, and I am not interested in expanding into jazz, classical, and other genres that maybe some people embrace as they get older.

I'm 45 now, first became a mother at 25 and after that (and after having another child at 37), I didn't have as much time to devote to exploring music, although the yearning was there as strong as ever. My tastes have always been varied and that hasn't really changed -- but what I've had to do over the years is to squeeze in listening to/reading about new music between family responsibilities and other distractions. The result being that I've held fast to what has proved "golden" to me over time and as far as expanding my horizons and deepening exposure to newer music, I'm much more of a dilettante than I would like to be.

I'm far more diverse with my tastes at 31 than I was when I was in my early 20s and under. I don't know if it's a result of exposure, maturing out of a particular mindset, or a combination of the two, but I'm personally very grateful for such a development either way.

While there are still certain styles I don't particularly care for, and many that I have grown out of, I never feel like my horizons have done anything but widened by filling those gaps with things I've given a chance and liked, versus solely eliminating things I've grown apart from.
My only complaint is the rate at which it happens. I'm definitely not as enthusiastic about actively listening to music as I used to be, but when I dedicate the time to such pursuits, I most certainly am active about trying to step outside of my own boundaries in an attempt to find something new [to me] and refreshing.

Well I have definitely opened to other music since I was 17 years old. Before hand, I only liked R&B, Hip Hop and African music. I have opened myself to like some rock music and great Latin music. I have opened up a bit. I am still learning to have a bigger tolerance towards genres I think is very annoying.

I think there is the risk of growing rigid towards different kinds of music as you grow older (what LoathsomePete said), but that doesn't mean it happens to everybody. I'm too young to speak from personal experience, though.

Studies have said that as you get older you can't stand new music but I find new music a different take on past music that I have enjoyed.

Not sure, I'm 22 and I'm pretty set in my ways with music. However I'm not totally close-minded to fresh ideas. Wandering around Glastonbury listening to weird and wonderful things changes you!

It's completely subjective, and I think it depends on whether you're talking about someone who is a music enthusiast, like most/all of us, or someone who just listens to "what's on the radio", or what they may have collected in terms of music over the years, and doesn't really get too involved in what's new or different, as they aren't really interested in that.

If you're in the former category, chances are you'll continue to enjoy, explore and discover music up to any age really: I plan to be seventy and still be very interested in music (though I WILL shake my stick at kids as they hover-skate by and make a virtual fist at them, shouting "Get off my damn hyper-lawn, you damn kids!") and still open to new experiences. Hell, I've only twenty years to go, and I don't feel in any way bored or locked-in to the music I've listened to over my life.

Ultimately, there's no one study that can say definitively what age, if any, people will lose their interest in exploring music. Everyone's different (I'm not) and everyone will have their own idea as to how they want to approach music. Some will think it's nothing more than a diversion occasionally, some will be happy to listen to whatever happens to be on, some will obsess over it and want to keep developing it. Some will just enjoy it.

What the heck would a 22 year-old know about music tastes changing with age?

Well I do apologise, are only the older generation allowed an opinion? My music taste has changed drastically around 3 times since I started listening to music properly about 8 years ago..

This is a good thread topic. I'm 23 and already find myself not having to time to listen to new music, and when I do I'm never impressed by what I find. I think LoathsomePete's point about routine is probably fairly accurate, although I am one for breaking routine, so you never know in a couple of years I might be jumping up and down like a twat to dance muisc :laughing: not likely

I'm 23, and I can say that my interests have progressively broadened since my youth. I won't say I know where they're going, but the point is that my tastes were less pliable as a teenager than they are now.

You've got two years up on me, if I remember correctly. Would you say you're more, or less flexible than you were at 23?

I feel the exactly the same and at 40 I am more open minded than ever. Of course I am nostalgic and a lot of what I listened to as a kid still holds up really well and some doesn't but paradoxically this makes me very very selective regarding what I like because I have been listening to music intensively since the age of 14 and some music that may be viewed as original or genre bending by new listeners may not be to me as I have that much more listening experience. It's not elitism or arrogance at all, it's just my own musical evolution and when some of you reach the age of us oldies on here and are still listening and exploring music you will probably be posting the same sort of reply. I am really proud of the fact that I am open minded and finding music that still excites me and that will never change.

My tastes don't get less flexible with age, if anything it's the opposite.

These days I care more about the music that's come out over the past 60 odd years rather than what's coming out this month.

If it's any good it'll still be around in a few years.

My taste was pretty much fixed in place during High School. Not that there's no flexibility, but in general, I like a certain style of music that I established pretty early on. At this juncture though, I'm still pretty young, so who knows? Maybe in 10 years, my taste will be completely different.

I am far more flexible. The reason I don't think a person our age would know is because maturity and life experience is way different from 30 years plus.

For the record, I'm not any less flexible than I was when I first started deliberately listening to music. I've always been somewhat self-restricted.

I wouldn't say less flexible as much as building upon ones personal tastes that have grown over the years. At 46, I'm no less flexible than when I was 15. I'm positive that the music I don't care for now, which didn't exist when I was 15, I wouldn't have cared for then.

31 years ago I was into Rush, Yes, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, AC/DC, Nugent, Metallica, Slayer, Merciful Fate, etc. Nowdays, I still gravitate towards bands that are similar... Coheed, Devon Townsend, Death, SOAD, Godsmack, Buckethead, Cavalera Conspiracy, Soulfly, etc. and I guess over the years tastes kind of mature a little bit, as in I don't have all that aggression and angst, so I don't feel the need to listen to that sort of music all the time. I'll tell ya this, I'd rather spend an evening listening to Jeff Becks new one rather than any Blink 182. And thats the same choice I'd have made when I was 15.

I'm in my early 30s and right now I am more open to new music styles than ever before. I have the mortgage, the kids, life, etc. I may not devote as much time to music as I did before but I still actively try to expand my musical horizons.

There are certain genres I know I will never get, i.e. modern country, hair metal(i'm not 100% sure what it even is). And that's totally okay.

I have become more open to music with age, no doubt. For example, I never even gave The Misfits a second glance because of their graphics-- now, I love them. Same for Alice Cooper, whom I love even more.

However, I will say that with age I have become more settled with my mainstay of laid-back indie/folk/pop bands, and lax in my narrow-minded views.