Entertainment For Lively Minds
Music Loving 40 something
I turned 40 this year. As a music fan I expected my tastes to be preserved in amber at a particular point in time, with only the odd middle of the road hit coming onto my radar occasionally. Just like my parents.
I didn't expect to still be getting excited by a record, like I have been lately with the Jamie T album, or to have bands I count as favourites being things I got into later than my teens!
I became a teenager in the early 80s so bands from those times are the ones that mattered and still mattered as I got older. Like Paul Weller for instance, I grew up with him and still like (some of)his music now. But one of my favourite bands of all time has turned out to be Super Furry Animals who I didn't really get into until their third album which came out when I was 30. I love Doves - although they're pretty much my peers as far as age is concerned - and it was their second album that got me, and that was within the last five years. And Goldfrapp (again peers in terms of age)continue to thrill. I absolutely adore Boards Of Canada and they, after years of listening to the Warp label, didn't loom into view for me until the past couple of years.
I don't catch things before they're even born these days, not like I used to, but being first to get into something no longer matters to me. But I am still surprised by how much I still love music.
Although the run up to 40 saw me burying myself in old music, perhaps out of protest that I was becoming 'middle aged'!
What bands and albums do you count in that list that most of us have, that you got into as an 'older'?
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I'm 39 now....
But would have been in the same year at school!
Didn't "get" Dylan until I was 32 but now greedily hoover up anything by the Zim. Like yourself, Weller has been a constant throughout growing up for me and still love most of his output. Same with Morrissey. Since hitting 30, explored a bit of bluegrass via the O Brother Soundtrack and all the splinter bands from the British Blues Boom but got stuck and wowed on listening to Alexis Korner and Peter Green.
I think much of my musical taste was preserved in aspic in around 1997 and went backwards from there. Never a massive Britpop fan but loved OCS, Suede and most of all the wonderous Manic Street Preachers (yes, even Lifeblood!). Only Kasabian from today's "new" bands flick any sort of switch for me...
My 8 year old inherited an old iPod shuffle of mine and is now listening to AC/DC, alongside Springsteen, The Searchers and Dizzee Rascal. A New Hope!
I was in my mid thirties
before I discovered the bliss that is Pentangle, Fairports, ISB etc.
I seem to be going backwards these days and I have developed a passion for collecting more and more relatively obscure blues, jazz, folk, prog and miscellanious wonders from the past. My most recent acquisitions have been all the Beatles catalogue bar Yellow Submarine ( you only need Songtrack ), Prefab Sprout, newish Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers. Apart from the folky Goldfrapp one and ongoing live Dead research., that's about it.
I'm an aspic preseved misanthrope when it comes to most modern music.
Hey Bulldog is still as funky as a mosquito's tweeter.
I'm a similar age
and also have grown to adore Goldfrapp. First album was ok, second and third excellent, but the last one completely blew me away. Other recent stuff from the last half six years or so would be Feist, The Fleet Foxes, The Cardigans, Ladyhawke, Nick Cave and
As for old-stuff-recently-got-into: RT has been a big thing for me the last few years, someone I would have disliked when I was younger, now wish I'd heard him earlier .I adore Tommy James & The Shondells and have a growing Steely Dan fetish. I've recently rediscovered Soft Cell strangely enough.
But to be totally honest I spend most listening hours with Fleetwood Mac, The Zim and the HJHs embarrassingly enough.
trust me
that fetish will grow into full blown fixation
I've gone big on largely instrumental
stuff in recent times - aged 45. I think it's partly because everybody "new" sings through their nose. Or maybe it's that autotuning business thats put me off.
Anyway, I'm a fan of Boards of Canada too, so of that ilk, I'd recommend the Constellation label stuff - Godspeed You Black Emperor, A Silver Mt Zion, Fly Pan Am. I like Mogwai - the Zidane soundtrack is sublime - and I've just remembered Robin Guthrie thanks to the nudge from this month's Word cd.
Elbow always hit the spot I find, while of older acts, I find Dylan makes moresense to me now than 25 years ago. And then there's Jazz Odyssey, not the Tap's new direction, but delving further into all those Monk, Coltrane, Davis things that I've collected but only tinkered with in the past. They alone should keep me going until the 6 walled box comes calling.
EDIT:
That and the Genesis Live Box set that's in the offing - clearly not as well constructed as the three studio boxes, but enough little extra bits and pieces to keep a sad completist happy more than 30 years after they became my favourite band.
New pleasures
I made a sneering reference on here a while back relating to the award that MOJO bestowed upon Yoko Ono for her 'lifetime achievement'. One of our Word Friends (I think StevenC) told me that I was talking rubbish. Keen to be seen as open minded I checked out her Open the Box Remix cd on Spotify and liked it so much I bought it.I am therefore a late convert to the music of Yoko Ono and after reading the reviews on her latest album will be buying that too. I was also converted to Elbow only after hearing Seldom seen Kid but doubt that I am alone there. Also, Drive by Truckers were first heard about 6 albums in.
While I Continue to Discover
new and wonderful albums and performers, my all time favourites are albums I came across in my teens and twenties: Joni Mitchell, especially Blue to Hejira. I never tire of any of those albums. Steely Dan, Can't Buy A Thrill & Aja, Albums by Maria Muldaur, Emmylou Harris, The McGarrigles; the list could go on forever. I still get albums by my long term favourites but they don't mean as much as those first buys. Maybe it's nostalgia or maybe they never equaled the quality of those early recordings. It's probably a bit of both, in most cases.
Of course, I have many more albums form those far off days that I like, but don't love, which are no better or worse than most of the albums I've been buying ever since.
Damn!
I forgot to include Surf's Up & Holland - the best Beach Boys albums ever - bar none!
correct
And another thing
I find Cowboy Junkies get better and better as we both age, not least because songwriter Mike Timmins isn't afraid to write about what it's like to be 40something, raising kids, worying about the future, your parents etc rather than pretending to still be 20. Yes, you, Mick...
warp
the warp label is great and their film company is interesting
doves first two albums especially lost souls are wonderful but they seem to be repeating themselves now
Guided By Voices
were a band that I discovered very late, in fact the very week they announced they were splitting up!
It's so exciting when you found out about a band and can go and discover their back catalogue - problem is with GBV their back catalogue consists of about 20 official albums and about the same again in solo and side-projects. I'm still tracking!
Iron and Wine
Overheard a conversation at a gig about how good Iron and Wine's Shepherd's Dog album was. Bought it in on the off chance and bought the back catalogue a week later.
North Mississppi All Stars I came to late as well. It's good old Southern boogie and blues rock.
My abiding love has always been Del Amitri. Great, literate lyrics with stirring melodies that only the Scots (Camera Obscura, The Pearlfishers, Belle and Sebastian) seem to do well these days.
I generally don't get the "new" bands/artists stuffed down our throats by the media in general. I couldn't tell a Pixie Lott from a parking lot.
Music sounds better when it's a discovery - like Iron and Wine.