Does your music taste change with time?

For the 3rd time in my life I am evaluating all of my music. And it is somewhat peculiar to me why something that I know for 20-30 years still holds up, while some after 2-3 years bores me to death. Or the other way around, why some recently created music I find more to my likening than something that I was listening for 10 years but finally got rid of it

On top of that, with aging of my body I was supposed to hear less. But for me it is the other way around: sometimes I can now hear compression, which is obvious in many of my older files [created with some obsolete codecs]. And the last time I played a vinyl record was probably 25 years ago and I did not upgrade my hardware so uber-super hi-fi stereo set

And my second issue is with vocalists: Bono cannot sing, Axl Rose has awful voice, Dido during live performances has problems. How did I not hear that before?

The third would be of mediocrity within scores: if I cannot recognize the composer of a film / series music because that person failed to mark it with his / hers unique style, or if a track is unrecognizable from the available ocean of music, then what value does it have other than being some kind of filling / fertilizer?

The second time I was evaluating I got rid 1/3 of my artists [which mostly were represented by 1 or 2 songs]. But now I'm mostly getting rid of [sometimes surprisingly large] portions of music from artists that I supposedly like; both songs and instrumental compositions. Sometimes I have to stop and play something extra "good" that I have already evaluated [during that third run] just to remind myself what the supposed "good" music sounds like and that I am not throwing the baby out with the bathwater

Have you experienced maybe not shifts from one genre to another, because that is not nor never was my case, but some kind of self-realization about music, about its inner workings? About how much of your music really sucks big time? With time I have opened to other genres but with even more time I have narrowed the music itself within them

Nice observation and description.
I would like to add that keeping a collection of audio files and listening to particular tracks is something completely different.
I would never delete a track that has found its way into my collection.
Still, there is the first selection process that chucks out the files that do not live up to a quality that is worth saving like a too low bitrate, bad file composition with stream errors and so on and last but not the least: the umpteenth variation of the same file that I have already got.
But once it is in the collection, it stays there.

Listening to certain tracks is very much down to mood, circumstances and other non-rational conditions and I cannot see that these have triggered me to delete files from my collection..

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I too would never delete a file once it became part of my permanent collection. Storage space is cheap, and my programs allow me to quickly find any file and can easily maintain a library of many hundreds of thousands of files (more than I have!).

I agree that my taste changes over time. But it goes back and forth. There are artists and albums that I got tired of (or tired of that era/genre of music) and didn't listen for 20 years. But then something brings me back to that music, and I get on a "kick" of listening to much of of it again.

Life (and tastes) are not linear.

I suspect that probably most people here and probably everyone at for example http://forums.ffshrine.org keep whole albums. I also did that with my favorite artists for some time. And most of the time I would just skip the tracks that I didn't like when they showed up on the random generated playlist. And so I stopped pretending that in time I will start to like what I do no like

And very rarely but I do in one way or another come back to negatively grated tracks. I it isn't even a case of a tenth of a percent that I change may mind I put them in my collection. So between having thousands of what I do not like or missing few possible dozens of what with time I can start to like, I choose the second option

Me to. Every time for the last 15 years. I never add something that I do not like / value; I never add with intention to get rid of it later on [except for those 2-3 years when I added whole albums of favorite artists as I aforementioned]

And yet it is the third time that I thoroughly sweep my music; hopefully for the last time

There is umpteenth variation of a the same file and umpteenth mix of a the same song and umpteenth version of a song

If someone keeps whole albums then "has to" keep the same song in the same mix

But recently I started to get rid off some badly recorded life performances, both official and bootleg. And even studio recordings and masterings. Because I just can't stand a massacred work that I have presented [recorded / performed] in a better way

I use the word collection with also exist in my native laungaue it has some connotations that I think that also english word has. Based on http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/collection I would say I view my music rather as a set / accumulation / stockpile. But that is pure semantics

I never delete hastily. In extreme cases it takes me 10-20 listening stretched over a period of weeks to be sure that it sucks. And rarely a track is saved from being deleted; but at the same time I can bring up a song from a memory and have a realization than it will not suit my renewed musical taste, before even re-listening to it

I get tired of, but not un-tired

Of course I am not able to recall something like a 89th simple piano & strings composition from some movie that I got rid of five years ago. But I can recall the so called hit songs or classics [or can be exposed to them in a taxi, on the street or when watching movies]. And so I am still waiting for a single case of going to re-liking of anything. Once I label a song as bad or kitschy, it just stays that way; or is viewed in an even worst way

That is what my friend says; who his a decade older, has a lot of musical knowledge, has an eclectic broad taste and [what is most important] has a doctorate in cognitive science

And so I have made I bet with him about my taste. I stipulated that in 10 or 20 years I will not become a fan of the opera, country, yodeling, dub step etc. nor will I completely despise artists / genres that I have enjoyed up to now. Single tracks- yes, it was happening and is happening right now. But whole albums / works- I just cannot see that happening. My empirical experiences tell me different

But that is just me. I'd like to hear other people

Hmmm... [this will be largely off-topic]

I used to think that all my music was at least good. Especially since I do not store whole albums or even can cut a track to pieces, leaving out what I did not like

But for months [years...] now I have been evaluating and re-evaluating my music. Or should I say: taking a note of change of my taste

And still [with that new taste of mine] there are those rare tracks that I just love to hear to and that supposedly good rest [that I just know I will get rid off at some point] and that new-at-least-good rest [that I just evaluated]. So I should write now: only time will tell, if I should start using that stars and some percentage based play system like yours [as I use Winamp] or continue with the purge

But as my knowledge and experience increases, I bet it will be the later one of those two options. And that is because also of this simple question: how much music one person needs [at least for personal use / leisure time related activities]? If running simple math tells me, I will be able to hear any file [by average] only once a year, then pulling it back by tempering with the chance of it being played [based on the star system] would mean one playback per 2 or 3 years for those not-so-super-extra ones? And so I have too much of it- thus need to continue the purge [of those not-so-super-extra ones]

I rip CDs, typically whole albums. I am not going to just delete a song off it bc I don't like it, for any number of reasons, but 2 of which are my tastes change as well, and other people use my music.

I use genres, and then I can pick the genres I want in a playlist, and then sort by rating and play just the rated ones i want.

According to music psychological writings, it is inevitable to change with age.
In the last about 5 years my earlier taste of romantics/viennese-classics 50-50% changed to 75-25%. In easy music now i love earlier unknown for me covers (of mostly pop songs) by german (and partially other) big bands of 1960's-1980's years (preferring trumpets -- Frank Valdor is an example); and now i much more like swing (and neoswing) and boogie-woogie.

Are you by any chance a person who listens to radio stations for music?

If you can refer me to some valuable readings on the Internet, I will gladly explore them

I myself over the last 5 years have dismissed a whole lot of music on two separate accounts:

A] some sounds / instruments for me now are now simply unpleasant, irritating even [but the compositions themselves on a stand alone basis I still liked and like]

B] some compositions themselves are now like boring, instruments sound too weak to what they can sound like, special effects used are too primitive to me [albeit being free of just unpleasant sounds]

But I still have songs and instrumental music from when I was a teenager. And that music I value the most, because it shows to me that I got rid of the weak ones [B]. But the other removals from my collection [A] are sometimes done with a thought in mind like "it is a pity that I am not able to enjoy this anymore"


So

and 2 years later it still holds up [to be precise, way more than 2 years, because at the time of posting that I was referring to a conversation with a friend from a past]

But it is not like "I will not listen to Frank Valdor just because I think my taste is set up for life". It is more like "I do not know Frank Valdor but I also do not want to know him because I simply already have too much music for my one life that I have to spent" [How much music do you have?]. But I do think that in overall my taste was closed a long time ago, polished for the last 5 years and now I am just removing that which does not fit into it and that what still fits but is just too weak. And that last one is because: if some pieces of instrumental music gives me ASMR and some song make we want to drop down and as many pushups as I can, then why not listen only to such music, getting rid of all the mediocrity? Some pieces of music get to the inside of with 2-3 second and I can repeat them 5 times in a row - while others will not get any other response from me other than "that is boring" or "how weak that is"

Because it also like this: I used to think that Mark Snow was the s**t. That was when "The X-Files" were the TV series that ruled the world of entertainment around the globe [1990s]. But then I listened to so many other film scores and in few years saw what Mark Snow really was about- just one of many mediocre composers, who accidentally made a great theme [that is a true story: he came up with the characteristic sound of is signature theme by accident when playing with his keyboard]. Do not get me wrong: I still listen to some of his tracks, but so much more got demised without a second thought - and there is now way I will be getting back to them


Although I noticed a slight change in my approach to what I do not like. After something like watching a new popular music video on YouTube I am able to say "I do not like it but I can see why someone would enjoy this, because it objectively has good elements A, B, C and D". But at the same time, after watching something else, I can also think "this is plain awful on the account C, D and E"


I still would like to hear insights and recollections from other users of this forum

Sorry, i do not remember, i found some sources about 10 years ago.

I am just the opposite: there is too little good compositions and/or performances, for my taste. I listen to music for an average of 4 hours a day (relaxing, walking...).

Other: did you consider the factor of getting bored of often listened music?

My father liked classical music and opera (mostly Wagner) and a little jazz. As a teenager I favored pop and rock (1960s) along with Bach and Vivaldi and some early jazz. Since then, I focus mostly on jazz and dance bands from the 1920s and 1930s. I also collect 78 rpm disks from that era. Perhaps it's my age, but there are no current pop music styles that interest me.

My classical tastes have moved forward to the 1st half of the 20th century (Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, et al) although early jazz and dance bands dominate my listening time. But I still discover new areas of interest. For example, about ten years ago I attended a theater organ concert in a restored 1929 movie palace. The sound and the environment was so thrilling and enveloping that I was stunned. Ever since then I frequently listen to theater organ CDs. If you ever have a chance to hear a big theater organ in old movie palace, I highly recommend it. There is also an Internet radio station run by the American Theater Organ Society (ATOS) at ATOS Radio AAC JPlayer] However, live organ performances are so much better....

Me too, very much so.

Of course! I try to ration my listening time for my favorites to avoid this. When I was growing up in the 1950s there were pop songs that I heard so many times on the radio that I can't stand to listen to them now.

I stopped gradually listening to radio stations because of those playlists, all of those hits being repeated 3 times a day every single day, around the year 2000 - which coincidentally was the time that my taste started to shape up and Internet made music more available than ever before

And yet every now and then I hear some radio playing one of those hits- which makes me even more sick with them, as there were either never my hits or they were but with years I removed them from my library


And to answer the question: I do not get bored of often listened music; or of music in general. I might get tired of listening to something heavy, like for example I am not able to listen to Metallica or Rammstein for few hours in a row, despite being a fan that had a chance of attending their live shows. I might get very rarely tired of music at large - i.e. of noise in my head and just press STOP to achieve super focus on what I am doing in a given moment

But mostly I listen to music all day long as I work in home, which ability I value. And what's more: if I have to work all night long, which is then a kind of light physical work which makes my mind free of thinking, I believe than I am able to go without sleep because I get to listen to my music with elevated focus on music

Although me deciding now that a certain piece of music is from now to me being boring / mediocre / weak might be viewed as me myself being bored of that music. But then again- I dismissed so of my much music acquired 3 or 6 or 13 years ago while I still listen to things known to me for as much 25 years. And there are songs and instrumental tracks which playback I repeat and / or follow them with a cover or a remix or another live rendition