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People who don’t like music

Started by Ferris, August 11, 2019, 11:17:35 PM

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pigamus

On the music and words thing - I don't think I could ever be that interested in music without words. Polite interest, maybe, but I don't think it could move me as much.

nugget

I've loved music since I was a little kid but in recent years have been listening to less and less, with music being replaced mostly by podcasts. I can see that changing though as I'm starting to get podcast fatigue, and since hearing the awful news about David Berman I've been listening to all my Silver Jews albums for the first time in years, and this has reminded me again of how fucking important music is.

It's ok for people not to have an interest in music, it makes no difference to my life, but I think they're missing out on something fundamental that people have been enjoying for millennia.

Ferris

I'm shit at paying attention to lyrics as well. I have to concentrate to take them in unless they are very prominent.

bgmnts

The thing is though are we all actively into listening to and appreciating the music, like mindfully listening to it? Or do we just always have it on because we have reached a point where we can have almost any music we want pumped directly into our ear canals, literally blocking out every other sound in life?

I am unsure.

easytarget

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on August 12, 2019, 05:49:29 PM
I find this sort of thing very odd, almost as odd as a music fan genuinely liking the Longpigs.
That's what she saaaaaaid

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: idunnosomename on August 12, 2019, 11:54:25 AM
Some people can't really distinguish between semi-tones, so music, while not unpleasant, is not interesting to them. All they can hear to distinguish is rhythm, timbre and lyrics.

I reckon.

Nah. Someone like that would struggle to understand the expression in another person's voice during a conversation.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: NoSleep on August 12, 2019, 02:52:10 PM
Words aren't music, though, so I understand it completely. I never engage with lyrics at first and just let the music do its thing.

Same. I listen to a lot of instrumental music and there are very few vocalists I'm really bothered about.

pancreas

Quote from: some cuntBut music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
85And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

The Culture Bunker

Growing up, my parents barely listened to any music of their own choosing at home - the radio might be on sometime, but that was it. In the car, dad had a selection of the usual suspect compilation tapes (Queen, Eagles, Beach Boys, Kinks) plus the second Fine Young Cannibals album, for some reason. There were a few vinyl albums around too, but just 70s pop that I hated with a passion, like Abba and Leo Sayer. This may explain in part why I never owned any albums of my own till I was 14.

I'd just assumed neither of them was really into music, but I found out in his youth, the old man was very keen on Taste (the Rory Gallagher-led blues rock trio) and Leonard Cohen, and spoke very warmly of a night in the mid 70s when he drunkingly wandered into a Watford club to see Desmond Dekker do a brilliant set - just turns out that when he got married and had kids, music as part of his life sort of drifted away.

Sebastian Cobb

If some people are only interested in lyrics, does that mean to them things as groovy as Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters just sounds as unengaging as muzak?

Cuellar


the

I used to find the thought of the non-music head bizarre, but nowadays I think I could understand if rhythm, melody and texture etc. doesn't tickle some people's brains. I doubt it indicates a soul failure or a droidening, and I'm sure most of them aren't bothered by it.

They certainly don't require pity, suspicion or condescension. (I have a particular dislike for the way people tend to act when they find out you're not into the same types of mass entertainment as them.)

It just seems perverse because music is such a pervasive thing (as well as a way to have a chat with your jostling emotions and bits of your identity).

Jockice

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on August 13, 2019, 08:19:51 AM
It just turns out that when he got married and had kids, music as part of his life sort of drifted away.

That has happened to friends and family members of mine. Rather strangely they all seem to have loads of Hue And Cry albums.

popcorn

I heard a song once and it was bollocks. Haven't bothered since.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Jockice on August 13, 2019, 11:05:13 AM
That has happened to friends and family members of mine. Rather strangely they all seem to have loads of Hue And Cry albums.
I should have added that since my brother and I both buggered off to uni, 18 years ago, my Dad has occasionally bought CDs, but usually various Roy Orbison or Elvis Presley compilations than anything you wouldn't expect from a man of his age (66). He probably listens to classical music more than anything these days.

object-lesson

Quote from: bgmnts on August 13, 2019, 01:34:05 AM
The thing is though are we all actively into listening to and appreciating the music, like mindfully listening to it? Or do we just always have it on because we have reached a point where we can have almost any music we want pumped directly into our ear canals, literally blocking out every other sound in life?

I am unsure.

These are relevant questions.

The omnipresence of music as a feature of the totalitarian society was a minor theme of Brave New World IIRC.

In the 60s and 70s part of what made kids feel different or rebellious was listening to popular music in households where there were a handful of LPs of music by Mantovani or the soundtrack to South Pacific. They used to sit next to the record player with a single or bunch of singles and put them on and listen to them repeatedly, wonder what the lyrics were about etc.

OTOH the transistor radio was on all the time to help you get through the day, apart maybe from the odd song that jumped out and caught your attention. 'Discos' were a common place to congregate, or if you wanted to feel grown up you'd sit in a dope smoke filled room and listen to the latest LP by Kevin Coyne or whoever it happened to be. You might converse all the way through though and the music was more like wallpaper, as Tony Benn once put it before he got more hip.

Do people sit with Spotify, youtube or whatever and just listen, or are they usually doing something else too? 

Pauline Walnuts

They're all right. It's ones with a Pavement album, and a couple of back issues of Mojo magazine (?) who think they know everything that get my back up.

poodlefaker

Always fun when they crop up on Desert Island Discs.  You can always spot 'em: either they pick absolute shite (Gordon Ramsey), or they pick stuff because it reminds  them off something nice. ("This was always on the radio when my kids were babies...") rather than for any love of the music itself.

jimboslice

Quote from: Jockice on August 12, 2019, 07:19:14 PM
What about people who have no interest whatsoever in contemporary music. Like me. I really didn't think I'd ever end up like this but I only very occasionally hear new stuff and what I do hear doesn't do much for me, I rarely go to gigs (I think I've only been to three in the last two years. I used to regularly beat that in a single week) and most of the stuff I do listen to is that from my teens and 20s. Maybe I overloaded on it when I was younger, but I'm certainly no John Peel, that's for sure.

Isn't this most people? People who go to gigs and listen to newer music are a definite minority when you're 30+.

Most people are happy to just stick Heart or Magic on and listen to Craig David do his thing.

The Culture Bunker

Re contemporary music: when I first got really into music, 1995/96 or so, the then modern stuff (Oasis, Blur, Suede) bored me rigid and I wound up digging back in the past through recommendations from older people I knew. I think amongst the first 20 CDs I owned were compilations by the Clash, the Jam, Smiths and Madness, as well as proper albums like 'The Lexicon of Love' and 'Pelican West'. It all seemed far more interesting and colourful than whatever Noel Gallagher had spewed up that week.

My student years saw bands like the Strokes, Libertines and White Stripes break big, but again, I was left cold and wound up spending big chunks of my student loan on old Motown LPs, Slowdive/Ride albums and anything I could find that was on Factory Records.

However, the last few years, as 40 looms every closer, I have made more of an effort to listen to modern sounds. Nothing too obscure, alas, but in the last few years I've really enjoyed stuff by Foals, the 1975, Cigarettes After Sex, Chromatics and Tame Impala.

kalowski

Quote from: poodlefaker on August 13, 2019, 02:59:18 PM
Always fun when they crop up on Desert Island Discs.  You can always spot 'em: either they pick absolute shite (Gordon Ramsey), or they pick stuff because it reminds  them off something nice. ("This was always on the radio when my kids were babies...") rather than for any love of the music itself.
Good point
I remember Nick Hornby discussing this in "31 songs". He made a point of saying that the first song (Teenage Fanclub's Your Love Is the Place Where I Come From) was the only one he chose because it reminded him of something that had happened. The rest were chosen because he thought they were really good songs.

wosl

Quote from: nugget on August 12, 2019, 08:18:09 PMI've loved music since I was a little kid but in recent years have been listening to less and less, with music being replaced mostly by podcasts.

Same thing has happened to me, without podcasts becoming the replacement, in my case.  There's been a definite lessening of the need to hear recorded music in almost every practicable setting.  Very often these days, I'll charge up a DAP and portable amplifier for some night-time listening, only to opt for opening a window and listening to the sounds of outside life drifting in, instead.  It sounds corny written down, but one of my next-door neighbours has some wind chimes, which sound lovely tinkling away, mixed in with the sounds of a breeze rustling leaves and the muffled hum of the odd vehicle travelling down a far-off road.  Ambient: live and local.

oy vey

Unless you're deaf or the subject of an Oliver Sacks book, there's no excuse for this type of behaviour.

Jockice

Quote from: jimboslice on August 13, 2019, 03:23:04 PM
Isn't this most people? People who go to gigs and listen to newer music are a definite minority when you're 30+.

Most people are happy to just stick Heart or Magic on and listen to Craig David do his thing.

Indeed. I kept it up until well into my 40s though, although that was partly because I could get free tickets for gigs. But I can only very occasionally pull that stunt nowadays and not that long ago my regular gig-going partner died, Damned selfish of him. He was a former work colleague about five years older than me and looked like the squarest person on earth. I can remember the feeling of utter horror on his first day when it was decided that he was going to sit next to me. But it turned out he had wide (if not always good) tastes and was a bit of an expert. I must have gone to well over a hundred concerts with him. But he told me he had cancer on the way to a Happy Mondays (original line-up) gig and the last one I saw with him was The Jesus And Mary Chain (well the Red brothers anyway) doing Psychocandy.

Since then I've hardly been to any. I think all I've seen this year is a Devo tribute band and a local band playing in a pub I just happened to be in. And all I have lined up for the rest of the year is Squeeze. My girlfriend's favourite band. We've already seen them twice since getting together (it's five years ago next Monday!) and have also seen Chris Difford solo twice. I have no problem with this (I'd always liked them but had never seen them live before that) but some of her other tastes are, how shall I put this? Weird or shit? And often both. Luckily she has kids so can't get to concerts all that often. Joe Jackson was good, but as for the sodding Saw Doctors...

purlieu

Never cared for live music, but I imagine I'll keep up with new stuff for a while yet. I'm nothing like I was in my teens and early '20s, but every time I think I'm going to sink into a comfortable retirement of 'just keeping up with a few favourite bands' I get bored and seek out a bunch of new acts. At what point that'll stop I don't know, especially as ambient and experimental artists keep coming along and their music tends to be far less typically 'youth' oriented anyway, so I won't feel daft listening to it in my 60s.

On the whole I've found I'm listening to less music these days and feeling ok about it. Some days I'll only play one or two albums and not feel like I'm missing it. Not so many years ago I had music on almost 24/7, so this is definitely a big change.

My mum has a small stack of CDs - almost all compilations - most of which she's only listened to once. A few years back she'd have one on in the afternoon when playing solitaire on the computer, but these days she seems to prefer silence. At the same time, there are definitely songs she loves.

The aforementioned link with academics is interesting, as I was actually thinking about autistic people who don't like music, which is very common in my experience. Sensory overload and/or very limited and specific interests mean that music is completely uninteresting to a lot of autistic people. That, or it's the only thing they talk about (like me).

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: popcorn on August 13, 2019, 12:43:09 PM
I heard a song once and it was bollocks. Haven't bothered since.

That's a shame. I heard that one too and I agree it was rubbish. However, there was another one which was good and I still listen to that.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: Jockice on August 13, 2019, 06:59:12 PM
Indeed. I kept it up until well into my 40s though, although that was partly because I could get free tickets for gigs. But I can only very occasionally pull that stunt nowadays and not that long ago my regular gig-going partner died, Damned selfish of him. He was a former work colleague about five years older than me and looked like the squarest person on earth. I can remember the feeling of utter horror on his first day when it was decided that he was going to sit next to me. But it turned out he had wide (if not always good) tastes and was a bit of an expert. I must have gone to well over a hundred concerts with him. But he told me he had cancer on the way to a Happy Mondays (original line-up) gig and the last one I saw with him was The Jesus And Mary Chain (well the Red brothers anyway) doing Psychocandy.

Aw, man, that's a touching story.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: object-lesson on August 13, 2019, 02:30:54 PM
The omnipresence of music as a feature of the totalitarian society was a minor theme of Brave New World IIRC.

I don't remember that. Are you sure you're not thinking of 1984? There's a machine in that that autocomposes trite music for the proles. It's one of the weaker themes of the book, unfortunately.

QuoteDo people sit with Spotify, youtube or whatever and just listen, or are they usually doing something else too?

I think they're usually doing something else too. I'm not sure this is an entirely new phenomenon, though. It's just that people have got social media in their pockets these days.

Jockice

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on August 13, 2019, 10:52:19 PM
Aw, man, that's a touching story.

Indeed it is. Ta. I don't usually do sentimental but I was thinking about the bloke today and it all just flooded out.

kalowski

"I have to say The Best of the Beatles."