new music for old people

defying the gatekeepers

At 61, I’ve kind of been counted out in the new music discourse. Most people think that folks in my age bracket sort of age out of keeping up with music. I get it. We’re old, we’re done, we don’t matter anymore. But the truth of it is, I have a lot to say about new music, and music in general. I guess maybe I’m an anomaly for someone in their sixties, as I listen to an awful lot of new music. I try to keep up, checking out new releases on Fridays (and sometimes Tuesdays just like in the old days), checking in with bands on twitter to see what they’re up to, listening to my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist. Doing this keeps me current, and keeps me from feeling like I am drifting away from my younger self, an entity I try to keep a firm grip on.

Some current music I am listening to includes Home is Where, 100 Gecs, Hurry, Taking Meds, Equipment, and Olivia Rodrigo. Let’s talk about Olivia and her particular brand of music and how people my age have been cut out of the conversation regarding her new album GUTS.

Most of the music I listen to is angst driven, emotional. It’s just what appeals to me. Rodrigo manages to capture that type of music and back it with hooks for days. The album is a perfect storm of all the things I enjoy: crying and rocking out. Maybe rocking out while crying. But the discourse surrounding GUTS when it came out made me feel like I was injecting myself into a timeline I didn’t earn being a part of. “Why are you, as an old person, listening to a twenty year old sing about a breakup?” was the general consensus. It wasn’t aimed specifically at me, but it was aimed and I took the shot hard. But as I listened to the album over and over again, as I connected with it and fell in love with it, I decided to say to hell with the gatekeepers, I am going to listen to what I love, I am going to talk about it, and write about it, and embrace it.

Angst does not belong to the young. Breakups are not the sole domain of twentysomethings. There’s no reason why a 50 or 60 year old who has gone through a heart-wrecking divorce can’t identify with those feelings of loss, anger, and grief that encompass so much of what I listen to. We may be old(er), but we are still works in progress. We are still people who grow and change, who face difficult situations, who agonize over past relationships, who long to be loved. It only makes sense that the music some of us choose plays into that. You don’t have to be young to know what it’s like to be hurt, to want to take that pain and infuse it with a song that makes a point of acknowledging your angst.

I don’t like to be told what to listen to or read or watch in accordance with my age. It’s not like you turn sixty and you have to hand in your cool card in exchange for a Barry Manilow record that you are now required to like. We’re not out here putting on stretch pants and setting our rocker out on the porch and giving in to the kids. We’re here, we are thriving and vital, and a lot of us are listening to new music, keeping up with the youth, skewing those numbers.

I still listen to a lot of the old stuff; Steely Dan is one of my most listened to artists. I have an easy listening playlist that has the likes of Boz Scaggs and Traveling Wilburys. But I also have an everyday playlist I listen to a lot. It has 1500+ songs and includes bands like Turnstile and Thursday alongside Rodrigo and boygenius. It’s got the aforementioned Steely Dan and some Todd Rundgren deep cuts but it also has a ton of the National and Band of Horses, music to keep crying and emotional.

a sampling of what i listened to this week

Sometimes I feel weird listening to a bunch of emo, championing Taking Back Sunday, or singing the praises of Olivia Rodrigo. I let people make me feel that way. I don’t know what they want from me and others my age who listen to new music. Do they want us to pack all our emotions away and live the rest of our lives listening to Led Zeppelin IV over and over again? Of course I identify with emo and emo-tinged music. I am human. I am a person. I have a heart and a brain and so many feelings. That a twenty year old has spoken my feelings out loud does not make the words and music less valid in my life. It just tells me that heartbreak is universal, all encompassing, a shared rite of passage that hurts no matter what age you experience it at. Having someone back this all up and say yea, these feelings are real, they are deep and unforgiving, does wonders for me. I feel comforted, less alone, heard.

For people my age who don’t listen to new music because it all skews too young for them, or is too loud and noisy, I say let your guard down. Put away the classic rock - not permanently, just for today - and listen to some new artists. Or listen to the new music your old favorite artists are still putting out. Be open to new experiences, new sounds. And don’t worry about people telling you what you should or shouldn’t be listening to you. That’s nobody’s business but your own. Check out the GUTS. Check out the band Hurry. You might really like what you hear. You might connect with it in a deep way if you let it happen. I know I have, and I am better off for it.