Something surprising happened last week: I heard a new song, and I liked it. Liked it enough to want to find out who sang it, and how I could hear more. Once, that would have been utterly unremarkable. For a good part of my twenties and thirties, I was a music junkie. I went out to see live bands—rock, mostly, in all its forms and allied genres—at least twice a week, and often more. Wherever I lived, I sought out the smaller clubs, and the music no one else had heard yet. I had my perennial favorites, of course. But as my record collection swelled to nearly a year of round-the-clock listening time, the thrill of hearing something new remained a major part of the experience.
Now, as I inch towards 50, I’m lucky if I find one new band I like in a year. But I don’t think it’s just my age, or that I’m stuck musically in some former time—I’ve largely stopped listening to music altogether, unless it’s background accompaniment to drown out less desirable noise. I’m starting to think I’ve simply saturated my music receptors, and, unable to experience the thrill of the new any longer, have moved on. Without meaning to, or really noticing as it happened, I’ve let one of the major passions and cultural experiences of my life simply slip away.
No one aspires to middle age, the broad-bottomed flyover country of life stages. Continue reading
