The Beat Goes On

Welcome to Cowpunk. I’m 37, I used to listen to new music all the time, and now I hardly recognize a single artist when I browse iTunes or Spotify. I think this is somewhat normal: Your peak years for experimenting with different artists are in high school and college, but after that, you’ve imprinted on the artists and styles you like, so anything new just doesn’t seem as good as the old stuff.

It seems like the only music I know I like came out between 1990 and 2006 or so. To test this theory, I just went through the music collection on my computer and made a list of albums that I could, at one point in my life at least, sing along with almost all the way through. Note the years on these:

• Belle and Sebastian - If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996)
• Ben Folds - Rockin’ the Suburbs (2001)
• Black Eyed Sceva - Way Before the Flood (1995)
• Braid - Frame & Canvas (1998)
• Built to Spill - Keep It Like a Secret (1999)
• Counting Crows - August and Everything After (1993)
• Counting Crows - Recovering the Satellites (1996)
• D.J. Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince - And In This Corner… (1989)
• Fountains of Wayne - Utopia Parkway (1999)
• Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand (1994)
• Guster - Goldfly (1997)
• Guster - Lost and Gone Forever (1999)
• James Iha - Let It Come Down (1998)
• Jets to Brazil - Orange Rhyming Dictionary (1998)
• Kishi Bashi - Lighght (2014)
• Mary Lou Lord - Got No Shadow (1998)
• Midnight Oil - Earth and Sun and Moon (1993)
• Modest Mouse - Building Nothing Out of Something (1999)
• Modest Moust - The Moon and Antarctica (2000)
• Paul Simon - Negotiations and Love Songs (1988)
• Poor Old Lu - Sin (1995)
• Radiohead - O.K. Computer (1997)
• Saves the Day - I’m Sorry I’m Leaving (1999)
• Soul Coughing - El Oso (1998)
• Sufjan Stevens - Come On Feel the Illinoise! (2005)
• They Might Be Giants - Flood (1990)

There’s nothing there earlier than 1989. Aside from a 2014 outlier, the latest release is from 2005. I’ve certainly listened to some music published more recently (and some published longer ago), but not so fervently.

(While creating this list, I put that James Iha album on in the background. After a few minutes, I realized I was singing along without thinking about it. I have not listened to that one in probably 15 years! But it holds up.)

So, as I discover artists, albums, or songs that I like, I’ll share them here. I will also be learning about newer music discovery methods, and I’ll share what I learn about those as well. My goal for 2018 is to end the year with some new additions to this list.