Red Mosquito

I was listening to an '80's Miles Davis album this morning, and the only thing I kept thinking was "Man, this sounds dated." I try to observe a healthy balance where this sort of thing is concerned, understanding that it is inevitable that music usually somehow reflects the time period that spawned it, but there is also a point at which the scales seem to tip. It got me to wondering about a couple things:

1. How long does it take for something that sounds current in real time to eventually sound old, and what causes this to happen? Like, I distinctly remember when 90's rock began to sound like "'90's rock," rather than just the fresh, current thing that was happening. I only recently started feeling it with music from the early 2000's, though I struggle to articulate exactly what it is yet that's giving me that sense. I'm interested in hearing whether others experience this as well, or if stuff from certain time periods still feels timeless to some (with the understanding that some things feel this way anyway) despite distinct identifiers.

2. Does this influence/affect your listening habits over time, and does it affect what you have the ability to appreciate when you go back and discover older music?

I haven't worked my answer out to either question yet, but I'm interested in others' thought processes...

I have never understood “dated” as a criticism. Pretty much all art reflects the aesthetics of its era. To me, that’s a built-in positive, not a negative.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:I have never understood “dated” as a criticism. Pretty much all art reflects the aesthetics of its era. To me, that’s a built-in positive, not a negative.

this

To be clear, I am not meaning to imply that it is always or ever a negative, but something that is nevertheless sometimes overwhelmingly prevalent in a piece of work.

That said, I don't necessarily think aesthetics of this kind are always merely a date stamp; sometimes the way an artist deploys them, or fails to deploy them, affects how we process and digest the music, and says something not only about the music's origin in that period but also its relationship to it.

I also don't think a value judgment on whether being "dated" is inherently "good" or "bad" really answers either of the questions in the OP (though maybe it provides a little insight as to how you would answer question 2).

On their U2 podcast, Scott and Scott joked about an artist/band, instead of recording an album of new music every year or two, releasing the same album of the same songs every year or two with updated production methods/sounds/trends.

I kind of like that idea in a weird way.

To answer your questions more specifically:

1. I think it generally takes about ten years. For example, pop music from 2010 now has a distinctly different sound from current pop music, but it took until about 2018 for that line to be clear for me. Of course, pop music isn't representative of all genres, and tends to move through aesthetic shifts more quickly than other genres. I mean, I don't know how much metal has advanced - if at all - since 2010, by comparison.

2. Not really, no. The only thing I can think of is I will sometimes try to find a specific type of music from a specific era because the production styles of that era for that kind of music are appealing to me (soft rock from the '70s and '80s, for example).

Kevin Davis wrote:
1. How long does it take for something that sounds current in real time to eventually sound old, and what causes this to happen?

2. Does this influence/affect your listening habits over time, and does it affect what you have the ability to appreciate when you go back and discover older music?.

1. a. It depends. Sometimes 20 years sometimes never. Some songs from the 80s sounded dated the next day.
b. The way the song goes

2. Alot of times, I can't stand to listen to the "hits" of songs from 60s or 70s songs, but the album is just fine.

Also, does Led Zeppelin music "age"? I know alot of teenagers today who say Zeppelin is their favorite band.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:I have never understood “dated” as a criticism. Pretty much all art reflects the aesthetics of its era. To me, that’s a built-in positive, not a negative.

The hope of any artist worth their salt is that their music will be timeless and impervious to being dated.
It’s a rare few that have managed that but some have.

Blaine Ryan wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:I have never understood “dated” as a criticism. Pretty much all art reflects the aesthetics of its era. To me, that’s a built-in positive, not a negative.

If pretty much all art reflects the aesthetics of its era, I'm going to go jump off a bridge.

Good news! I'm not going to

dimejinky99 wrote:The hope of any artist worth their salt is that their music will be timeless and impervious to being dated.

See, I'm not sure about this -- I think it would be pretty dull if everything possessed that same indefinable "timeless" quality. I think sometimes those obvious date stamps add something important to the story of a certain song, album, etc.

Kevin Davis wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:The hope of any artist worth their salt is that their music will be timeless and impervious to being dated.

See, I'm not sure about this -- I think it would be pretty dull if everything possessed that same indefinable "timeless" quality. I think sometimes those obvious date stamps add something important to the story of a certain song, album, etc.

We’re talking of the same thing but looking at it from opposite directions.

There’s endless amounts of songs that have survived and are still current and even sampled,
And are part of our cultural dna to date. Across many genres but weirdly, mostly from pop music.
They’ll still be playing Michael Jackson and the Beatles music for hundreds of years to come.

That’s just two.

dimejinky99 wrote:

Kevin Davis wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:The hope of any artist worth their salt is that their music will be timeless and impervious to being dated.

See, I'm not sure about this -- I think it would be pretty dull if everything possessed that same indefinable "timeless" quality. I think sometimes those obvious date stamps add something important to the story of a certain song, album, etc.

We’re talking of the same thing but looking at it from opposite directions.

There’s endless amounts of songs that have survived and are still current and even sampled,
And are part of our cultural dna to date. Across many genres but weirdly, mostly from pop music.
They’ll still be playing Michael Jackson and the Beatles music for hundreds of years to come.

That’s just two.

You're talking about different things. "Dated" does not mean "irrelevant."

What are some examples of songs that don't sound dated?

Music is just like clothes--some are classic cuts and some are

Spoiler: show

durdencommatyler wrote:What are some examples of songs that don't sound dated?

Glorified G

knee tunes wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:What are some examples of songs that don't sound dated?

Glorified G

LoathedVermin72 wrote:

knee tunes wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:What are some examples of songs that don't sound dated?

Glorified G

I'm serious

LoathedVermin72 wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:

Kevin Davis wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:The hope of any artist worth their salt is that their music will be timeless and impervious to being dated.

See, I'm not sure about this -- I think it would be pretty dull if everything possessed that same indefinable "timeless" quality. I think sometimes those obvious date stamps add something important to the story of a certain song, album, etc.

We’re talking of the same thing but looking at it from opposite directions.

There’s endless amounts of songs that have survived and are still current and even sampled,
And are part of our cultural dna to date. Across many genres but weirdly, mostly from pop music.
They’ll still be playing Michael Jackson and the Beatles music for hundreds of years to come.

That’s just two.

You're talking about different things. "Dated" does not mean "irrelevant."

I didn’t suggest or say it was. At all. Some of the best and most influential musical handdowns in all genres have come and been based on what came before.

It’s kind of how the whole evolution of it all had been structured.

Keep up.

knee tunes wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:

knee tunes wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:What are some examples of songs that don't sound dated?

Glorified G

I'm serious

I know, that's why I said