No Stupid Questions

Hang out with high schoolers.

Start paying attention to the top new & trending Spotify playlists in genres you're interested in.

And online radio station that has no songs older than 36 months helps me.

Best thing is its free. No ads. And you dont need to make an account.

(They are changing to modernrock.ca) https://www.whatwasthatradio.com/

I think the difference is that as a kid music is forced on you from all kinds of sources: parents, friends, radio, etc. So you don't realize how much time you actually spent just listening to new music.

As an Old, you probably don't have nearly as much random exposure, i.e. you control when you listen to music now. Which means the answer to your question is that you have to consciously set aside time simply to listen to music. It may feel like a "waste of time" for each track you think is shit, but that's just part of the process.

Good luck, and thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

KGRG is world famous among radio fans. Those kids have the pulse.

https://everynoise.com/engenremap.html

I'm in my mid-40s and I love searching for new (and old) music. It makes me happy. Maybe I start with an artists I like and just go thru the rest of the label. You just have to break the habit of listening to the same thing and challenge yourself.

Dude. Dude. You're still a kid ;)

Age jokes from an old fart aside, it's about your willingness to go looking.

It does mean you'll end up using some otherwise shitty services unless you are active in a local music related scene (like clubbing). But YouTube, Pandora, spotify, and most of the other music streaming services have some degree of recommendations. They aren't all that great usually, but in the absence of being immersed with real life music explorers, it's the best option.

You can check out the Billboard top 200 and go the route of hoping your preferred music genres chart in the first place, but also being fairly reliable that other fans have vetted tracks for it to get there.

And radio still exists. You can pick a station that's genre specific or a top 40 station and find stuff that's already a little popular that way. It isn't as reliable as it used to be, but you can find newer raising acts that way.

There's forums. I haunt the typical lemmy based music C/s, plus the ones for my favorite genres, which keeps me fairly up to date on new releases as well as some new acts.

And, always participate in your local scene when possible. It's harder with hip-hop since finding local acts outside of cities is damn near impossible, but if you're into other stuff too, it can be a great way to catch acts before they get going, if your local scene is active enough. I'm fairly lucky in that bluegrass is one of the genres I'm into, and I'm not too far away from one of the better known cities for country and bluegrass music. So it's easy to find new bands and solo acts performing at a bar or local festival that end up getting popular eventually. That's an example of what i mean, making use of what's already there locally.

Late thirties is aging? That's like peak life. You have money and family (at least a chance of that) and purpose in your life. You have confidence and you know who you are.

You are still a bit dumb, but less dumb than twenty somethings. I liked my late thirties.

I feel you. I think I'm experiencing the same.

I'd say it's almost summer now, go out and visit some music festivals. That's a place where I found some inspiration and new (to me) artists.

Also having friends with a similar taste in music helps.

I have a Spotify subscription and that helps me listen to a broad range of music on a whim. But I think the Spotify algorithm isn't helping me in discovering new artists. I rarely find anything interesting and new that way.

I try to pick up artists from younger coworkers. That's how I learned about 100 Gecs. Saw them live. We were the olds. Skipped PinkPantheress cause it felt like we'd be too olds.

You got to ride the youtube algo musical rabbit hole down to the bottom, otherwise it just feeds you the same 10 playlist. Find a song/band outside your norm that is tolerable, then you can choose a direction based off recommended. You can upvote what you like/the right direction to tune the algo. You should get mostly top songs from that artist or similar bubbles, although if your adventurous check smaller artist and explore. There's hidden diamonds.

Eventually you find some random anon artist with a weird cult following and what seems to be a sub-sub-sub-sub genera with artist with the same vibe. There will be bubbles of artist remixing each-other, working together, starting fights and drama, and making good shit. Follow what catches your attention and youtube will eventually lead you to the good shit of a niche. I assume most services would do the same.

There is the Eurovision Song Contest, buuuuuuuut, this year's season has been such an incredible shitshow that I can't recommend it anymore. Seriously, I wish it never got this way.

So... spend some time listening to the entries from 2013 to 2022. Those are the ones that I liked the most, especially from 2021 (spoiler: Måneskin is in there somewhere, and so is Duncan Lawrence, and Rosa Linn, and the Sunstroke Project... the ones with the Epic Sax Guy, you might have heard of all of these guys before, oh, and Flo Rida too)

2012 and earlier (down to 1997 I guess) do have some cool stuff, but most of it is kinda kitschy and unserious. There are some strong entries, but it's being overshadowed by what is basically garbage and political voting. But at least we got a taste of Loreen out of that. You've heard of that Nightcore remix of a song called Rockefeller Street? Yep, that's from Eurovision.

As for 2023 specifically... well, there's a certain green Finnish guy that you might love, and has almost won if it wasn't for- oh God, Loreen again? And there's some other cool stuff I guess.

The 90s, 80s, and 70s all have some fantastic entries, some of then are even from super famous people such as ABBA, Celine Dion, Olivia Newton John, Johnny Logan, Julio Iglesias, Samira Bensaid, in addition to lots of incredibly interesting folks. There's a live orchestra in there too, so you know things are authentic.

And then there's the 60s and 50s. I can't remember anything about them.

So, enjoy my recommendation of the songs, and please for God's sake, avoid watching the contest live at all costs, and especially stay away from its political influence. There's a particular country in there that everybody wants out, and I'm pretty sure you know who it is. They've basically ruined 2024.

You can't, it's over, let go.

YouTube music made discovery worse compared to Google music, but it is still OK.

When I hear a good song on a show or movie, I ID it with my phone and explore others by the artist or genre. I also thumbs up it to get more recommendations from YTM

Same when friends recommended music. So yeah, talk to friends about music. And then do the above two steps with their suggestions and likes.