Has anyone else found it progressively harder to get into new music?

I've had this in the past (and I suppose the answer to this depends on your age), to me the solution was to make the hunt itself the fun part. I've shifted my gears so the game is all about trying out different things and listening to a shitload of records I've never heard before. You find things you love in the process and it's a great reward when you do, but if I hear 10 awful records in a row while exploring some subgenre I've never touched before, it was still a good day.

I also think some amount of introspection and time taken to understand what you like and why is a good idea. If you realize you like warm nostalgic music, you'll be able to find things up your alley a lot more consistently than if you just blindly go into entire genres that seem interesting to you.

I have always found it hard to get into new music. I am still not sure why, but I am actually finding it easier with time. I think the more I learn to enjoy different aspects of music as my tastes develop I am finding it easier to find things that I like about more artists.

I will note that when I come across a song that I really like from an artist I have never listened to before and then the next few songs I listen to don't sound very similar, I will stop checking them out further.

Since discovering Particle Detector on Spotify, I'm having the opposite issue. I have tons of new playlists saved and not nearly enough time to listen to them all.

Don't try so hard!

Just give something a spin, If it grabs you, great. If not, put on something else. Go for the sheer volume of new music. See a genre you've never heard? Spin it. You might nope out after 30 seconds, or end up surprised and enthralled.

Never ever be sitting there listening to something a second time because you think you don't 'get' it. If it's not your thing, it's not your thing. There's no logic or reason to it, there's no explaining it. Just take the ride. Find ridiculous piles of crazy recommendations and skip through them. It's fun.

Nope. I'm around about thirty years older than you, and I find new stuff all the time.

My two biggest sources are probably SoundCloud and MixCloud, followed hearthis.at.

On SoundCloud, find a label or artist you like, check to see who they're following and reposting, go through that list and choose stuff that appeals to you, and rinse and repeat as infinitum. You'll soon have a feed chock-a-block with stuff, some good, some bad, some reprehensibly awful, and some truly excellent.

Mixcloud is excellent for archived radio programmes, DJ mixes and podcasts that cover a vast range of styles from Breakcore to Acid Jazz to Classical to Northern Soul.

Some of my favourites I only listened to in the first place because of their name, like Fractal Meat On A Spongy Bone and Music's Not For Everyone. Finding those on Mixcloud led me to NTS Radio which is packed with interesting, challenging stuff as well as easily accessible more mainstream sounds. I also listen to a fair bit of BBC 6music. The A to Z of Psychedelia is pretty good, imo, and is available for download.

Just take a punt on anything that is vaguely intriguing to you. After all, you don't have to keep listening if you don't feel it.

Ed: you might find this interesting reading, and it reminded me that I hadn't mentioned Bandcamp. There's masses of good stuff to find if you go digging and tag stumbling.

https://theoutline.com/post/5759/how-do-i-find-new-music?utm_source=&zd=1&zi=m5kcrdjy

Could it be that you’re getting older? People are typically more open to new experiences, including music, in their teens and twenties. As our brains continue to develop and age into our late twenties and thirties, this thirst for experience calms down and we settle into ourselves and our personalities and tastes. That’s why basically everyone thinks the best music ever was the stuff coming out when they were in that stage of their lives.

Personally, I’m 26 and while I still feel like I can find new music at a pretty steady pace, I can definitely see myself starting to slow down. Part of it is not having as much free time as I used to, and I think another part is not being around other people my age all the time like I was in school. Finding new music through my friends was always a great way to explore new genres for me. However, I also think that I’m just starting to get older and new music doesn’t always click with my brain as easily as it used to. It’s kind of a sad thought. My dad’s tastes haven’t evolved much since he was my age and I fear ending up the same way.

Maybe you need to expand your horizons, do you listen to all genre of music ?

I think I've realized that my taste seems to be pretty restrictive and at this point I may have just found all the music I like the most. I'll find others, sure, but I can't say I'll like them as much as the ones I like now. It's getting much, much harder to find new music that sounds different, but not difficult, to listen to

I kind of go in spurts, although the genres I listen to have definitely narrowed. First getting into music in the late 80's/early 90's I listened to everything from my dad's 60's rock and folk albums to modern rock, metal, punk, pop, and hip hop. When grunge took off I was immersed in alternative rock until the late 90's when I got more into metal. After that it seemed like I would go years at a time where I wouldn't find anything new that I liked aside from some old favorite bands releasing new albums. Then I would just have a period of finding all sorts of new stuff I liked. Ever since a phase in the early-mid 2000's when I was listening to a lot of new hip hop I have really mostly been into alternative and indie rock with a little bit of EDMish music thrown in. It seems like I would forget about it for a few years, then catch up on all the stuff I missed. That was, until we got a new car with Sirius XM. Now I have a constant stream of new alternative music that always contains at least some new stuff that I like.

The one genre I could never deal with though is country. I don't know if it came from growing up in farm country and listening all these wannabe cowboys blasting Garth Brooks while driving around in their jacked up duallys that don't fit into a parking space thinking they are king shit, but I cannot tolerate country music.

I’m going through something similar but I’m not sure why. I started really noticing it when music festival lineups would come out and there would only be 1-2 bands I actually cared about. In previous years that number would be anywhere between 10-15.

Maybe you unknowingly burned yourself out because of how many bands you try to pick up on every month. Maybe try getting pickier about who is worth keeping up with? If you don’t think that’s it, If you’re able to sign up or already have an account, I’d also try Spotify. They create multiple personalized mixes based on what you listen to. They have daily mixes which are 4 different playlists generated every day and they’re usually very solid in my experience.

For me personally, I think it’s because I produce music for multiple projects, and I work on them nearly every day. It might be a bit of a musical burnout for myself. I also realized I’m doing the same thing with podcasts now as I used to do with music. I listen to around 2-4 hours of podcasts a day now and rarely even have music playing in the car. I still love music but I think it’s just in a different way now.

I feel like I only have so much energy to consume new content in general, these days. To properly listen to a lot of music, I like to sit down with the lyrics (if there are any...) while I listen through the whole album once. I just don't have the focus for that lately, sadly.

I’m 43, and I’ve always been aware that older folks tend to not pickup on the newness as much as younger folks. There is always a “classic rock,” aka nostalgia, type radio station for a reason. I try to fight that in myself as much as possible.

I just found this article: We stop discovering new music at age 30, a new survey suggests — here are the scientific reasons why this could be

A new survey from Deezer suggests we stop listening to new music at age 30.
The results put this down to a busy life.
But there could be other reasons, like the fact we don't soak up new music in the same way anymore.
For example, between 12 and 22 our brains go through a lot of changes and we're more receptive to the songs we hear.

I say fight that trend as much as possible!