It would have been unimaginable in our 20s, but these days more and more friends are disengaging from a passion we once shared. Surely this is premature?
, with his boundless curiosity, knowledge and passion for music, right up until his untimely death, is my personal benchmark and inspiration. I write about music for a living, and naturally I don’t expect others to maintain anywhere near the same level of interest – and not everyone reaches their 30s and gives up on music, as the success of BBC Radio 6 Music shows. Not that there’s anything wrong with tapping out, either – interests and priorities change.
One similarly aged and child-free friend who admits to a dwindling passion for music says it’s a combination of going out less – and so music is no longer the centre of socialising – preferring to listen to podcasts, and having more options available across streaming. Another simply says it’s harder to muster that same level of excitement about anything, period, while one former consumer and maker of music happily admits that he now only really listens to three bands.
This lack of interest in new music seems to coincide – or perhaps even feeds – huge surges in nostalgia around my age group: take the odd phenomenon of, with its warped rose-tinted shutter glasses and desire to retroactively create something that didn’t exist. Objectionable as that particular fetishism is, it’s an interesting generational insight into how those staring down middle age recalibrate their relationship to music. Though I’m not begrudging anyone some nostalgia.