Some time ago, I proposed a question to a group of peers. The question was one which gets debated with much frequency. It was "why listen to modern old-school music, when you can listen to actual old music? No less than the millennial YouTube musical authority, Anthony Fantano recently weighed in on this question. He was reviewing the recent release by Stephen Sanchez, which was a neovintage pop album that had some buzz behind it after an out of nowhere single of his cracked the top twenty five on the Hot 100 last year. Suffice it to say Fantano was not a fan of the project. The gist of his thoughts were straightforward. Usually there are two ways to approach retro music. Either adapting some of the elements and bringing them into the modern frame. This is easier and skirts around the issue of "why not listen to old music." Or you simply recreate the past, and present yourself in competition with the old stuff. In his opinion, the Sanchez record, which clearly fell into category two, did not live up to its retro aims.
Putting his opinion aside, the response I received from my peer inquiry had a diversity of answers. They ranged from "in fact, this is why I listen to old music" all the way to "I would never consider touching the old stuff because the new stuff works better for me", and any permutation in between. Most of the responses were fans of modern old school music and the reasons vary. These are the ten responses I got. Lightly edited for clarity. Some of the more generic responses were not added. My apologies for not directly attributing the quotes to those who said them. I saved the responses in my notepad app without saving who wrote them.
"I spend most of my time listening to the original stuff, so neovintage is something I only indulge in semi-regularly. Upon reflection, I find myself going to neovintage whenever I am searching for that sense of 'now'. I spend so much of my time in the past that it can get lonely in the present; I want to hear that the sounds and styles I love so much have not died with the artists who pioneered them. It is easy to feel alienated in the modern Country scene if you're someone like me. Sometimes you need to feel that you aren't alone - there are other people out there who 'get it'. For me, it's about forging a connection to the present, something that is impossible for most of my catalog."
"This is a classic example of Colter Wall. Some of the stuff he sings are old songs, but I'd rather listen to him because I like his style. Also, he's an artist now, so there are bound to be more people to discuss his music with"
"I feel a sense like I’m a part of the age it’s made in. I listen to actual vintage music now and again but it’s a mental sense of new material. Purely psychological"
"Personally, it's just more accessible, and is kind of a gateway into actual old school music. The music that I grew up listening to is substantially different from previous generations: compositionally, of course, but also the sound quality is also very different now. Everything sounds much cleaner, crisper; listening to older music can be alienating for that reason. Also, the lyrics and songs are more "dense": music today is readily digestible and extremely catchy, and growing up with that makes it harder to immediately get hooked onto the classics of country music. Modern old school music is a great way for me to fall in love with older styles of music while still in a comfortable sonic environment, so to speak. And, of course, it's an easy bridge into actual old school music, because it has the sound quality of today but the sounds of yesteryear."
"I've heard the old songs a thousand times and will hear them a thousand more. I want to hear stuff I haven't heard before but is in line with the music I love."
"There's a great originality in finding new variations on old forms, often that have more of a deep impact than completely new forms."
"I like the old style sonically, but I think the new artists with that sound appeal to me more for two main reasons. First, the production quality is better on the new material - new recording techniques can take the old style and vastly improve the sound quality. Second, I find it more relatable - I like to picture the musicians I listen to as actually living these experiences, and it is easier to do that with people still recording music. It’s hard to care about some heartbroken guy’s song 50 years ago when you know he no longer feels that way. There are obviously exceptions, I love a lot of old country too of course."
"It’s nice to be able to look forward to new music"
"Better lyrics sometimes. Also a lack of outdated lyrics. Better recordings. Some of the music has morphed (like the super traditional-sounding modern Texas honkytonk is a bit more exaggerated than what just about everyone except Ray Price was doing in the 50's.) A lack of the f***ing backing choir thing that plagued Nashville country in the 60's. A lack of the s***ty keyboards it often had in the 80's. A lack of the s***ty arrangements that it had in the 70's, all of which matters because I liked some of the songs themselves but not the arrangements trends of the time."
"One of the reasons I prefer modern artists is they are still alive and tour so I can go see them live.”
"Partly because I’ve heard all the old stuff already, it’s good to hear new country songs coming out. Also listening to the new artists keeps the genre alive. And lastly this is our generation of country artists, and I wanna be a part of it while it’s happening. I’m referring more to people like Tyler Childers, Cody Jinks, Sturgill Simpson, Colter Wall, Turnpike Troubadours, Zach Bryan etc."
"I like both. It’s good to mix it up IMO and they both have their own charm."
All of these responses are valid approaches to a question that is often asked rhetorically and in bad faith. I don’t want to focus on a specific answer, but instead pull back the lens and look at some of the underlying themes of these responses. Of course there is much depth in these answers that will be overlooked by looking for broad strokes themes. For instance I think the points about the complexities, fidelity, and catchiness of modern music are all great technical points that absolutely are part of the answer. Heck, I've even dwelled on these points myself before.1 However, the purpose of this post will lie heavily on a particular theme that underlies much of the responses.
One focus that comes up time and time again in these responses reveals a great deal about the way we consume music and the assumptions inherent in criticism of music. The clear theme is a valuing of some holistic experience of music listening that extends far beyond the mere content. The experience seems to often be centered around community. Friends, live shows, feeling part of a currently developing story etc. All of these are not what we'd typically subscribe to as the meaningful parts of music.
This ought to inform our sense of music consumption and analysis. Clearly, there is a substantive difference in the overall experience of engaging with currently released music that doesn't exist with anything not belonging to the current moment. Unlike the predicate of the main question driving this piece, which solely focuses on the physical contents of the record like instrumentation and songwriting, the reality of the way ordinary music consumers relate to music automatically renders old music as missing a crucial component. Even if you grant that older music is "objectively better", which some did, it still lacks the soft factors that add up to a significantly more enriching subjective experience. Critics attempt to quantify the emotional connection they have to a record by breaking it down into a myriad of objective factors and attempting to hone in to the technical details of why this worked or failed to create the emotional connection that was the artist's aim. I'd argue that it misses a good chunk of the picture. What are these holistic factors that get overlooked? Well, let's take a look at a typical album rollout in 2023.
You have: The hype, the waiting period, speculation, the TikTok audio teaser, the Instagram post revealing the album cover, the following conversation and buzz that surrounds the artist next steps, unreleased songs being played at concert and captured by cell phone videos and then being spread through the Internet, interviews hinting at the next big thing, leaks....so on and so forth. All this happens even prior to the album even hitting the shelves. All of these steps are taken in concert with legions of other fans engaging in discourse and building connections to one another based on a shared love.
This inevitably means that even for the modern fan with a deep and abiding love of fiddle and steel drenched honky tonk, listening to a new Jon Pardi record contains multitudes more engagement than sitting down and poking around Ray Price's discography. It is near impossible to replicate that experience with music that has already been released into the ether. You can’t get hyped up by a guy who has been dead for ten years.
(Now granted, the world of vintage music enthusiasts would strongly retort to this by pointing to vinyl record forums and myriad niches of the internet devoted to a shared passion of all things vintage. I feel the point still stands. Specifically in this regard, a massive chunk of what many people relate to just simply isn't there.)
In critics' defense, this whole setup means that there is a limited window of time where it is possible to have this experience. If that window of time passes, you will pretty much be removed from this broader experience and instead will substitute the stricter "objective" take preferred by critics. They are accurately describing a reality. I'm not trying to take away from the daunting task of reviewing and curating content for the masses. I do it myself.2
Most of us unconsciously display this split in the way we relate and discuss music that was released prior to our birth and the music we grew up on. The experiences are incomparable and therefore we relate to them differently.
This seems a pretty clear takeaway. Not sure where to take it past this. Perhaps a lesson can be learned here about the inherent social needs of humans and how we often turn to shared communal experiences over individual ones. Ironic that in the most individualized of music consumption eras, live shows are at a record high. 3
But also, maybe it's just a small sample size.
Let me know what you think, in either the comments below or reach out via email to todayiheardblog@gmail.com
Thanks for reading,
Joe
A related part 2 to this post will most likely go up next week.
Mostly discussed in the back half of this post here. One of my favorites of this year and certainly the one I was most nervous about during writing. I think it turned out well. The main point of the article isn't precisely this point, but some strong discussion is had about the modernity of many traditionally styled artists.
Guilty as charged. The entire September blew up into a review extravaganza. Check out the archive for the full experience.
Or at least close to all time highs. The “experience economy” is in a boom stage. This was a good resource to learn more about this phenomenon.