Aging out of music fandom

December 15 was traditionally the day that I would roll out that year's Top Ten list(s).  For the fifth consecutive year, that won't be happening.  It's become just another day in the calendar.  But this year, I do want to revisit some of my favourite music of the past thirty years -- with a twist.   

Jim Barber and Rick Beato recently discussed age demographics on the latter's youtube channel.  Their main point is that bands tend to be older than their fans and that this has been a constant throughout most of recorded music history.  The reasons are straightforward.  Music sales were typically marketed toward younger people (e.g. teenagers).  Once they got older and stopped buying music, the next generation of teens would be sold on a new batch of stars.  In this model, both fans and artists had short careers.  People stopped buying music after getting married and finding jobs, and the next generation of young fans weren't interested in what their older brothers and sisters had liked, so the artists were often tossed aside by the industry as a whole.  

This trend of disposability seemed to end with the boomer generation bands.  Barber and Beato don't elaborate on exactly why this happened.  I think that the boomer generation coming of age in the mid-late 60's happened to coincide with rise of the album format.  The album became entrenched as the artistic standard for all serious musical acts, the cultural cache afforded to a great album ensured canonical longevity for the music. Bands could, and still do, coast off the reputations built by great albums for years of even decades.  On the other hand, the singles market was more dominant pre-1960's singles market, and the songs were for and of the moment.  Once those songs completed their chart run and fell off the radio playlists, the music and the artists would fade away too. 

After I listened to their conversation, I realized that the truth had been staring me in the face for years.  Maybe everything in the Barber/Beato video was obvious to many music lifers already.  In those moments, my musical past came flooding back, and the common threads couldn't have been any clearer.   With few exceptions, fans are younger than the acts they follow. It describes my entire fandom.  

I was born in 1974.  Here is a table of all my #1 albums, each year from 1993-2009, along with the birth year of the band's frontman or frontwoman.  For duos, or for acts with multiple dominant creative forces, I listed the birth years of each band member.

Year	Artist, album	Birth year
1993	Orbital, Orbital(Brown Album)	Paul Hartnoll '68, Phil Hartnoll '67
1994	Blur, Parklife,	Albarn '68
1995	Spiritualized, Pure Phase	Pierce '65
1996	Orbital, Insides	Paul Hartnoll '68, Phil Hartnoll '67
1997	Spiritualized, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space	Pierce '65
1998	V/A, Skampler; Mogwai, Kicking A Dead Pig	Braithwaite '76
1999	Super Furry Animals, Guerrilla	Rhys '70
2000	Primal Scream, XTRMNTR	Gillespie '61
2001	Spiritualized, Let It Come Down	Pierce '65
2002	GY!BE, Yanqui UXO	Menuck '70
2003	Plastikman, Closer	Hawtin '70
2004	Xiu Xiu, Fabulous Muscles	Stewart '78
2005	Sigur Ros, Takk	Jonsi '75
2006	Bardo Pond, Ticket Crystals	ages not known, but they started in '91, so late '60's
2007	Eluvium, Copia	Cooper '80
2008	M83, Saturdays=Youth	Gonzalez '80
2009	Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz	Karen O '78
2010	Third Eye Foundation, The Dark	Elliott, '71
2011	M83, Hurry Up We're Dreaming	Gonzalez '80
2012	Beach House, Bloom	Legrand '81, Scally '82
2013	Eluvium, Nightmare Ending	Cooper '80
2014	Fennesz, Becs	Fennesz '62
2015	Beach House, Depression Cherry	Legrand '81, Scally '82
2016	Moderat, III	Apparat '78, Modeselektor '75
2017	The Caretaker, Everywhere at the End of Time, Stage II	Kirby '74
2018	Low, Double Negative	Sparhawk '70, Parker '72 Parker
2019	King Midas Sound, Solitude	Martin '73, Robinson late '70's

In 1998 (a strange outlier year in many respects), my #1 album was a compilation so I also listed my #2 album (Mogwai) and the birth year of their lead guitarist.  Discounting 1998, there are 26 albums, and only ten of them were made by "younger" artists.  The youngest of those is Beach House (seven and eight years younger).  But most of the "older" artists are only a few years older as well, born in the late 60's or early 70's.  Looking at all 26 albums using the birth years in the table (and using best estimates for unknown ages), the average age of a #1 album creator is two years older than myself.  

Focusing only on #1's doesn't even take into account many of my very favourite bands over the years, such as Pulp (Jarvis Cocker, born in 1963), Autechre (Booth/Brown both born in 1970), Slowdive (Neil Halstead 1970), PJ Harvey (1969), The National (Matt Berninger born in 1971, the other members are a few years younger). Or look at my final top five from 1999: following King Midas Sound was Nick Cave (1957), Fennesz, William Basinski (1958), and Amp (around since mid 90's, so likely born in the late 60's or early 70's.).  As I got older, I wasn't turning to new generations of artists.  The people making my favourite music were staying the same age.  If anything, they were gradually getting older.  This explains a lot, and in particular, it explains how I gave up almost entirely on listening to new music.  The number of artists around my age still actively working is clearly decreasing -- people retire or leave the industry for whatever reason -- and the ones who are left see their glory years fade further into the past.   Counting on them to continue producing the music I love almost exclusively is unsustainable.  Over time, I was choosing from a rapidly diminishing pool of music artists that I cared out.  It also explains the multiple #1's by certain bands -- great artists to be sure, but also facing decreasing competition.   Eventually the pool of artists became too small, with not nearly enough music arriving to replenish the selection.  Faced with a dearth of music I could truly embrace, I started giving up on new music entirely.  

It makes sense to prefer bands that are older than you. As a teenager you look up to people in their twenties as mature heroes living an exciting, musically fulfilling life. But at any age, one appreciates art from older artists who have experiences and wisdom that predates your own, and who can channel those emotions into their art. As a fan, you seek out those perspectives and ideas.  Younger bands bring new ideas and inspiration, but there's an natural and understandable generation gap that creates emotional distance between them and you.  

I still listen to plenty of music daily.  There are even new releases that I intend to catch up with someday, after being almost entirely uninterested in such things throughout all of 2020 and 2021.  But right now I can't foresee a return to yearly best-of lists.  As the data shows, it's not for me anymore.