So I came across the Spotify “Coolness Spiral of Death” dataviz last week and thought that it was clever and well-conceived, but I didn’t pay much attention otherwise. Then I queued up Rdio, half-heartedly thumbed through their recommendations, and settled into the new Blur album. While I’m really enjoying it – “Ong Ong” is a fun single with a kind of Vampire Weekend ragged playfulness about it – I’m also basically admitting that Spotify’s hypothesis is true.
From the blog post:
Two factors drive this transition away from popular music.
First, listeners discover less-familiar music genres that they didn’t hear on FM radio as early teens, from artists with a lower popularity rank. Second, listeners are returning to the music that was popular when they were coming of age — but which has since phased out of popularity.
I agree with both of these points, especially vis-a-vis my undying fondness for Britpop.
Also in there somewhere: the words taste freeze to describe the phenomenon, which sounds delicious.
I have to wonder: would 21-year-old me have been into The Magic Whip as much as I was 13 or even Think Tank? Would their newest album have have appealed to me in college, or have Blur aged as much as I have – do musicians and artists also calcify as they get older and have children, therefore always predisposed to producing new material in lockstep with the tastes of their original fans?
Who knows. Anyway, I’ve also been coming back to Oasis recently, specifically the mournful “I’m Outta Time” – it came on the house Sonos while Josh was in town and when he started mouthing the chorus, I was surprised that he knew the song too. We agreed it was by far the best song on a mixed bag of an album – and easily their best song of the 21st century.
Given my tastes, who’s to say I ever was in the center of the so-called coolness death spiral, even in my youth. (At that time, I also admired people whose musical tastes went farther afield than mine.) It’s entirely possible I’m closer to the center now – pop and rap are now parts of my musical diet in a way they weren’t in my early twenties. But it’s true I’ve gotten more sure in my knowledge of what I’ll enjoy.
Another way to look at it: I know what I like, and I know my safe harbors more than I ever did before. And those aren’t bad things, per se. Besides, at my minimum weight and maximum hairline, being cool is quite thoroughly through with me.