Would we still like what we liked and now love?

My son and I are fishing this afternoon and while pulling in a few choice largemouth and catfish we're grooving to some Bob Marley. After Legend was over I decided to rock it up a bit with some old Leppard.
About halfway through High 'n Dry I started thinking……
My tastes have changed.
So, High 'n Dry is one of my old faves and as I'm listening I thought…."I wonder if I'd like High 'n Dry as much as I do now if it were released today?"
So then I got to thinking a bit more and realized that if "Shout at the Devil", "Too Fast For Love", "Kill 'Em All", "Ride the Lightning", "Back in Black", "Holy Diver", "Last in Line", "The Number of the Beast" were all released today I think I'd still love them as much as I do now.
But what about High 'n Dry?
What about "Stay Hungry" by TS?
What about "Headhunter" by Krokus?
What about "Slide It In" by Whitesnake?
Don't get me wrong, I love all those last 4 and spin them regularly, but what if Stay Hungry were released July 20, 2014? Would I chalk it up as pop nicklebackish junk or would this 45 year old man who still enjoys it, think it's worth plopping down $10?
Not that any of this matters, just some random thoughts and would love to hear yours………..
C.

It's a weird question. Because I really didn't listen to much metal at all for a long long time, I've kind of had to revisit everything so now the stuff that I listen to is the stuff that I either still love or love a lot more now than I ever did.

Back when I was first listening to metal and my approach to it was childlike, I had very little time for subtlety so the heavier the better, so a lot of stuff like early Scorpions, early Priest, Deep Purple, early Whitesnake, the latter Ozzy Sabbath albums all got dismissed as hippy crap! These are the albums that I've grown to love second time round, if they were released now I'd be boring the arse off you guys about them on the retro thread!   

Other stuff that I did like then but to be honest do absolutely nothing for me now like Shout at the Devil, Mental Health and stuff like them, i really can't stand that super slick '80s sound

Thrash? Impossible question, if the albums I love were not made in the '80s then there would be no thrash metal.

And then the classics, Ride the Lightning, Killers, Stained Class, Master of Reality, Overkill, Highway to Hell, Heaven & Hell etc. I think that these records would blow me away whenever they were released.

This may be the reason why I don't care for most of 80's favorites. Kiss, Leppard - meh, haven't been there, can't connect.
For sure though I would've liked Accept as much as I did a decade ago.

I think evolving tastes are credible, but nostalgia not so much. E.g., if you dislike something now because there was just the nostalgia factor, and nothing to do with taste, I would venture to say you never truly got into it in the first place. I try to take a "desert island" approach with everything: I need to listen to this music in absolutely zero context... no associations, no hype, no time period, nothing. That stuff can come later, it can come later and help me make memories with the music, but it shouldn't pre-inform it.

I think there are some releases that just don't age well, but there are others that have a timeless quality. For instance, I really dug the first two Extreme albums when they came out, but they do nothing for me now. However, I still like all the albums that got me into metal in the first place - Metal Health, High N Dry, Pyromania, Screaming For Vengeance, Defenders of the Faith, Too Fast For Love, etc...

I very much enjoy new albums done in a traditional metal style as well. If Headhunter was released next month, it would probably make my best of 2014. So in that sense, I don't think my tastes have changed at all.

Actually, I remember being in my car one day in 1997 listening to the new Bruce Dickinson album and thinking "I will never stop listening to heavy metal." It was an epiphany of sorts, because I had many friends that had stopped listening to metal at that point - which I found completely baffling. Did they never like it to begin with? Was it all just a fad to them?

That's a good question that definitely deserves more than just a "yes" or a "no."

I think about most of the bands I listen to and cling to adamantly and wonder if I'm still as big a fan as I was when I first heard them. Back when I was a wee lad (and by that, I mean between eight and ten, so not so wee), I first heard "Symphony of Destruction" around that age. I was blown away by the crunchy guitars, the dark meaningful lyrics, and the amazing compositin. Thus began my transition from rap to heavy metal and there would it be forever cemented when I hit my teenage years as I struggled through high school towards graduation.

Megadeth is still a favorite band of mine, but as far as being my all-time favorite band ever now, I'm unsure if I can make that claim anymore given the ever-increasing number of bands I have in my playlist. Behemoth, Deicide, Vader, Dark Angel, Kreator, Goatwhore, Death Angel; and even a number of new bands like Exorcism, Aeternam, Animals as Leaders, and so on and so forth, Megadeth doesn't sit high on my radar as the penultimate band to follow any longer.

I sometimes ask myself if I'll like heavy metal forever, even after I turn 50 and slow down to appreciate the smaller things in life. I'm 22 now and have many more years ahead of me. Ozzy Osbourne is 65 and he's still rocking out. Tom Araya is 52 years old and still the lead vocalist for Slayer, a band that's over 30 years old now.

I want to last as long as these legends of heavy metal, but life is the strangest enigma ever, so I'm unsure if I'll even be able to, let alone my interest in the music I love so much is going to last.

My tastes have changed but there are a lot of albums that I would still love even if released next month. I don't discount new music because its new - there is a lot of great new music. I dont think older music is better because its old - not all the stuff i have liked stands up to the test of time.

I think I would still like a lot of the classic 80s stuff because it really just boils down to good songwriting and catchiness.Two things that a lot of new,popular music lacks.

I think that a boy of 15 in 2014 that listen for the first time to THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST today, 20 of may, will like it the same as when a boy of 15 back in 83 listen to THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST for the first time back in 83. If both boys are into traditional heavy metal, imo the impact is the same, today or when it was released. The reason is because its timeless music, great songs and just amazing for any 15 year old into heavy metal, today or back in 83.

You dont have to be there when a álbum is released. You can discover that álbum after 20 years and like it the same as your dad did back in 85 for exemple.

I recently read an article about hoarders and compulsive shoppers. With the compulsive shoppers, a lot of times their compulsions are a result of trying to recapture or recreate memories from their past with objects that remind them of that time. They buy items thinking it will make them happy, but the newness wears off and they move onto something else. In a related way, I think we're the same with our music purchases.

Think about your absolute favorite albums and chances are, there is a specific memory attached with it. Where you heard it first, something you were doing while the album played, etc. The memories associated with the album is sometimes more important than the album itself and despite playing it a million times over, it never gets old to you.

It's almost impossible to re-create those memories or feelings with newer music that you just clicked and bought on Amazon because you were bored. Chances are, you are never going to "bond" with newer music like you did with the old stuff. I'll give you an example from my own life.

The Bullet Boys s/t debut, depending on your opinion of the band, is a decent enough album. Some like it, others don't. But for me, it's a classic that I'd never tire of because of the memories associated with it. Put on any track from that album and I'm instantly taken back to Senior Week 1989 in Wildwood NJ with all my buddies, just ripping it up and having a blast. Nothing is ever gonna replace those memories and I'll always have a soft spot for that album (among other tapes played that week).

Watching a YouTube link that someone posts here and then adding that album to my ebay cart just ain't the same. Or kids that just download tracks out of boredom.

It's still possible with newer music, but it might be more of a challenge in a digital world. Creating memories associated with the music will make "classics" of any age.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

It's almost impossible to re-create those memories or feelings with newer music that you just clicked and bought on Amazon because you were bored. Chances are, you are never going to "bond" with newer music like you did with the old stuff. I'll give you an example from my own life.

BINGO!

I still enjoy Michael Jackson, Duran Duran and a lot of eighties pop from when I was a kid. An album like Shout at the Devil would most likely bomb today or be regarded as a joke ala Steel Panther. I still listen to 80's thrash and always will. Oddly enough, stuff that I found "poserish" like most 70's classic rock and NWOBHM are now something as an adult I think is awesome. I just listened to "Roundabout" by YES and I would've told you it sucked when I was 17. Now as an adult I really am starting to dig that stuff.

Good...good...let the prog flow through you..

Thanks for the replies all. Kinda what I thought. A lot of the old stuff I still listen to I do b/c of old memories, but some simply because it's good.
Dokken Under Lock and Key and Tooth and Nail remind me of cruising in my best friends Firebird.
In the past two years I've become an Opeth convert. I know in 15-20 years I'll still enjoy it and I have no memories except seeing them in April '13.
Not sure if Shout at the Devil would go over like Steel Panther….. Something about the way the drums and guitar just punch you in the gut on Shout makes it timeless. (Saw Steel Panther a week ago and it was one of the most fun concerts I've been to in a long time..I know….. get your stones and bullwhips ready, but I had a great time, no apologies, lol)
90125 by Yes was released when I was in 9th or 10th grade and I would have told you then how bad it was (not nearly hard enough), but Short-Fuse you're right, it's really really good stuff that I've been spinning for the last decade.
Kinda what MetalGuy71 said…..I think timeless is timeless unless you have memories attached to it and then it's timeless regardless of quality. (Like the soundtrack to "Return of the Living Dead". I absolutely love it, but if you have no memories attached, YRMV)
  
Chris

I think I would like the same albums albums and bands, with the exception of the "flash in the pan" bands/albums. I don't see albums like Metal Health having the same impact that it did on me as an 8th grader.

Also saw Steel Panther last Friday - fun show and 4th time I have seen them.

I've met some people who look at the music they listened to in their teens in a sort of, "Oh, I used to listen to THAT music before I developed taste" kind of way (though it's never worded that politely   ).

That view has always left me a bit cold because, if it worked then, there was something in you that it clicked with, even if it was god-awful goth metal or whatever. My philosophy is to own your past tastes and incorporate them into your present tastes because the joy is still there.

As for whether the stuff that worked THEN would work NOW, that's hard to say. Those moments and that music (whatever they were) were really specific intersections that just worked for some inexplicable reason. Something that kicks you square in the chest at 19 is not going to have the same impact at 31 unless you're living out some kind of really arrested adolescence. It just won't. Does that make it bad? Not really.

I still follow bands I loved in my teens knowing they won't wow me the way they did when they first made landfall. That they won't reach that height again is ok. Memories are an alright thing to refer back to.

It may not be something that will manifest itself in the same way twice, but it always comes around. Listening is kind of like a planetary orbit and as taste evolves, the orbit changes in size. Mine has pretty much expanded out, so it just takes longer for me to swing back around to some genres or artists, but they inevitably come up again before too long.

Maybe a roundabout answer to the question, but my take on it.

As much as my tastes have evolved and opened up over the years I still think I'd dig the same stuff from back then if it was released today.  There's a lot of nostalgia tied up in those records, but even outside of that there is something so timeless to me about an album like Stay Hungry.  Stuff just never gets old to my ears.

In fact in the case of a record like And Justice For All my loving of it has only grown with time.  When it was released I really liked it.  More than most fans.  But admittedly I thought some of it was too long and was prone to get bored with it.  These days it's a quick listen that I neither get bored or restless with.  And if it came out today it'd be a top pick for the year.  No question.