Are YOU too Old to Rock and Roll?

I'm constantly searching for new music or older music that eluded me. For a while there I bought almost no music due to a combination of lethargy and budget. It didn't help that I had jobs where music was not allowed. Now I have a job that allows me to listen to and afford plenty of music. I've also been collecting quite a few band shirts.

I'm not nearly as old as you guys, lol, but even in the decade or so I've been religiously listening to music, I've experienced these kinds of shifts in tastes and broadening horizons that some of y'all seem to be talking about. I'd actually say this forum (thanks to people like SD, other Shawn, Joe Baca, Akeldama, etc. -- Those who've been kind to me, you know who you are) really helped me mold my tastes into a sharper, more nuanced form with a better ear for what really speaks to me in music.
And there was a time where all I listened to (and wanted to listen to) was metal, but I quickly grew bored with that, despite my love for the genre.

There've been moments through the last couple of years where I've noticed I listen to less metal than I used to, especially the more extreme subgenres, but I always end up coming back to it at some time or another after a long kick on any other genre. It's like metal (and progressive rock) are my comfortable home bases that I return to during my excursions into other genres. Since then I've found that jazz, psychedelia, folk, bluegrass, avant-garde, hip-hop, funk, reggae, ambient, and a ton of other genres speak to me in the same meaningful ways that metal first spoke to me. So in a roundabout way, I can thank that early primal love for Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden for the general love of musical expression that I have now.

To speak to another point a couple of you made, I also hear the "you don't look like the type to listen to metal" accusation a lot, haha. Even though I've had long hair for over a year now, I've always been the type to dress mostly conservatively -- ya know, button ups, sweaters, jeans, boots, etc. Band t-shirts sometimes give it away, but usually I still get a comment like, "you don't look like the type who'd listen to Iron Maiden or Tool" or whatever shirt I'm wearing that day.

At this point, I've come to wear that kind of incongruity in image on my sleeves. It's funny to play on others' expectations of you by going over to their place dressed like Mr. Rogers if he were a hippie and asking to hear a Gorguts song on the stereo.

DallasBlack wrote:

I'm constantly searching for new music or older music that eluded me. For a while there I bought almost no music due to a combination of lethargy and budget. It didn't help that I had jobs where music was not allowed. Now I have a job that allows me to listen to and afford plenty of music. I've also been collecting quite a few band shirts.

I'm an assistant manager at Dollar General, and the store's radio has speakers hooked up on both sides of the sales floor. So every time I'm at work, I plug in my MP3 player and blast 70's-80's classic rock/hair metal music all day. That right there has led to me amassing a huge digital collection from amazon.

I thought of Blackie Lawless in the shower today - nothing perverted relax.
The song “ I wanna be somebody “ - in particular - the video -
There’s a song line in there “ I’m never getting old “ - then amazing guitar solo -
I wonder if Blackie plays that song today - and has the nerve to sing that line - lol

Required Fields wrote:

I don't think too many people "grow out" of metal, but I do know of plenty who only like metal of a certain era.

I have spoken to some people who knew people that listened to a fair bit of metal growing up, and a number of years later, they do still like metal. However, the only metal they still listen to is the metal they grew up on, and nothing else. They have not heard any of the newer metal bands, and seem to have no interest in them. Even the newer albums by the old guard, the bands they grew up loving, they have no interest in hearing what they're like (in some cases, they're better off not having heard them, but many of them still make great albums).

Anyways, I do know of some people who are like this for some other kinds of music, such as jazz, rap, etc. They only have interest in a certain era of it. They'll check out some newer stuff in some genres, but not others.

I make a reference to people like these in my new video:


The wind kind of drowned out some of what I said at parts of the video, but the points are there.

Oh, yeah, I have related the tale of a "friend of a friend" who is legit still only listening to whatever he owned and liked in high school in the mid to late 1980's. The guy who I started the thread about came right out and posted that he no longer has the "ear" for bands like Testament or Primal Fear and wants nothing heavier/ louder than Danger Danger or Dokken. I like all four of those bands, but, as I said on page 1, I can't imagine turning 50 or 60 years old someday and only listening to the mellowest stuff from the latter two bands.

I have much respect for those who legitimately "broaden their tastes" but not those who totally turn their back on Metal by calling it a phase or "growing out" of it and completely eschewing it for other types of music. It has meant far to much to me, and I am sure to my Metal brothers here, to let it be treated that way.

I listen to metal to this day, but alot of the new stuff sounds like I have heard it before (and done better).I guess I'm harder to impress. A couple of newer bands I like are Vektor and Toxic Holocaust.

I'm almost 48 and most of my old metalhead and punk friends have moved to different styles of music and lifestyles. Many that I never thought would and thought were my brothers. Now some even talk trash about me still listening and wearing the stuff that I do. I guess for me it's even worse in a way because I love hardcore punk just as much as metal and it's full of rebellious and usually younger persons ways of thinking. My playlist is still nothing but D.R.I., OzzY, Minor Threat, Dokken, Circle Jerks, Kreator, The Exploited, Youth Of Today, Pantera, Ratt, Motorhead, Great White, Gorilla Biscuits... well you get the jest. And then of course a lot of newer bands in the same genre's of course. It's never going to change with me, NEVER! It's not just music, it's a LIFEstyle.

7thSecond wrote:

I'm almost 48 and most of my old metalhead and punk friends have moved to different styles of music and lifestyles. Many that I never thought would and thought were my brothers. Now some even talk trash about me still listening and wearing the stuff that I do. I guess for me it's even worse in a way because I love hardcore punk just as much as metal and it's full of rebellious and usually younger persons ways of thinking. My playlist is still nothing but D.R.I., OzzY, Minor Threat, Dokken, Circle Jerks, Kreator, The Exploited, Youth Of Today, Pantera, Ratt, Motorhead, Great White, Gorilla Biscuits... well you get the jest. And then of course a lot of newer bands in the same genre's of course. It's never going to change with me, NEVER! It's not just music, it's a LIFEstyle.

Keep your head high, brother!