Musical taste shrinkage (Was Re: 93.7 deleted from my car preset)

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Doug Broda wrote:
>But is there ANY reason to believe that we reared on broad-based Top 40
>have had the range we like to listen to shrink, any reason to believe our
>preferences changed over the last 20-35 years?

        You'll have to define "we." Maybe a significant number of people on
this list, and people in the radio business generally, like to listen to a
relative wide range of music and actually are interested in what's new
today in rock and pop music. Although a lot of the dial-twisting is done
for professional reasons, not necessarily for music that suits a person's
personal taste. And based on (1.) what seems to succeed in radio today; and
(2.) the actual people I know in my actual life, the answer is that most
people like to listen to a very narrow range of music.
        For most 30- and 40- and 50-somethings, that seems to be whatever
they listened to in their 20s. If they have to listen to any newer music,
they want it to be mild pop singing music. That's why you have a dial full
of classic rock and oldies stations, under various variations, country
stations, and "lite" FMs. The #1 station in the Hartford market is the 1999
equivalent of elevator music, with traffic reports. Just behind it is the
news-talk (audience of boomers not listening to any music on the radio
anymore). I'm 47 and know just about no one socially who is anywhere around
my age (say, 40 to 55) outside of the radio and music businesses, who has
even a zillionth of an ounce of interest in listening to the hip-hop
station, or the modern rock station, or even the active rock station, not
to mention reggae and rap.

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