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Does anyone else have trouble truly enjoying music anymore?
Specifically, in a world where I can hear any song I want at any time on demand, and I can listen anywhere and everywhere I go, I've found that I get weary of the same ~1000 songs that end up cycling through my playlist, though they're all good songs, and even branching out to less-repeated songs I rarely find one that actually gets an emotional reaction or strikes me as a 'banger' as the kids say. Its just the Diegetic background music of my life.
Occasionally I find a new artist with some solid songs that I end up playing on loop for a couple weeks, then I add a couple good songs from them into my larger playlist, and go back to baseline.
Note, this is NOT a complaint that "all modern music sucks." More like I've saturated my brain with the music I like to the point that I can't properly enjoy it anymore?
Also, live concerts are still a blast, so I also don't think its a general sense of anhedonia.
I have the same problem.
The issue is largely compulsive listening, I think. The more you listen to music, the more it feels weird to go without it for any extended period of time, so you keep recycling the songs you like over and over again until they ultimately lose their lustre. For me, the problem also extends to songs I haven't listened to before. If I've already listened to songs of the same genre extensively I know roughly what to expect from them, and even on first listen the emotional impact is already diminished.
Granted, in my case it could be possible that anhedonia might be partly contributing to it, but I don't think that's fully the issue with me either. Fatigue-by-overexposure is a very annoying thing that I suspect is only really possible to overcome through abstaining.
This is similar to my feelings. Especially in the 'simpler' genres, it feels like most of the space of melodies and tunes has been explored. Even the lyrics get stale after a while. You can switch things up by mixing in new instruments or genre-swapping an existing song, but I'm pretty confident I'll never encounter a song that actually breaks the basic conventions of the genre in a new way. I guess that's the whole point of genres, though. To define a particular finite area of all possible music-space, for easier identification.
But I think I have entirely killed off the genre of "Alternative Rock" for myself (sans a select number of particularly good songs) simply because I've listened to the best the genre has to offer and there's almost no novelty left at all. I listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers (among others) obsessively in college, now I just don't bother with their songs. And I do NOT think its because my 'tastes have changed' either!
Just to make the point, I've gotten myself listening to new age/Flamenco music similar to that by Govi because the melodies are complex and hard to predict (so far, I'm sure I'll learn them eventually) and just pleasing to the ear.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_JUiwctrffY
But still, I wouldn't say I'm having some rapturous response to the music.
Yep, the problem is very pronounced in the simpler genres for sure, which incidentally is the type of music that seems to have most widespread marketability. I think initial accessibility often comes with tradeoffs when it comes to how much you can listen to that type of music without getting bored.
I think I've fundamentally ruined most genres for myself, having learned the conventions of all the genres I like, and a lot of the artists and songs that have any staying power for me are fairly odd and veer towards being quite maximalist in style. Stuff that's initially more difficult to get used to. I think about 50% of what I hear would be considered unlistenable by most people I know, who don't seem to acclimatise to (and get bored of) genres as fast as I do.
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