How do I find new music now that I’m old and irrelevant?

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2:03I always feel like a stoned college freshman when I try to bring this up. But would it be okay for just a moment to admit that the idea of music doesn't really make any sense? Like, at some point, humans figured out that if you arrange strings a certain way, or if you blow through hollow wood correctly, sounds are made. I'm fine with that part. The sounds feel good to hear. I get that. but the fact that the sounds make us feel emotions, I have fundamentally never really gotten over. Like it's bizarre that there are melodies or snatches of lyrics that I heard as a kid that convinced me I was already a wistful old man.

2:40And it is more bizarre that there are sad songs that I've listened to so many times that they've accumulated all the sadnesses I felt. And then even more weirdly, I enjoy that feeling. Like I go back to that sadness even on days when I feel great? So there's that level of weirdness, but there's a further one. At some point, we decided to have opinions about the notes that make us feel things. Like opinions like, your favorite song is cheesy, my favorite song is good. That's a crazy thing to think, that one arrangement of the same five notes in a different order than another is superior. I know, I know, stoned college freshman.

3:19I guess I always felt envious of music. The work I try to do tries to figure out what's going on and how to feel about it. Then these stories we make try to take the feelings I have when I'm working on them and give them to other people through sound. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but it never works as immediately or as powerfully as a good song does. Anyway, maybe that's a long way of saying I like music and I like thinking about music. And lately I've had a question about music that's not very intellectual or bong-hitty, that's just about something that's been bothering me.

3:53This thing happens to me. I don't think it's uncommon. But every once in a while, I'll get into a rut with music discovery. I'll just stop finding new songs. And when I do, I go back to the music of my youth, the stuff I liked when I was, like, 14, mostly, like, emo-y pop-punk and some hip-hop. And I'll just hang out there in old songs and old feelings until something new bumps into me, and then I'll listen to that for a while. But lately, I feel like the getting stuck in the old stuff happens more often and it lasts longer. And a few months ago, I had that feeling of looking around and wondering, how long have I been stuck here exactly?

4:28Like, when was the last time I found something new to love? And I realized, too, that somehow this was a problem I no longer really knew how to solve. Or more accurately, every solution felt a little embarrassing. Shazam more aggressively. Ask my grown-up friends to make me playlists. And then I realized, oh, wait, I have a job. And that job is to answer questions. So this week, I've invited Califa Sané to search engine. For 19 years, he's been professionally finding new music and getting audiences excited about that music. These days, he's a staff writer at The New Yorker, as well as the author of Major Labels, a very fascinating book that basically speedruns through the entire modern history of pop music.

5:12Califa is also a person who happens to possess what I would say is the least predictable mind I've ever encountered. So I invited him here to answer this question. How am I supposed to find new music now that I'm old and irrelevant? Okay, welcome to Search Engine. I'm an expert in being old and irrelevant, so thank you for having me. So I had like a rough sketch of how I wanted this conversation to go. Basically, I want to understand how you listen to music, how you decide what you like, what you don't like. Then I want to ask you some soul-searching questions about my own hopes and fears. And then I just want to get to my headline question, which is just literally, how do I find new music?

5:50Yeah. So you write about music for a living, which if someone loves music, and most people do, that seems like a fantasy job, sort of like working at the chocolate factory. We went to a concert recently, and it sort of punctured that fantasy for me. It was a band called Avoid. They were sort of a hot topic, new metal sounding band. I did not realize this is music that is having a revival, but apparently it is.

6:24You want to describe a void? Really, a band, I love this album they put out called Cult Mentality. When we saw them, they were part of a four-band build. All the bands were various types of emo, screamo. I think at least one of the bands was Christian. And so this was not a convention of tastemakers. And I always like being at a place that's outside of the world of tastemakers and outside of what's supposed to be hit. Part of what was interesting to me going with you is like, it's not, I don't know, it's not like I thought like music critics jumped in the mosh pit a lot. But like, you were kind of, like my image from the show is you were like a head taller than everybody.

7:05And you were just sort of Spock-like absorbing the scene. Like, you seem to be participating in a different way than if you were just going as, like, a music fan. Well, yeah. I mean, this is one of the first weird things I realized when I started going to concerts for a living in 2002 when I got hired by the New York Times. It was like, often I was there by myself. Like, in theory, when you tell your friends you've got this amazing gig at the New York Times as a music critic, they're like, great, we can go to free concerts whenever. And then after about a month or two, you run out of friends, right?

7:35And it's like a Tuesday night, and you're at some venue someplace seeing some band that none of your friends particularly like, and they're like, maybe I'll stay home. And so you find yourself at concerts alone a lot, which is kind of strange already, right? Most people who go to shows are there with friends. It's kind of a social thing. If they're not there with friends, it's because they're a super fan and they're super focused on what's going on. And so I kind of got used to being a person by myself at a concert, thinking about the music, but not hanging out with my friends, not necessarily getting drunk.

8:06And, you know, it feels like, oh, I get to experience music live. Like, that's exciting for me. That's fun. That's interesting. This band, Caliph, had taken me to see, he'd never seen before. When he invited me, I'd done what has become the modern ritual of checking out a band, listened to their top five on Spotify. And I didn't know what I thought of them, if I liked them or not. But now we were at the show, and I was trying to make up my mind. Were they good? Were they corny? Did I want to be taken in by this? I was also watching Kay watch the band, wondering what was happening in his brain.

8:38One of the first things I noticed seeing this band live was they don't have a bass player. Right. You pointed that out. I would not have noticed that, which seems like a big thing to not notice, honestly. They had two guitarists? They had two guitarists and a singer and a drummer, no bass player. I think you did some quick research on Twitter and found out that the bassist had quit, maybe? They talked about sort of trying to replace the bass player and clearly just, like, given up on that. Yeah, and they were playing to a track. Lots of musicians do. So it made me think about how the basic structure of a rock band, like, hasn't changed in 50 years, right?

9:13You still expect to see a drummer and a bass player and a guitarist and a singer if you're seeing a rock band. And so watching this group, I was like, oh, there is a reason why most bands have a bassist. So this is already interesting to me. The whole time I'm at a show, I now realize I'm just wondering, do I like this or do I not like this? Kay, on the other hand, is having a totally different experience. He's thinking about genre. How genre in music is a set of rules, really. And how this rock band, with their lack of a bassist, is breaking one of those rules. And what that means. I don't know how many concerts you have to go to before Do I Like This?

9:49with all of its underlying unspoken anxieties. It becomes a boring question. but I'm a bit envious that Kay has somehow reached new metal nirvana. To be fair, though, he's been to a lot of concerts. He told me about how he first started going as a kid. I was living in suburban Connecticut. My first, like, punk rock concert, I got my mom to take me to see the Ramones. Oh, wow. It was, I think it was an 18-plus concert, maybe, and so that was the only way they'd let me in was with my mom. So she came? She came, and she hung out by the bar while I was there in the pit, like watching the Ramones play, getting my mind blown.

10:25And then, you know, maybe half a year later, I went to see Fugazi at a club called The Channel in South Boston.

10:41Fugazi, kind of a post-hardcore band. And that was exciting in a whole different way. There were skinheads there. I'd never seen skinheads in person. Were they like Nazi skinheads or just like... In my mind, that's what I'm wondering. I'm like, oh, are they scary? Are they dangerous? Are they violent? Is this bad? That was part of the excitement. I didn't talk to them to ask them. Knowing what I know now about the Boston scene at the time and who else was playing, I'm guessing they did not have a strong neo-Nazi ideology. But, you know, that did give me a sense that I was kind of submerged in some other world.

11:14And to me, that's the best thing about music, is that you can get submerged in some different world, whether that's by going to a concert or just by listening to a song and imagining the world that the music comes out of. It's funny, when I was a kid, I was growing up in Philadelphia, and I would go to shows in the city. and I've never been more physically scared than going to Philly punk shows because it was like college kids from UPenn and Drexel and Temple, but then like violent, hardcore, working class kids from Kensington. And there'd be a lot of fights and a lot of fights would start on an internet message board and like somebody would say something cheeky.

11:55And then like the first hardcore show I went to, this very vivid memory of this guy was standing in front of me and he said something somebody didn't like on, like, Makeout Club or something. And this kid walked up and just punched him in the face and said, you just got knocked the fuck out, dot com. And the guy went down, like, bleeding, and this guy took his bloody shirt off and put it on, like, a trophy. And I was so scared, but also so addicted to the feeling of how scary that was. Right. and wanting to understand I think music and drugs, what they share in common is they put very different people in the same place sometimes.

12:35It's one of their places where people cross over, sometimes really badly. But I remember that feeling of just like, what have I gotten myself into? I think I liked as much as I liked the music or more. Yeah, and it's also something about the limits of representation. People talk about seeing themselves and their values represented in the culture that they love. And that's one thing that music can do. But another thing that music can do is provide a more alienating experience, right? You're gravitated towards something because it doesn't represent you, because it feels different, it feels wrong, it feels strange, and you're like, what's going on here?

13:11It's voyeuristic. It feels sometimes like you're trespassing. And that's another form of pleasure, of excitement that you can get from music. It's funny you say that, because the Philly scene was obsessed with identifying trespassers. Like my favorite band was this punk band called Kid Dynamite.

13:38And the singer had this line about how something, something, something in my city. And I remember people got really mad because they were like, you moved here recently. Like he was like a poser for referring to the place where he lived as his city. And I just remember being like, I'm voluntarily choosing to go to a place where they hunt and eat suburban kids. And all I want to do is quietly be in that place. I wanted that more than anything. Well, and that form of gatekeeping helps create and nurture intimacy, right? Usually any space that has that sense of intimacy is a space where some people are kept out, right?

14:13There is this dynamic between exclusion and inclusion. And so part of what is defined often, especially punk in America, is that it's been these tribal scenes that feel really, really intimate and really special. And part of what keeps them feeling that way is this sense that, like, not everyone is welcome. So were you addicted to the feeling of not being welcome? I think I was. Yeah, I mean, I didn't. My relationship with punk as a teenager was, at first, it was very parasocial. Me and my best friend Matt in suburban Connecticut, you know, we were like nice boys who went to prep school. We didn't know a lot of punks.

14:52We weren't in a punk scene. So we were, you know, reading fanzines and hearing records and imagining what this world was. But yeah, I think part of the appeal of this world was it's not just filled with kids like us. Like, it's filled with maniacs. It's like, you know, you're hearing all sorts of stuff and you're reading maximum rock and roll and you're hearing stories about what's happening at CBGBs and like there is this whole other world and it doesn't feel like our day-to-day world. We're going to take a quick break. Afterwards, what is Kelle Fasane, a person unafraid of most things, afraid to talk about on this podcast?

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17:50so before the break we were talking about being young listening to music so that you can slip in and out of identities and in and out of scenes obviously as an adult most of us are out of that stage of life i personally probably am too old to pass into a goth moment without at least a lot of unwanted commentary from my friends. It's funny, as much as I care about music, I think there's something in my mind that insists that caring now is probably silly. Like, in my heart, I think I believe that music belongs to teenagers. Because when you're a teenager, your feelings are bigger than your body, life is embarrassing, and music is really the only thing that speaks to that condition.

18:27As an adult, it feels strange to still be chasing that moment, maybe even inappropriate. Galva doesn't think it's inappropriate, but he is sort of skeptical of the idea that any adult actually needs to move past the music they liked as a teenager. And that's why when you talk about how to find new music, my first reaction is, why on earth would you want to do that?

18:53Well, why do you say that? Well, not that it's a bad idea, but various studies have shown that people's peak of new music exploration came around the age of 24, and that by the age of 33 or so, people basically stopped discovering new music regularly and for the rest of their life ended up listening to, you know, the stuff they'd listened to in high school and college. And I think there's some truth to that. I think for many people, the music they listened to in high school, even if at the time they thought maybe it was going to end up being a little silly, probably still has a special place in your heart.

19:27And the music you listened to in your early 20s probably still moves you on some level. Maybe not every single album, but your favorite albums or certain of those albums probably still sound and feel really emotionally vivid. Is that the case for you? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, my musical consumption is a little bit unusual because ever since the 90s, I've spent like a good portion of my waking hours like trying to find new music in a way that can be a little deflating, right? If I'm talking to someone and they're like, oh, how'd you get into this thing? And often there's not a cute story. Often it's like, well, I went through the entire billboard chart one week and listened to every single band on it.

20:07But no, there's the stuff I listened to in high school or in college. Absolutely. It's still it's it's etched into me. Well, this is I mean, I feel like one of the other things I think about is that, you know, like when I'm like in the car with my dad thinking about his relationships and music of his youth and the relationship to my youth. there was like a pipeline for him for music. And it was like, songs are played on the radio. You go to the record store and you buy the songs that you heard on the radio. And that's basically it. Maybe the guy at the record store tells you about some other songs.

20:38And one of the things that's been interesting for my generation and the generations after is that every five or ten years, it's not just that the music changes, it's like the discovery mechanism changes. Like, I will now feel weird because I'll find music on TikTok.

21:00And there's a part of my brain that says, don't do that. Like the same way that I'll have skepticism about really enjoying a pop song, or I'm like, should I be enjoying a pop song? I'm like, is this a legitimate avenue for finding music? What? PJ, you got to stop second guessing yourself, man. I know, really. What are you doing? This is insane. It's insane. It's a horrible brain to voluntarily live in.

21:26Crypto boy, not at all, not even one Bitcoin. CEO of being unemployed. I got nothing left to give no to another crypto boy. But I just mean there's like those questions don't – I'm not even sure how you would go about answering those questions. What would it even mean for a certain platform to be the wrong way to discover something? I don't know. Would that mean that it's leading you toward music that you enjoy for a short time but don't end up loving for a longer time? I think that is kind of what I found from TikTok stuff. Because it favors a 15-second hook, there are a lot of literally bubblegum songs where everything they have good, they sort of push to the front.

22:08And they don't necessarily last for very long. There's also just something that I find embarrassing about, I don't know, where you get your music from, I feel slightly self-conscious about. But it's funny, there's a technical issue here, right, which is the idea of musical pleasure being front-loaded in a song so that all the exciting stuff happens up front. I think about dancehall reggae.

22:41A lot of those dance hall reggae tracks, traditionally, like maybe they hit you with a chorus and then a verse. And then, you know, if you're in a dance hall with a selector and they're juggling, they're playing a bunch of dance hall records, they're only giving you like 40 seconds of each one. And then they're moving on to the next one. So there is a long tradition in popular music of front-loading. And the idea is that the idea that, like, the fun stuff, the good stuff happens up front. And so it's interesting to me that TikTok would be, like, the latest iteration of that. And you've seen certain tracks where there's just a fun little hook or a fun little sound in the first 10 seconds.

23:18And that's the thing that goes viral. Yeah, it feels like they, like, spend all their ammunition. And then, which I guess is, it's like, I feel like I'm describing this stuff as if I'm more of, like, a fire and brimstone music fundamentalist. than I actually am. I think it's just, it's strange. It's like the more I started to think about, like to go back to a question you asked before, like the more I was stuck on why am I not finding new music? The more I was like, why does that matter to me? Is it bad? Or should I feel like I'm cheating myself if at 37, I'm just like choosing to go on the same like feelings ride that I was going on at 15, like over and over again?