Genres of Music; Age 'per se'.

I play music. A lot of "genres" are just the current state of recording and fashions. Allowing for personal development, the musician and music lover picks up new things as they progress. Few people listen to nothing but pop after a while. Older people don't usually pay a lot of attention to new forms of music, because they've moved a long way in their own tastes, and their tastes are usually more complex. Musical xenophobia, in the form of just sticking to one type of music, is a form of illiteracy. Classic instance would be the country music fan who just doesn't listen to anything else. I really don't have a lot of time for country as a genre, because it's so insular, but I would say in the same breath that Chet Atkins is one of the most informative guitarists I've ever heard, and Jim Webb is a particularly impressive songwriter. I finally figured out that country as folk music, a la Woody Guthrie, is a quite different ball game. Took one listen to Woody to figure that out, so my own education was a bit lacking. Metal and thrash are really overplayed forms of rock, and are as deeply insular as country in their own way. Techno and hip hop are to me stagnant, partly because of the way they're presented, and partly because those patches they're using are older than the people playing them. There's a lack of character in them, particularly hip hop, which is more formula than music. This is made a bit more irritating to me, because I'm a soul fan, and to me hip hop is just nursery rhymes, a denigration of black music. I heard some guy with a fantastic singing voice, a really good, powerful soul-standard vocal... and he's doing a three note thing which belongs in kindergarten...shudder... Actually, that probably says it. The more you hear, the better educated you get, and the stronger your opinions are likely to be about genres. I started playing rock, and had to move to jazz, because rock was just too easy technically, and, eventually, too predictable. If rock is primary school, jazz is university, even compared to classical, which isn't really more complex than jazz, just looks as if it is.