Yesterday I came across an article in the Guardian headlined "Bring that beat back: why are people in their 30s giving up on music?"
Near the beginning, the author says: "For the last few years, I have felt the inescapable disappearance of music from my friends’ lives. Even people with whom I have longstanding relationships that were born from a shared love of music have simply let it go, or let it fade deep into the background. A 2015 study of people’s listening habits on Spotify found that most people stop listening to new music at 33; a 2018 report by Deezer had it at 30. In my 20s, the idea that people’s appetite to consume new music regularly would be switched off like some kind of tap was ludicrous. However, now I’m 36, it’s difficult to argue with."
As the article makes clear, "music" here is taken to mean "pop music". It's not difficult to see (although not mentioned by the author!) why this might be: new pop music might simply be going through a phase of not being very interesting, and/or it generally deals with issues which are shall we say more real to most people in their teens and 20s. But it set me thinking about whether and how this phenomenon might be parallelled in other musical areas. Do some people also get sated by classical music or jazz when other responsibilities enter their lives? Or do the people referenced in this article stop listening to pop music and move on to Bach and Beethoven or Miles and Monk? My tentative thought is that current listening technology has tended to level everything out in the pop music world and so people might well get bored with it, whereas in other areas it has suddenly made previously obscure musics readily available, which might have the opposite effect? These are unformed thoughts - maybe others here have something more coherent to say?
Near the beginning, the author says: "For the last few years, I have felt the inescapable disappearance of music from my friends’ lives. Even people with whom I have longstanding relationships that were born from a shared love of music have simply let it go, or let it fade deep into the background. A 2015 study of people’s listening habits on Spotify found that most people stop listening to new music at 33; a 2018 report by Deezer had it at 30. In my 20s, the idea that people’s appetite to consume new music regularly would be switched off like some kind of tap was ludicrous. However, now I’m 36, it’s difficult to argue with."
As the article makes clear, "music" here is taken to mean "pop music". It's not difficult to see (although not mentioned by the author!) why this might be: new pop music might simply be going through a phase of not being very interesting, and/or it generally deals with issues which are shall we say more real to most people in their teens and 20s. But it set me thinking about whether and how this phenomenon might be parallelled in other musical areas. Do some people also get sated by classical music or jazz when other responsibilities enter their lives? Or do the people referenced in this article stop listening to pop music and move on to Bach and Beethoven or Miles and Monk? My tentative thought is that current listening technology has tended to level everything out in the pop music world and so people might well get bored with it, whereas in other areas it has suddenly made previously obscure musics readily available, which might have the opposite effect? These are unformed thoughts - maybe others here have something more coherent to say?
Even the BBC World Service runs this plinky-plonky stuff behind the presenter announcing the headlines, or programme content. Presumably the programme makers believe that this is essential to hold people's attention: or perhaps they have created this belief (and need) by virtue of their faith in the need for it. 
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