When a teacher talks about his or her life in the past and/or what song he or she used to listen to, it is often that students are confused as to what he or she is talking about. There are those few students, though, who prefer music from the 60’s, 70’s and even the 80’s.

Courtney Keller attended a Blake Shleton concert in Chicago.
Photo contributed by Courtney Keller

A majority of students, such as freshman Chase VanDuyne, like to listen to “classic rock, so music from the 60’s-90’s.” He listens to the 60’s-90’s because “it really speaks to me.” VanDuyne believes that older music is more appropriate than the

Courtney Keller attended a Chris Daughtry and Goo Goo Dolls concert last August.
Photo contributed by Courtney Keller

newer generation, he said, “There are more curse words in the new music than older classic rock songs.” Similar to VanDuyne, senior Taylor Fulton likes to “listen to everything, but I love classic rock and roll and 2000’s rock and roll.” The radio and music streams tend to influence a lot of music choices. Fulton said, “I think a lot of people are because they feel like if they don’t listen to this certain person then they might not fit in, but I’m not influenced because I prefer to listen to whatever sounds good at the time.” This influenced his relationship with music and wanting to still listen to the ‘older generation.’ He said, “I listen to it because I feel as if some bands have sold out, or they don’t make music like they used to so I usually prefer the older stuff.”   Similar to Fulton, freshman Samantha Payne likes to listen to the early 2000’s music. In her eyes, all music has meaning. But, when it comes to lyrics, Payne said, “I remember the lyrics to songs that I listen to often. Whether it is an older song or a

Courtney attended a Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran concert in Chicago.
Photo contributed by Courtney Keller

newer song.” She said she tends to like to listen to old music “because the music was good back then. It’s just that the style has changed.”

Older music has influenced her favorite piece of music. He said “the ‘Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel is a song from the 1960’s that I really enjoy. I’m not sure why I like it so much, but I just really do.” She enjoys that genre of music because “songs now seem to have a more pop feel to them. Newer music contains more electronic sounds and beats. Older songs seem to do well with just a guitar and a piano.”

Even though  students seem to like the older genre of music, senior Jennifer Figueroa loves to listen to rap music.She said she prefers “rap that talks about real stuff, more underground rap than mainstream really.” Figueroa has not let society influence her taste in music. She said, “I think that society likes to listen to music constantly played on the radio, at least that is how I see it.” In Figueroa’s eyes, the music she listens to is “something I just picked up on, although it isn’t all appropriate what music is completely.” With appropriateness playing a big role in music viewers age, Figueroa said, “I feel as if the older music is a lot more appropriate than the newer. I also guess it depends as well, because to some extent music has shifted to a different mindset in trying to bring something new to the table for the listeners to relate in a worse inappropriate ways to in which nowadays, I think we are in an era where people relate to the negative things such as drugs, and rage which leads to their interest in music being that. Like I said I guess it depends really.” With music appropriateness being depended on by people’s opinion, the genre of today’s music has differed a lot to her. She said, “Well over the years new trends are created. Artists try to update with the newest ones and along goes their style in music as well. For example like Jay Z, his beats were more simple and old school and if you compare to his beats and music now, it has a major difference in style and it doesn’t consist of any of his old works. Most of his music now is more upbeat and overrated; I’m not referring to every single song.”

Whether it’s Billy Joel from the 80’s or Jason Derulo in modern music, the variety of genres have expanded throughout the years.