Why punks get jazz

Teenagers who dispair of their parents’ music tastes should beware – their own musical preferences are likely to follow the same path.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge believe they unravelled how a preference for Teenage Kicks can evolve into a love for Moonlight Sonata.

They have identified three distinct musical ages that people pass through as they mature – intense, contemporary and sophisticated.

via Why young punks grow to like classical and jazz in older age – Telegraph. HT to @kirkenglehardt

I sort of agree…food tastes mature too, very few of us get out of adolescence wanting to eat nothing but mashed up baby rusks and milk…

But, jazz was the “punk” of its day and opera while sophisticated was really just musical theatre for the masses. It’s not the specific type of music it’s how our tastes mature, when you’re a child nursery rhymes are all you need, pop songs extend that when you reach an age where you can dance and then you strike out to be an individual by homing in on a genre that your parents don’t like (my teenage son is heavily into Drum ‘n Bass, whereas it is mostly noise to me in the same way that prog rock was to my parents when I was his age.

In terms of song-writing you can track my own personal chronology over the last few years on my SoundCloud page.