CATCH ME, I'M FALLING INTO MY PAST.....

At the time of writing, i'm a mere month away from turning 40. Now, i'm not about to start having a midlife crisis, or start having botox in a futile attempt to turn back the clock, but as i've gotten older, i've noticed a disturbing development, aside from the odd grey hair and a nasal/ear hair trimmer having become a necessary purchase. I've always told myself (and anyone else who would listen) that i would never become one of these boring old farts who only listens to music from their past, and who denounces all new music to be crap. But i find it happening, nonetheless. Conversations with friends only seem to confirm a similar attitude and outlook: that there is nothing recent worth listening to. New artists and more recent albums seem to be a dying breed in my collection, and whilst i still listen out for new talent - the advent of digital radio and 6Music was a godsend for people who, like myself, have stopped tuning into Radio 1 - i hear less and less of  music that makes you think "What the fuck was that?" (in a postive way, anyhow!). The fact that we seem to live in a nostalgia-driven world probably has had an effect, with every note of music ever recorded available in one format or another, older bands reforming all the time. The endless stream of articles in the music press on classic albums and artists, lists of "100 best albums of all time", has no doubt had an impact too. I'm not saying that there aren't any decent acts out there: it's just that, with the mainstream now dominated by american R&B and its numerous offshoots, dance music, and ultra-commercial pop acts with plenty of marketing behind them, all other music has been pushed to the fringes. Rock, alternative, indie: bands playing this kind of music who were having hits just a few years ago are now confined to the album charts. Now that downloads and streaming are included in sales chart figures, the notion of "the single" seems to have fallen by the wayside. When a track that hasn't even been released as a single, physically or as a download, can get into the charts, then something seems wrong, to me at least. I'm probably sounding like a boring old git now: "in my day" etc etc.....  The world and the times must change, and the kind of stuff that sells millions now isn't aimed at me anyway. I have found myself looking back to the music of my youth, and the fact that i can look up the charts from any given date only furthers the nostalgic feeling. The Top 40 from this date in 1989, the year i started buying my own records, i can look at that and see instantly the 7"s i bought - Prince's "Batdance", London Boys' "London Nights", Neneh Cherrys' "Manchild", - and see a far more diverse chart than the current one. I can take solace in the fact that what new albums i've bought over the last couple of years have been fairly diverse: the slacker indie/grunge of Courtney Barnett, the experimental electronic funk of Jungle, the quirky art rock of St Vincent, and the more traditional blues/rockabilly/indie of Jake Bugg. I do keep going back to the pop, dance, and indie of my youth though. Maybe that says more about the longevity of those songs than my percieved lack of interest in current music?