Ha, a good read. I’m probably one of the youngest Roon users and listen to a lot of that stuff, in parallel with a lot of ECM and all the stuff my old man (my dad) listened to as I was growing up like Santana, Clapton, Hendrix, Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Marley, Fourplay, Keith Jarrett and lots more Santana - did I mention Santana?
I got the old man a Roon lifetime membership and the Core and Endpoints etc and he really enjoys find new and young artists through Tidal. Roon and Tidal has really made discovering new stuff easy and fun (and this should go to another level with Roon Radio 2.0 at some point later).
In his own words (and opinion), EVERY decade of music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s had music that moved the needle (influenced culture at the time) AND music that was considered not-so-great at that time… he says its no different today for him. He loves Sza, Kendrick Lamar and Ed Sheeran. I guess he loves melody and music with emotion and that can come in many different styles and he’s open to trying new stuff to see how these styles evolve. He still listens to lots of Santana too…
I’m the same. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and love to see how music continues to evolve today. I love some trends and don’t love some others but as dad says, things have been like that forever. I like the old man’s open mindedness (not to say anything else is closed minded) and I’ve probably inherited that mindset.
A funny story, I recently went with him to a blues music festival to see Santana, Buddy Guy and The Doobie Brothers (and others). Naturally this was an older crowd. But the lineup also featured Kendrick Lamar but the band that played with him included Kamasi Washington and Thundercat, so all of his songs had a slightly jazz fusion arrangement but all his (HipHop) lyrics and delivery were the same obviously. I was so happy and surprised at seeing the older crowd’s reaction to Kendrick’s performance, from start to finish and it probably had the liveliest crowd (dancing) equal with Santana. And I can almost guarantee that the majority of the crowd wouldn’t have expected that before the festival started. I think the live band / jazz fusion arrangement really helped but it was the same club and radio songs. Festival crowds have always been very ‘open’ too, so that’s probably a factor too. But to see 60 and 70 year old people of all backgrounds dancing to a Kendrick Lamar set from start to finish and having a blast, that’s something I’ll never forget. A great experience.
Anyway he’s only one (old) datapoint. There’s no right and wrong in his hobby. Life is too short to squabble too much and spend too much time trashing any particular song/artist and genre (in my humble opinion).
Just enjoy whatever you enjoy I say.