Besides the ugly name, the biggest problem for the audiophile hobby is making it more inclusive for a younger, more diverse group of buyers. This is basically a summary of the FutureAudiophile.com Mission Statement. For far too long, the audiophile hobby has been a fully male-dominated group that is filled with dudes listening to music alone in their darkened, often messy audio rooms. Old habits die hard in the audiophile world, but the concept of always listening alone or not embracing a more social element for the enjoyment of the bobby is one that needs to change. That change is coming whether OG “original gangsta” audiophiles like it or not.
Tell Me Some Good News About the Audiophile Hobby – Not Just That Baby Boomers Are Old …
Baby Boomers ARE old at this point, with most in their 70s and 80s today. They won’t live forever, and they know that. None of us will live forever, and there are younger audiences who are passionate about music, but they are sometimes being underserved by the normally anti-change-first audiophile establishment. Need examples? The Compact Disc comes out and the establishment likes vinyl better the next day. Streaming gives us unthinkably cool, unlimited access to every recording ever made for the price of one CD and the establishment isn’t all that jazzed about being an audiophile in a world without silver discs. Today’s Class-D amps sound just like tubes without wasting energy, creating heat and needing any maintenance (think: tube rolling or tube biasing) but somehow GaN, Hypex or Pascal chip-based amps aren’t game-changers with the establishment. They will catch on, eventually.
The first bit of good news starts with the fact that younger people love music more than any of us older folks. They were born with unlimited access to music and while a trip to Tower Records will never mean the same thing to them as it did to a Gen Xer, they love music as well as technology, and their love knows no gender barriers. Add into that equation of how technologically savvy these younger demographics are, and you’ve got the perfect audience to introduce to the audiophile hobby.
Next, on the good news front, you’ve got return to mainstream popularity for turntables and vinyl. Perhaps it is an anti-technology statement or just the overall kitsch factor of LPs, but it is well-established fact that younger people (male and female, mind you) like playing records. They like turntables. These are luxury status goods, and they are wildly considered cool in this highly sought-after target demographic that this industry must start wooing. Who knows more about turntables than audiophiles? Nobody. As Millennials age and increase in buying power, they will have more and more money to spend on discretionary items like an upgraded audiophile turntable. We need to be ready for them when they come to the store, but they’ve got reasons to stop by and do some shopping.
Lastly, today the video gaming market is bigger than all music and movie software combined. In less than five years, this delta in top-line AV media sales and video gaming is expected to double again. Young people, especially men but not exclusively, like our current position in the audiophile hobby with close to zero women involved, are drawn to gaming. They socialize via gaming platforms. It dominates their devices and uses large volumes of free time for this target demographic. The good news is that enthusiast gamers learn a love for high-performance sound and image, which is a rock-solid start. Next, they are aware of the value of chasing the Nth degree of performance and how that can sometimes be expensive. You can buy a replacement mouse at Staples for $20, but Razer sells a carbon fiber one with fiber optics in it, an ultra-fast clicker and no click latency for $300. Does that remind you of anything about the audiophile hobby? Is there one audiophile retailer who has figured out the gaming opportunity? I seriously doubt it, unless Best Buy counts, as they are the only place that I know where you can buy some 800 Series Bowers & Wilkins and/or some McIntosh electronics along with an Alienware gaming PC and some badass gaming headphones. Today, that is only Best Buy, but someday soon, somebody is going to see that the guy who can buy that $30,000 stereo preamp is just as likely to spend the same amount on a video gaming race car simulator, the kind we see sold at the CEDIA Expo. Instead of a $10,000 power cord, they might want to purchase a restored vintage video game machine like Ms. Pac-Man. The audience has changed, even if the establishment hasn’t figured it out yet.
Playing Relatable Music When Younger People Visit the Stereo Store or Your Audiophile System
This is not a scary topic, as some have suggested to me. Access to basically every recording ever made comes from each and every respectable music streaming platform. I am a Qobuz guy, but Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music and others each have all of the music that you will ever need for these out-of-the-ordinary audiophile demos for younger people. You need to be stocking up on Compact Discs or LPs from Amazon to be prepared. There are HD versions of nearly all these songs for you, on demand.
Younger people truly love the music of Boomers and Gen Xers. This isn’t like playing Elvis for the first time to somebody from the Greatest Generation. If Big Band music is your cup of tea, Elvis or Chuck Berry is pretty mind-blowing, and perhaps a little musically hard to digest. We don’t have these problems with younger audiences. Almost universally, younger people love The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. They love (who doesn’t) Yacht Rock, which as a genre is defined by Steely Dan, an audiophile classic band if there ever was one. Younger audiences are drawn to all sorts of songs that are part of our upbringing. A key to these more relatable songs comes from Madison Avenue ad agencies, as well as Hollywood movie studios. Allow me to illustrate …
Spandau Ballet’s “True.” Talk about a jam? This song says “Seventh Grade Dance” more than perhaps any other for me, but this slow jam extraordinaire is also a time-tested, radio-proven hit. A classic with appeal to a generation that Madison Avenue can’t resist and the audiophile hobby needs to embrace – younger people. A few months back, there was a Bank of America television ad set at a young couple’s wedding, and the spot points was how people were using new-school technology to send the bride and groom cash gifts (I prefer the old cash-filled envelope but I err on the side of Tony Soprano on this topic), while appealing to this audience with old-school music. The ad ran on TV forever, as it has cross-generational appeal and was effective at getting its message out. With Madison Avenue behind the song, and with pretty awesome bass playing, why not use this as a more relatable audiophile demo?
Starbuck’s “Moonlight Feels Right.” If I am not mistaken, this song wasn’t much of a hit when it came out, but because of its Yacht Rock stylings and Hollywood revival, the song has made a very unexpected return to multi-generational popularity. The catchy hook and groovy Moog synths are soothing to hear, so much so that the song was used in the animated movie Trolls. Trust me when I tell you the money that studios spend on music for movies is big-time. While “Moonlight Feels Right” isn’t going to be insanely expensive like something from AC/DC or Bob Marley, it isn’t going to be pennies, either, if it musically plays a big part in a feature film. Hollywood music supervisors know which songs appeal to younger and older people. Let’s call this “The Sesame Street Effect,” as these are heard in most of the shows that appeal to Generation X and older Millennials, too. Regardless of age, watch an episode of Bluey, and you will understand the point.
Beyonce’s “Blackbird” and Marcin’s “Kasmir.” Picking modern recordings of cover songs can appeal to many listeners. Some of my best 2024 audiophile demo tracks from my reviews accomplish this goal. Beyonce’s “Blackbird” is a sonically killer demo track. Lennon and McCartney never fail to lure in the listener, thus this is a no-brainer great demo. Marcin’s acoustical Eddie Van Halen-inspired tapping version of “Kasmir” brings a whole new take on a very comfortable rock and roll melody all wrapped up in an awesome audiophile demo track.
Steely Dan “Hey Nineteen.” Nobody listens to the lyrics anyway, right? This is a song that is Yacht Rock Boomer-tastic and everybody loves it. I think “Hey Nineteen” is my all-time favorite song from Steely Dan, and by avoiding Aja (not that there is anything wrong with Aja, other than it being a bit played out in audiophile circles), you keep things fresh. Would a young couple, say in their 30s, vibe on a track like this? You are most likely to hit some musical gold here. Remember, younger audiences love themselves some Yacht Rock, present company included, and Steely Dan is widely considered the grandfather of Yacht Rock. What is the one factor that immediately makes a song more Yacht Rock? That would be backup vocals from Michael McDonald, and guess what? “Hey Nineteen” delivers in an audiophile quality jam that everybody is likely to enjoy.
And this is only a start to a list as there are dozens and dozens of high quality, high resolution tracks that meet the tastes of generations ranging very very young to very old.
Some Final Thoughts About Using Relatable Music with Younger Listeners …
No matter what your age, whenever you play your audiophile system (even for a few short minutes) for other people, you have a chance to share the joy that we know comes from the hobby. On the surface, spending big dollars on stereo gear might seem wasteful or ostentatious. When you dig a little deeper, you might see that the components hold their value well over time and even have real-time health benefits, like quickly lowering one’s blood pressure via listening to some moderately chill music.
The hobby is at a demographic crossroads that it has never faced before, and there’s no debating that the audiophile business, as well as the hobby, is better with more people involved. This includes younger people, obviously. That only makes it more important to make the hobby appeal to its target demographic, as the ad and movies wizards know how to do. Playing relatable music makes the audiophile hobby more relatable to more diverse listeners. And the best part is that you don’t have to exclusively play music haphazardly recorded on an iPhone and released on TikTok a few weeks ago. You can find agreeable super-jams from any decade if you follow some of the loosely-defined musical guidelines mentioned above.
It is time that we make the audiophile hobby more inclusive and approachable. That means rethinking how we enjoy our systems, as well as our music. With this introspection, don’t be surprised to see many more diverse, younger people warm up to the passion that we all share for a premium music playback experience.
Do you have any demo tracks that you’d like to add to the list? How do you feel about the audiophile being more inclusive? Why are there no women in the audiophile hobby? We love to hear from you. Comment away and we will post your thoughts in the blink of an eye.
