"I listen to both oldies and contemporary stations. I enjoy listening to current stuff because there's an energy to it that's inspiring"
About this Quote
Carole King has nothing to prove, which is why this modest-sounding line lands like a quiet flex. She’s a canonical architect of “oldies” as a category; if anyone could camp out in legacy and call it wisdom, it’s her. Instead she frames her listening as porous and present-tense, refusing the tidy narrative that artists “age out” of modern sound. The intent is deceptively simple: to normalize curiosity. But the subtext pushes back against a common cultural script in music fandom, where “authentic taste” is often coded as nostalgia and “current stuff” gets dismissed as disposable.
Notice the word choice: “both” signals range without superiority, a diplomatic bridge between generations of pop. Then she gives contemporary music the compliment older listeners rarely offer it: energy, not craftsmanship, not “guilty pleasure,” not “surprisingly good.” Energy is bodily and immediate. It implies she isn’t studying the charts like a critic; she’s letting new music move her, the way early rock or Brill Building pop once moved audiences who didn’t yet know it would become “classic.”
Context matters: King’s career spans an era when radio once defined a shared mainstream, before streaming atomized taste. By invoking “stations,” she’s also speaking from a radio-centric worldview, but the point still travels: staying artistically alive requires exposure to the now. “Inspiring” is the tell. She’s not listening to keep up; she’s listening to stay lit.
Notice the word choice: “both” signals range without superiority, a diplomatic bridge between generations of pop. Then she gives contemporary music the compliment older listeners rarely offer it: energy, not craftsmanship, not “guilty pleasure,” not “surprisingly good.” Energy is bodily and immediate. It implies she isn’t studying the charts like a critic; she’s letting new music move her, the way early rock or Brill Building pop once moved audiences who didn’t yet know it would become “classic.”
Context matters: King’s career spans an era when radio once defined a shared mainstream, before streaming atomized taste. By invoking “stations,” she’s also speaking from a radio-centric worldview, but the point still travels: staying artistically alive requires exposure to the now. “Inspiring” is the tell. She’s not listening to keep up; she’s listening to stay lit.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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