Why Old Music Hits Harder Right Now

Why do we miss a time we didn't grow up in?

By Sophie Lee . Founder . 05/12/25

All week, my feed has been filled with grainy footage from concerts in the 80s and 90s. Artists without autotune, without filters, just raw vocals and emotional storytelling. Most of us never saw these bands in their prime, yet we feel deeply connected to them. For me, it’s watching Thom Yorke’s voice crack as he sings, Bono sharing a mic with Springsteen, or the intensity of Depeche Mode's Devotional tour. It fills me with this strange, suffocating nostalgia that I can’t fully explain.

So why are we obsessed with music we didn’t grow up with?

I think TikTok is a huge part of it. Suddenly, the algorithm hands us back guitar solos, live sessions, and vintage tour clips. We scroll past Mark Knopfler playing immaculate riffs, crowd-shot Oasis concerts, footage of Blur taking the piss, and it feels like we’re seeing something freer. The industry seemed less filtered then. People were less media-trained.

Music wasn’t polished, it wasn’t algorithm-tested, and it certainly wasn’t built for virality.

It was just about the music.

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In a way, I think Irish artists are tapping into that same energy:

• Gurriers are echoing late-90s noise bands.

• Fontaines D.C. are rewriting post-punk heritage.

• CMAT blends Americana and folk storytelling.

• NewDad, The Cardinals, so many acts are reaching back into alternative themes.

Old music hits harder because it feels sincere. It’s imperfect in a way that makes it perfect.

Bands back then were unapologetically themselves. They weren’t performing for online approval or fighting for playlist placement. They existed to play, to create, to be understood, and maybe that’s why those clips hurt a little. Not because we missed the era, but because we still recognise it.

We see pieces of it here, in small Irish venues where young artists are figuring things out in real time, playing songs that don’t have marketing strategies behind them. Rooms where the sound isn’t perfect and someone’s guitar is slightly out of tune, but the crowd is locked in because it means something.

Maybe that’s what makes Irish music so exciting right now: it hasn’t forgotten the rawness.

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The Sincerity That Holds It All Together

What ties these older artists together and why their music hits so deeply even for people who weren’t alive when it was released — is sincerity. There’s a raw honesty in older music that you almost never see replicated today, and you can feel it not just in the songs, but in their words.

In 1985, Bono said something that’s always stuck with me:

“I think we make very bad rock n’ roll stars… our audiences know us better than we know ourselves, and they see in U2 a band that’s fallen on its face so many times.”

He was admitting that what people connect with isn’t ego, it’s vulnerability, flaws, and the willingness to get back up. That’s sincerity.

Jeff Buckley understood this deeply too:

“Every emotion has a sound. My identity forms my music.”

There’s something so utterly honest in that. No branding strategy. No algorithm bait. Just music as a mirror. It’s messy, emotional, painfully human.

Thom Yorke once said:

“The most essential thing in life is to establish heartfelt communication with others.”

Maybe that’s why Radiohead performances feel like being punched in the chest, you’re watching someone try to express a part of themselves that can’t exist in language.

Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode said it in the most poetic way:

“I will sing with joy. I will end up dust. Enjoy what you have here — you’re not going to be here forever, but the songs stay forever.”

There’s something holy in that. Art outliving the body. Songs becoming proof that we existed, felt, and tried.

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Maybe That’s Why

When I see grainy live clips of these artists, I don’t just feel nostalgia.

I feel sincerity. I feel humanity. I feel the reminder that music used to be about connection rather than consumption.

So maybe that’s why our generation clings so tightly to old music we didn’t grow up with:

Because it reminds us of something we’re still trying to find.