If I can scrounge up some time in the next day or two I may try and do more than skim the rest of the pre-results discussion, but one thing that caught my eye was the concept of finding new music crowding out existing music. While this is technically true, I would think for a lot of people, even more so than me, they've already milked most of the juice out of their top favorites.
Nostalgia listening can be enjoyable, but you're probably not going to pick up much on listen #563 to an old favorite that you didn't already on the first 562 listens. For me it's largely about chasing new versions of those old musical highs. You don't necessarily find as strong of ones regularly as in your more formative years, but I get close enough frequently enough that I find it worthwhile. Even if they're in the same broad style, different bands to ones you already know often have something unique and interesting enough that it can make more sense to invest some time into them than digging the same ruts even deeper.
And if you don't explore at least to some extent, you cut yourself off from the chance of new experiences. There are artists I listen to now that I don't really have anything quite like that I'd discovered through, say my 20s. If I'd stuck exclusively to my existing library I wouldn't have them as part of it, and that's a big loss for me.
Another thing is that with more listening experience, knowledge of my own interests and habits, and familiarity with various online tools, I have more ability to conceptualize and dig for specific niches than I used to. Sometimes the digging can be a slog, but there are treasures hidden to be found. In the earlier days stumbling into favorites tended to be more of blind luck.
two years ago (almost to the day) when my obsession with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard started.
Fascinating, so when you sent them to 425 you were only half a year into discovering them. I'd assumed it had been way longer.