I feel like my tastes have not changed, but the bass community in general has experienced a period of regressive nostalgia.
When I first started reading these forums, which would be about 19 or 20 years ago, tastes were much different. That period in the early 00s was defined by exotica; beautiful objects with a look and sound which made them art as much as they were instruments. It was a time of wild experimentation, with more and more strings being added, new styles and sounds being used.
My tastes were formed in that time, mainly 5 and 6 strings, active, exotic woods. I loved the great masters, Ken Smith, Pedulla, Fodera, Warwick etc. Now, nearly two decades later, I play the stuff I dreamed of owning as youngster. I prefer 5 strings to 6, mainly because the ergonomic trade-offs weren't worth it for the larger neck of 6 strings when weighed against the amount of use I got from the high C. I like 6s and I'll always own at least one, but when it comes to my favourite basses, 5 string will always win.
Talkbass has always been a somewhat narrow view of the bass world; perhaps skewed towards middle-class, relatively affluent folks from the US, Canada and UK, but I still think it provides a valuable insight into the minds of bass as a much bigger community than simply those who use Talkbass. In those early days of exploring the world of bass, Talkbass was like a treasure trove. Everyone had such amazing instruments, the place was overflowing with beautiful, exotic woods and modern designs. Now, that is mostly gone. There is far less variety and a much, much greater homogeneity of thought. When bass guitar went through a period of being much more progressive, with instruments designed to encourage new techniques and tones that made the bass player stand out, this tide of change ebbed and sank back into the sea. Conservatism has been grasped tightly by many in the bass community. Retro is cool, safe, comfortable.
I do wonder what lead to this resurgence of old designs catching the attention of so many, but I think you'd have to be a sociologist to figure it out. I personally feel like the lack of a really strong cultural and artistic aesthetic in the last 15 years of so has created a clamour for nostalgia, and with nostalgia, it is safe to say that everyone has their favourite flavour. When I think broadly of the decades as they passed through the 20th century, each had distinct and vibrant artistic, aesthetic and musical identities. Moving from 1955, to 1965, to 1975, to 1985, to 1995 was like twisting a kaleidoscope and having a different picture every time, totally different from the last. We can all envisage a cultural "picture" of each of those decades so clearly, but can we do the same for the 2005 or 2015, for example?
Of course, there is nothing wrong with indulging in nostalgia, particularly when bass guitars are, for 99.9% of us, an indulgence. This fondness for nostalgia has lead to this clamouring for retro gear. Everyone wants a P bass, they want flats, they want bass that is "felt not heard", they want "mud 'n' thud". There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that, it's just what makes people feel comfortable.
And indeed, I am as guilty as anyone of loving what I grew up on in my formative years. It's no surprise that I went from daydreaming looking at pictures of Ken Smith basses on Talkbass to owning one. My current collection and my ownership history is what I dreamed of when I first started to appreciate bass guitar. I accept too, that my tastes will probably never change.
That brings me to our final point; do our tastes ever change, or just take a long time to finally settle back where we started? While there will always be some who cut their teeth on metal but play a Hofner bangbox these days, or someone who grew up loving bar room blues who has sworn his heart to a 9 string Conklin, I think most of us end up owning the basses we dreamed of in our formative years, once we reach a point in our lives where we have the time and funds available to procure them. With the way the population of the western world is aging at an unprecedented rate and the average age per capita in the world's richest western nations is shooting up, the adoration of retro gear perhaps shouldn't come as such a surprise.
