Musical Taste Affected by Age
Every generation loves to complain about the next one. This is especially the case when it comes to taste in music. But is it really true that older people’s musical preferences are set in stone?To answer this question, New York Times data analyst Seth Stephens-Davidowitz came up with a clever idea.He began by checking every Billboard chart-topping song from 1960 to 2000. He then looked through Spotify* users’ playlists to see who was listening to those songs.Interestingly, Stephens-Davidowitz found a pattern. For any hit song from any year, most current listeners were teenagers when it was first released. For instance, take the song “Creep” by Radiohead. The most common age among listeners is 44 years old. At the time of its release in 1993, those same listeners were 14 years old.So, what explains this curious phenomenon? According to psychology professor Daniel J. Levitin, 14 is a “sort of the magic age for the development of musical preferences.” This is a time in a person’s life when they begin to define their own identity. Music plays a big role in this process, as teenagers often express themselves and make friends based on their musical tastes. Not surprisingly, the songs that we like as adolescents are forever stamped with emotions and memories from that time.Around the age of 24, however, the opposite starts to happen. As people graduate from college and enter the workforce, their personalities start to crystallize. By the time they are 30, most people have a firm sense of self, and because of this, they no longer rely on music to express themselves. They are also much busier, which means they have less time to spend searching for new music.All this is to say, when someone over 30 listens to music, it is likely they will opt for a nostalgic song from their glory days.
Questions:
1. What did Seth Stephens-Davidowitz analyze to understand how musical taste changes with age?
2. What did Seth Stephens-Davidowitz analyze to understand how musical taste changes with age?
3. Why do people over 30 often choose nostalgic songs to listen to?
4. How does entering the workforce and becoming busier affect people's interest in discovering new music?
5. Why do you think music is important for teenagers in defining their identities? Do you believe your musical preferences will change as you get older? Why or why not?
