If someone ask you to make the soundtrack of your life , what song would make the playlist ? Would you await at what was on the chart last year ? Or would you go for thealbumyou played on a continuous cringle when you and your college booster made that epic road misstep to California , or even further back . How much of the euphony that defines you — your elan , your gustation , your personality — was popular when you were a teenager ?
Pop psychologist call this phenomenon " taste freeze . " The possibility is that our musical tastes crystallize during late adolescence through our early mid-twenties — a heightened period of aroused and societal activeness . Indeed , Daniel Levitin , film director of the Laboratory for Music Perception , Cognition and Expertise at McGill University , called 14 the " magic age for the development of musical tastes " in aNew York Timesarticle . " Pubertal development hormones make everything we ’re experiencing , include music , seem very authoritative , " he spell .
Petr Janata , a psychological science professor with theCenter for psyche and Brainat the University of California Davis , tally . Janata studies how medicine can evoke powerful memories , even in Alzheimer ’s patients . He says that we associate strong emotional memories with music , especially music from our youth . It ’s all part of something name the " recollection swelling . "
" The reminiscence bump is a preferential retrieval of memories from our teenaged and vernal adult eld , " Janata suppose . " For many teenagers , music is a big part of their lives . It ’s a large part of societal and excited fabric of those years . "
But Janata doubts that this neuronal nostalgia is powerful enough to mould our musical taste over an entire lifetime . He check a much inviolable connection betweenpersonality and melodic tastes , or even emotion and musical preferences .
" citizenry are really good at pick music that suits their emotions at a particular time of day , " says Janata . " They also use euphony to order their emotions . Personality and emotion rule can really influence melodious preference , whether it ’s overarching predilection that span class , or interchange from mean solar day - to - daytime or even minute - to - 60 minutes . "
On the surface , taste frost sounds convincing enough . After all , if you ’re over 30 , opportunity are you ’ve hear the latest spicy song shell from a passing machine and thought , " Music was proficient back in the daytime . "
But how much do you really heed to the music of your young ? Is it still the soundtrack of your life ? And how dissimilar is the way we go through music today — in particular after the rise of rain cats and dogs music services — compared to the bygone era of Top 40 radio and mix tapes ?
Teens heed almost exclusively to the most popular songs and artist
As auditor age into their twenty , their ploughshare of pop medicine drops steady
By their other thirties , most listeners resolve into a " groove " of euphony and artists that are far from the top of the charts
Does the Spotify data strengthen the case for taste freeze ? Not really . All this proves is that as people get older , they listen to less pop euphony . As study author Ajay Kalia points out , this could be explained by two things : First , listener deliver to their favorite old bands who are no longer on the chart ( i.e. taste freeze ) , and secondly , they have discover raw euphony that is n’t on Top 40 radio .
Here ’s another stat from the Spotify data that seems to corroborate the latter theory that old listeners haveeclectic , not frozen tastes . Paul Lamere , who influence atThe Echo Nest , a music intelligence service , mine the substance abuser data and find that the great unwashed between the age of 25 and 34listen to more music and have more artist in active rotationthan any other age group on Spotify , include teenager and college - historic period user .
Sean Ryan is an excellent example of how even an " old dude " can avoid preference freezing . Sean is 40 , a recent pappa , and a senior managing director at a enceinte Washington , D.C. consulting business firm . He says he almost never listens to the bands he bonk as a adolescent , although a lot of his raw music fall into interchangeable mode and genres . He credits his eclectic playlist to ally who have wildly different tastes and , interestingly enough , to his daily commute .
" Every daytime I listen to Sirius XMU on my way to work , and I expend Pandora at house , " Ryan say . " And I in spades take trace . If I ’m in the Google Play store and it enjoin , ' people who liked X also bought Y , ' I ’ll play a few of the free songs just to see . Occasionally something hits and I ’ll buy that , too . "
Streaming music services expend complex algorithms to foretell your melodic discernment and suggest new bands that fit your profile . In the digital long time , it ’s promiscuous than ever to find new music , even if a 13 - year - onetime would n’t be catch dead listening to it .
And sometimes the 13 - year - old and her grandpa have more in common musically than they might like to admit . Paul Lamerefoundthat the top two artist listened to by 64 - year - olds in 2011 were Bruno Mars and Elvis Presley . For 13 - year - olds , it was One focus — and Bruno Mars .
