The Data Is In: You Like The Music You Heard When You Were 14

Right, the study shows that past hits are listened to more frequently by people who were adolescents when the music was popular. It doesn't seem to draw any conclusions beyond that.

 

I'm not saying there isn't enough data. I'm saying some of the conclusions being drawn in this thread really have nothing to do with the data.

 

So the data is correct, the conclusion that Stephens-Davidowitz derived from the data is correct, it's the people on this thread that are drawing conclusions that aren't related to the data.

 

Yeah, that's what I think.

 

It certainly helps if you turned 14 in a great year for music.

 

Yes. I agree with you. No great discovery that people on this forum have managed to turn the well paved, well lit highway to a dark & dusty country track.

 

Definitely. Plus you need to add a few years prior to that year as you would be getting exposed to that as well. Not everything you wouldhave been hearing would have been released that year.

 

Reverse that top 4, drag up the Pixies and A Tribe Called Quest and throw in Ride, the La's and Happy Mondays and you have a pretty damn good year. No steamer for me.

 

How does Spotify know how old its users are? I don't remember them ever asking. If they ever did, I probably would have lied.

 

They have a data sharing arrangement the with NSA. They know a lot more about you than you realize, even if you don't subscribe to Spotify.

 

Teenage years are intense so the data makes sense to me.

I feel the same way about my college years and the years I was dating and marrying my wife. Everything seems more intense during those times. Things get more imprinted.

Plus, as I said, there were some really great years for music at the same time.

 

Your lie would make no material difference in their data analysis as they are looking at the data as a mass & not as individuals.

 

Interesting, in my case it is true. 14 in 1978, still listen to ACDC Powerage, Van Halen 1, Styx Renegade, Journey Lights, Cheap Trick I Want You and Surrender, Rolling Stones Miss You, Queen Fat Bottom Girls, the list goes on and on.

Very interesting.....

 

I also don't think the data really leads to anything very interesting. I guess that's also what my previous comment was about.

All it's really saying is that, since I was 14 in 1978, I'm more likely to be listening to hit songs from that year than someone who was 4, 24 or 44 in 1978. It's mostly tied to Top 40 radio and when people listened to that format.

I listened to primarily Top 40 radio from age 11 to my early 20's. Beyond that, there's a whole gaggle of hits that I'm completely unfamiliar with, so I obviously won't be listening to those with any frequency. I don't think that's a unique experience. I am familiar with most hits from the 60's, so I do listen to those but I may be a bit more unique in that regard.

I don't really think any of this is surprising and I'm not sure the conclusions drawn from it, even if they're accurate, really mean very much.

 

Another ridiculous theory.

 

Minor clarification: According to the New York Times article cited in the original post, the Spotify data is not restricted to only Billboard hits. The article says that "the music streaming service Spotify gave me data on how frequently every song is listened to by men and women of each particular age." (emphasis added) The author of the New York Times article then says "I did a similar analysis with every song that topped the Billboard charts from 1960 to 2000. In particular, I measured how old their biggest fans today were when these songs first came out." (emphasis added) In other words, he analyzed a selected subset of the Spotify data. Hence the confusion.

 

Thanks, duly noted.

 

Living in the Bell Curve has never been for me.

I have abandoned more music than I've saved from my mid-teens. Late teens to twenties are well represented in my collection. But I still search for new (to me) music. For instance, I never listened to metal until my late '30's and I love a lot of things that appalled me at 15.

 

Whether or not you agree with the premise of the post by the OP, it is good that the data is in.

 

Yes and no. Many things I discovered when I was 14 I still love today, other music I loved I no longer care for. The biggest change is the fact that I adore music at 45 that I never gave a second thought to at 14.

I think this report is too generalized, and black and white. There are shades of grey when it comes to our tastes in music. Why we listen to something, depends greatly on the mood we are in, and how we progress through life.

 

There is an anxiety associated with being reduced to mere data that is in and subject to interpretation. Plus, the social media culture has influenced some, even here, that their every feeling is worth publishing.

 

Yes, that was the end of 1968 for me. I was attending concerts at the Fillmore East within a year, among other places. Priceless memories.

 

That just further diminishes my limited appreciation of them...

 

Then, why are you here? That's how this forum rolls.

More studies are needed, and not just by Spotify.

Well, whose fault is that? The medium, or the users of it?

 

What sort of thing do you expect people to say about the subject on a message board, where they're not talking about their own experience, their own views in relation to the subject? Are you thinking that you're going to get a bunch of message board posts with people acting like journalists (and not editorialists)?