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

I don't think it necessarily has to be the music that was released when you were a preteen, just that the music we hear at that time can have a profound influence over our tastes. For instance, age 14 was a seminal year for me and my musical tastes. Not because of what was being released that year (would have been 2002). In fact, I hated the popular music of the time so much that I looked to the past and it was when I was 14 that I began listening to older music for the first time--Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, etc. I began my journey into being a music obsessive.

I blame it all on "I'm Real (Murder Remix) by Jennifer Lopez and Ja Rule. I so loathed that song that I turned away from then-modern popular music altogether.

 

I would add, admittedly nit-pickily, that the proper phrasing is the data are in. Saying the data is in is akin to saying oranges is delicious.

Now, on point, by a very wide margin, my three favorite rock bands are King Crimson, Grateful Dead and Zappa/Mothers. I didn't get fully into Crimso (first became cognizant of them at 18) until I was 43. I didn't get into GD until I was 18 and I didn't get into Zappa until I was 47. Dylan is not far behind and I didn't dig him at all until I was 22. There are a few bands that I was listening to at ~14 that I still like, such as the Beatles, ELP and Yes, but there are plenty of others that I rarely, if ever, listen to anymore.

 

Same here, and I have actively tried to resist being drawn to the music of my teenage years and keep listening as widely as possible.

But then I look at the 1980-82 LPs list and just think ‘wow’ - there’s a lot of music which has more than stood the test of time, and that I still actively play now. I did a radio show last week and half the playlist was music of that era.

 

We know that that's true on average. But honestly, I turned 15 in '78. While there's a lot of music I listened to then that I listen to now, and a lot of artists I was introduced to then, who I listen to know, there's tons of music that was a major part of my musical diet then that I never return to -- in fact, then I listened to a ton of the rock of the day, now I listen to almost no rock, and some rock acts I cared very much about then, like The Who or David Bowie or something, I have completely lost any taste for.

At the same time, while I listened to jazz music a little bit in my teens, I really didn't find my way deeply into it until my late 20s, and now it's the music I listen to music frequently, and I dig through old jazz and keep up on new jazz.

I didn't find my way to gospel music of the golden age, and old time country music, for the most part, until I was in my 40s. And I certainly like that and listen to it more than I listen to the popular music of the late '70s. All those albums I bought by ELO and Kansas and Queen and The Cars and Devo etc. they're all sitting in storage somewhere. I'll never play those again. And I can't stand classic rock radio, spinning those same '70s rock tracks over and over.

I grew up exposed to a lot of classical music as a kid, but every year I seem to find my way to new and different classical music. Like, I never quite found my way into Schoenberg's work, and a couple of years ago something about it really clicked for me and I began a deep study of it. I was already in my late 40s or early 50s by then.

Furthermore, I do keep up on new pop and find a lot to like. Taylor Swift's Red is one of my favorite albums of the last 25 years. Pink is one of my favorite singers of all time. I've heard some great pop singles in recent years, "Seven Years," "Scars to Your Beautiful," "I Wasn't Expecting That," "Took a Pill in Ibizia," "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," "Raise Your Glass" -- honestly, I enjoy listened to those more than I enjoy going back and listening to stuff that got a lot of play for me when I was 15 like Warren Zevon's music or Talking Heads.

Honestly, I think either one is a person who is curious about and has a hunger for and interest in new artistic and musical experiences on an ongoing basis that relate to contemporary times, or one is a kind of person for whom music is more of a familiar comfort food whose taste for the specific food is set relatively early. And the latter pool of people may outnumber the former, but it's certainly my experience that this is hardly a biological imperative because it clearly doesn't apply to everyone.

 

14 in 1971....so yeah....pretty much for me ! What an incredibly prolific year in ROCK.

I'm just SO glad I grew up when I did. I enjoyed music from when my first memories began in the early 60s. Then the bulk of the 60s into the 70s.

Yep....couldn't have been better. And that's not just my opinion !!!!!!!

 

The 14 thing definitely rings true for me, but new rock acts continued to change my life until around the age of 18 or 19. Everything after that was a passing fancy, no matter how fun.

Outlier: Nirvana, who appeared when I was 29.

 

Well, I've been hanging around consultants for my last 25 years in radio, and I've seen too many examples of it to deny the emotional pull of the days when hormones were building thoroughfares all over your body. The numbers simply bear it out, but it's mostly for those who don't think about music as intensely as you or I or anybody else on this board does. In other words...people with a life. That does not revolve around their music collections. Does it work for me? Only less so because I'm usually thinking about it, and paying attention.

You see a beer in the cooler at a party, and OH! LOVE THAT ONE! and you choose your brand. You hear a song at a party, and it's a different OH! It's the OH! that you remember back from the time you were at that party and that song came on while you had that beer in your hand you love, and did I mention you were at a party...and THAT'S the cumulative, low-impression memory you're having WHILE you're at another party...!

 

This is true of the masses.

We are an evolved breed, well most of us

 

I'm an exception also. I'm 53 years old, and I find that I listen to/am nostalgic for music from the 90s more than any other decade. (The 60s would be next - before my time.)

Perhaps that's because I was a late bloomer and had the time of my life socially when I was in my 30s, who knows?

But as you say, the article is about the many. This is a fairly obvious phenomenon anyway, backed up here with some numbers.

 

I believe it. My favorite albums when I was 13 are pretty much my favorite albums today.

 

Funny - I listened to my favorite Country station all year long back in 1971...and I didn't hear any...!
(My snarky way of saying, maybe you thought there was so much of it, because you heard more instances of new stuff getting played?)

 

I love music from before I was born right up to now, but I have noticed that very little means as much to me as my favorite band from when I was 14, which was Duran Duran.

 

I was 14 in 1968. Hendrix, Cream, Beatles, Stones, Roy Orb., etc., so yeah.

 

[Must. Resist. "Reflex" joke.]

 

This is my experience, give or take. At 14, I wanted loud guitars more than anything. 40 years later, I still like loud guitars, but also a host of other things, and sometimes no guitars at all.

I love "Creep." It came out when I was 30.

 

I would be more apt to give it a range of 14 to 17.
For me that would be 1967 to 1970.
Which covers a lot of the music I love.

 

Being nearly an exclusive rocker back in '71...I didn't seek out a lot of other stuff. Sure I enjoyed Motown and some of the POP of the time...but country, jazz, classical etc...wasn't on my radar yet...so to speak. And yeah....radio stations I was exposed to played a lot of the music I liked...and amazingly so...lots of the great stuff was very popular. Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath etc...

'71 was right in the meat of my favorite era....'63 thru '74 and as much as I enjoy music from the 30s to some even today...that 'decade' mentioned will certainly always be tops.

As I aged...even the other music than Rock I came to enjoy was from that era as well. My favorite outside that time is 1950s jazz. So more of a 'looking back' for my faves than looking forward.

 

That works to some extent for me. At 14 I was introduced to heavy metal and specifically Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Metallica & Megadeth. I still love those bands and generally their whole catalogs, except for Metallica. I discovered Journey at age 10 and I still listen to them, uh, faithfully. The part that's not true, is that there is music I discovered when I was 18, 20, 25 and even some stuff as recently in my late 30's/early 40's (I'm 42) that's some of my favorite music I've ever heard. If we're willing to grow and seek out new music, whether it's truly "new" or just new for us, then we don't have to be confined to age 14. For the most part, if I were to broaden it to ages 14-22 (8th grade through college), then you'd have 90% of the music I listen to.

 

Top 10 grammar myths: data is plural so must take a plural verb - Online Grammar
Top 10 grammar myths: data is plural so must take a plural verb - Online Grammar

 

at 14, I was a pure pop kid with a touch of R&B. Because I have always been inquisitive, I've expanded in so many ways since then, but my love of R&B has remained.

I guess there still are bands making the wide-eyed sweet pop of 1971, but I just don't have the energy to look for them.

 

Once in a while, when listening to one of the great songs from my youth, I'll imagine that I'm the current day Billy Idol (age 62), hosting some 80s nostalgia hour on VH-1. And I'll do one of his stage punches and growl in a bad British accent "80s Forever!"

It took me a long time to admit that.

 

If an average male's taste develops between 13 and 16, what happens before 13? I was a complete music freak at the age of 8, and I still play and love a lot of the same records I did between 8 and 13.

 

Well, all I know is that I've always been corrected when/if writing scientific papers containing singular usage. But, back to the main event...

 

That's why it's in the top 10

 

For me, this finding is mostly the case. One key exception is classical music which I got into at a much later age and now makes up half my listening.