Confirming what we already know...people like music from their adolescent years*

...especially here at SHMF...

Why do you like the music you like? Science weighs in.
Preferences may change over time, but research shows that people tend to be especially fond of music from their adolescent years.

https://wapo.st/3xReTLE

 

There's a whole generation of Gen-Xers that grew up in the '80s that would say the music from '90s was better.

 

Research of average people, most whom never cared much about music and went on to not care at all. Lifetime music fans are rare, and rarer still are those who look beyond the familiar.

 

The main researcher basically called rap and hip-hop low on depth. The zoomers on this forum might start sperging out. Lol.

 

I grew up with 90's music and...can definitely say the 80's had much better music. My god, there was so much crap (Stateside, anyway) during my teen years.

 

Why do you like the music you like?
Because it's objectively good.

 

Only one specific rapper was called out as low depth, not the entire genres of rap/hip-hop.

And I don't think the researcher was wrong.

 

Inference. He noted that jazz and classical is on the opposite of that on the depth spectrum.

 

This means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to me, if my ears like what they hear, and I enjoy it I don't care WHEN or WHERE it's from!

 

We prefer music from artists whose personalities we identify with. “When people listen to music, they’re being driven by how similar that artist is to themselves,” Greenberg says.

Oh please. Most of the music I listen to is made by heterosexuals. If I like it I like it, end of story.

 

I've found gems in every decade.
I think life gets in the way in the later years. Family, job, etc.. It takes time and work to find the good stuff the older we get.

 

I like anything but music from my teen years.

 

You can't science personal choices. That's not science's job. That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works!

 

Yep.

Music is "wallpaper" to many.

 

Metrics?

 

How does he relate the "depth" of popular music to jazz and "classical?"

 

That's actually true. Although I came to realise that I liked the very early and very late 80s also. Just not a fan of Wake me up before you frickin go go and alike.

 

We make time for what matters to us. It's not music for everyone, and that's OK.

 

Not knocking OP for posting at all but can we stop these pointless attempts to turn what-music-people-like into a science? I see “studies” like this all the time (“what is ‘scientifically’ the most beautiful music??” What is ‘scientifically’ the most ‘complex’ music??”) and they all seem so meaningless.

People are gonna like what they like. I highly doubt that anyone with at least a passing interest in music never listens to anything new and sticks with the same stuff over their entire life.

 

Yea, that's a real stretch... I mean I love Elton, Queen, Joe Jackson and many, many artists that aren't "hetero"....

The whole 'grouping people' mentality is a poison, and so contrary to reality it's bewildering.

 

The link to the article is right there by the way. Here's the full quote relating to what I was talking about though:

Depth indicates “both a level of emotional and intellectual complexity,” Greenberg says. “We found that rapper Pitbull’s music would be low on depth, [and] classical and jazz music could be high on depth.”

 

I wouldn'ta picked that example.

 

Between the ages of 10 and 30?

So, that's everything between T-Rex and Prince then.

 

I have very close ties to fifties and sixties music, but I was born in 68...
but at the same time I love seventies and eighties music....
The nineties has some great stuff
Some of my favourite music at the moment is from the last 10-20 years.

People who love music, and make time for music, will find music they love in every era.
Understandably, other folks have different things to get their attention, and so music falls away, and their free years, whether per-teen, teen or twenties, is normally the music that sticks, because that's when they had the time to spend with it.

Any great music, normally requires some time spent with it... if some one doesn't have the time, or can't make the time, the connection never happens

 

There’s definitely a bit of cherrypicking here. I’m not gonna argue about what music is more complex than other music because I Don’t Care, but choosing Pitbull to represent rap as a whole is like saying that all rock music is mindless or homogenous and making your example Warrant or smth.