At the end of the year, the major streaming music apps compile playlists featuring the users’ most-listened-to songs. One example is the Apple Music Replay playlist, which includes your top 100 songs. Similarly, Spotify releases Spotify Wrapped, which acts as a time capsule of your listening habits.
I’ve been using Apple Music on and off for nine years, which means I now have many Replay playlists in my library. Interestingly, many songs appear on multiple playlists, while some are present on all. These are the songs that consistently accompany me, and their significance has only grown over time.
However, my experience isn’t an isolated case.
“In My Day…”
In 2021, data company YouGov surveyed 17,000 Americans to find out which decade they believed produced the best music.
The 1970s and 1980s received the most votes. However, a clear pattern emerged when the responses were segmented by generation. People tend to prefer music created during their youth, particularly in their teens and twenties.
It’s almost a mathematical certainty. Over the generations, the distribution of votes gradually skews toward more recent decades. Almost everyone seems to hold the belief that the music was better in their time.
Slate refers to this phenomenon as “neural nostalgia.” It describes people’s tendency to reconnect with the music they listened to in their youth. We form lasting attachments to these songs throughout our lives.
Some songs become memories of their own, while others provide the background soundtrack to an era that we long for as we grow older. This reflects what psychologist Daniel Schacter described as “persistence,” meaning unwanted recollections that we can’t forget. In this case, these memories are expressed through music.
Stat Significant reports on several studies that support this idea. For instance, The New York Times analyzed Spotify data and concluded that the songs we listen to most often are linked to our teenage years. Musical exploration during the teens aligns with emotional development and the search for identity typical of puberty.
Additionally, a survey conducted by Deezer found that music discovery peaks around the age of 24. After this age, people’s ability to keep up with musical trends and new releases tends to decline. Around 30, many experience a form of stagnation in their musical tastes.
That’s where I find myself today: counting gray hairs, recounting the same stories from when I was young, and paying for subscriptions to listen to the same songs 95% of the time.
Image | Kojo Kwarteng
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