This histogram shows the relative number of users by year of birth.

The first thing I notice is the curve has the shape one would expect. The number of
listeners in each age bucket increases as the listener gets younger until around age 21 or so, at
which points it drops off rapidly. The shape of the curve aligns with the data from this study by
EMI in 2011 that shows the penetration of music streaming service by age demographic. This is a
good indicator that our age data is an accurate representation of reality.
 However, there are a few anomalies in the age data. There are unexpected peaks at each
decade – likely due to people rounding their birth year to the nearest decade. A very small
percentage (0.01 %) indicate that they are over 120 years old, which is quite unlikely. Despite this
noise, the age data looks to be a valid and fairly accurate representation, in the aggregate, of the
age of listeners. We should be able to use this data to understand how age impacts listening.
One would
expect that people of different ages would have different music tastes. Let’s see if we can confirm
this with our data. For starters, lets compare the average listening habits of 64-year-old listeners
to that of the aggregate listening habits of the 13-year-old listener. For this experiment I selected
5,000 listeners in each age category, and aggregated their normalized artist plays to find the
most-frequently-played artists. As expected, you can see that 64-year-old listeners have different
tastes than 13-year-old listeners.
 The top artists for the average 64-year-old listener include a mix of currently popular
artists along with a number of artists from years gone by. While the top artists for the average 13-
year-old includes only the most current artists. Still, there are seven artists (shown in bold) that
overlap in the top 20 – an overlap rate of about 35%. This 35% overlap is consistent across all
ranges of top artists for the two groups. No matter if we look at the top 100 or the top 1000
artists – there’s about a 35% overlap between the listening of 13- and 64-year-olds.
 I suspect that 35% overlap is actually an overstatement of the real overlap between 13-
and 64-year-olds. There are a few potential confounding effects:
There’s a built-in popularity bias in music services. If you go to any popular music service
you will see that they all feature a number of playlists filled with popular music. Playlists like The
Billboard Top 100, The Viral 50, The Top Tracks, Popular New Releases etc. populate the home
page or starting screen for most music services. This popularity bias inflates the apparent interest
in popular music so, for instance, it may look like a 64-year-old is more interested in popular
music than they really are because they are curious about what’s on all of those featured playlists.
The age data isn’t perfect – for instance, there are certainly a number of people that we
think are 64-years-old but are not. This will skew the results to artists that are more generally
popular. We don’t really know how big this affect is, but it is certainly non-zero.
People share listening accounts – this is perhaps the biggest confounding factor – that
64-year-old listener may be listening to music with their kids, their grand-kids, their neighbors
and friends which means that not all of those plays should count as plays by a 64-year-old.
Again, we don’t know how big this effect is, but it is certainly non-zero.

The favorite music of a typical 13-year-old listener

 Perhaps more interesting than looking at how the two ages overlap in listening, is to look
at how they differ – what are the artists that a 64-year-old will listen to that are rarely, if ever,
listened to by a 13-year-old and vice versa. These are the most distinctive artists.

We can find the distinctive artists by identifying the artists in the top 100 of one group
that fall the furthest in ranking in the other group. For example Skrillex is the 40th most listened
to artist for the typical 13-year-old listener, but for 64-year-old listeners, Skrillex falls all the way
to the 3,937 most listened to artist, making Skrillex one of the most distinguishing artist between
the two groups of listeners. Likewise, Roy Orbison is the 42nd most listened to artist among 64-
year-olds. He drops to position 4,673 among 13-year-olds making him one of the distinguishing
artists that separate the 64-year-old from the 13-year-old.
We can use this technique to create playlists of artists that separate the 13-year-old from
the 64-year-olds.
We can also use this data to bring these two groups together. We can find the music that
is liked the most among the two groups. We can do this by ordering artists by their worst
ranking among the two groups. Artists like Skrillex and Roy Orbison fall to the bottom of the list
since each is poorly ranked by one of the groups, while artists like Katy Perry and Bruno Mars rise
to the top because they are favored by both groups.
 Again, the confounding factors mentioned previously will bias the shared lists to more
popular music. Nevertheless, if you are trying to make a playlist of music that will please both a
64-year-old and a 13-year-old, and you know nothing else about their music taste, this is
probably your best bet.
Artists that are favored by both 64-year-old and 13-year-old listeners are: Bruno Mars,
Taylor Swift, P!nk, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Robin Thicke, Maroon 5, Lana Del Rey,
Daft Punk, Beyoncé, Drake, Luke Bryan, Adele, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Miley Cyrus, David
Guetta, Lorde, Jay-Z, Usher.

We can sum up the differences between the two groups in this graphic
 We’ve shown that, as expected, 13-year-olds and 64-year-olds have different listening
preferences. We can apply the same techniques across the range of age demographics typically
used by marketers. We can find the most distinctive artists for each demographic bucket. It is
interesting to see the progression of music taste over time. For instance, it is clear that something
happens to a music listener between the 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 age buckets. The typical listener
goes from hipster (Lumineers, Vampire Weekend, The National), to old (Pearl Jam, U2, Bon Jovi).

It is interesting to look at the starting year for artists in each of these buckets to get a sense of
how the artist’s own age relates to the age of their fans
 Most homogenous Artists
We can also find the artists that are most acceptable across all demographics. These are
the artists that are liked by more listeners in all of the groups. Like in the 13/64-year-old example,
we can find these artists by ordering them by their worst ranking among all the demographic
groups.
Most homogeneous artists: Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Lana Del Rey, Beyoncé, P!nk,
Jay-Z, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Daft Punk, Maroon 5, Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, David
Guetta, Luke Bryan, Taylor Swift, Drake, Adele, Imagine Dragons, Miley Cyrus, Lorde
This is essentially the list of the most popular artists but with the most polarizing artists from any
one demographic removed. If you don’t know the age of your listener, and you want to give the
listener a low risk listening experience, these artists are a good place to start. And yes … this
results in a somewhat bland, non-adventurous listening session – that’s the point. But as soon as
you know a bit about the true listening preference of a new listener, you can pivot away from the
bland and give them something much more in line with their music taste.
Average number of artists in listening rotation
The typical 25- to 34-year old listener has more artists in active rotation than any other
age group, while the 65+ listeners have the least.
 Relative number of plays per user by age group
Likewise, the typical 25- to 34-year-old listener plays more music than any other
category.

Tying it all up …
This quick tour through the ages confirms our thinking that the age of a listener plays a
significant role in the type of music that they listen to. We can use this information to find music
that is distinctive for a particular demographic. We can also use this information to help find
artists that may be acceptable to a wide range of listeners. But we should be careful to consider
how popularity bias may affect our view of the world. And perhaps most important of all, people
don’t like music from the 70s or 80s so much.
 A new study by the psychology department at Cambridge University has found that
musical taste is directly linked to age. For the
first time, five main categories have been identified, spanning a person’s lifetime. In addition the
study has found that people are likely to disengage with certain genres as they grow older.
Explaining the
impetus behind the study, senior lecturer in psychology Dr Jason Rentfrow stated: ‘There is a
tendency for young people to prefer music that their parents cannot stand or find obnoxious, so
there must be some developmental changes that take place as we get older.’
From teenagers seeking an
identity through punk and metal during an ‘intense’ stage, young adults go through a
‘contemporary’ electronic and R&B phase before settling into a more relaxed period of
‘emotionally positive’ music when raising a family. According to
the study it is later in life that audiences turn to classical music and jazz to suit a more
‘sophisticated’ palette before being content to enjoy ‘unpretentious’ country and folk, no longer
adhering to peer pressure in the final stage. ‘The project
started with a common conception that musical taste does not evolve after young adulthood’,
explains Arielle Bonneville-Roussy who led the study. ‘Most academic research to date supported
this claim, but we were not convinced … we were able to find very robust age trends in musical
taste.’ The study, which has been
published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, was taken over a ten-year period
and interpreted the listening habits of more than 250,000 people.
 New research charting broad shifts in changing personal music tastes during our lifetimes
finds that - while it’s intrinsically linked to personality and experience - there are common music
genre trends associated with key stages in a human life.

‘Whereas the first musical age is about asserting independence, the next
appears to be more about gaining acceptance from others’

Jason Rentfrow

The explosion in music consumption over the last century has made ‘what you listen to’
an important personality construct – as well as the root of many social and cultural tribes – and,
for many people, their self-perception is closely associated with musical preference. We would
perhaps be reluctant to admit that our taste in music alters - softens even - as we get older.
Now, a new study suggests that - while our engagement with it may decline - music stays
important to us as we get older, but the music we like adapts to the particular ‘life challenges’ we
face at different stages of our lives. It would seem
that, unless you die before you get old, your taste in music will probably change to meet social
and psychological needs. One theory put
forward by researchers, based on the study, is that we come to music to experiment with identity
and define ourselves, and then use it as a social vehicle to establish our group and find a mate,
and later as a more solitary expression of our intellect, status and greater emotional
understanding. Researchers
say the study is the first to “comprehensively document” the ways people engage with music
“from adolescence to middle age”. The study is published in the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology. Using data gathered
from more than a quarter of a million people over a ten year period, researchers divided musical
genres into five broad, “empirically derived” categories they call the MUSIC model - mellow,
unpretentious, sophisticated, intense, contemporary - and plotted the patterns of preference
across age-groups.
 These five categories incorporate multiple genres that share common musical and
psychological traits - such as loudness and complexity.
“The project started with a common conception that musical taste does not evolve after
young adulthood. Most academic research to date supported this claim, but - based on other
areas of psychological research and our own experiences - we were not convinced this was the
case,” said Arielle Bonneville-Roussy from Cambridge’s Department of Psychology, who led the
study.
The study found that, unsurprisingly, the first great musical age is adolescence - defined
by a short, sharp burst of ‘intense’ and the start of a steady climb of ‘contemporary’. ‘Intense’
music - such as punk and metal - peaks in adolescence and declines in early adulthood, while
‘contemporary’ music - such as pop and rap - begins a rise that plateaus until early middle age.
“Teenage years are often dominated by the need to establish identity, and music is a
cheap, effective way to do this,” said Dr Jason Rentfrow, senior researcher on the study.
“Adolescents’ quest for independence often takes the shape of a juxtaposed stance to the
perceived ‘status quo’, that of parents and the establishment. ‘Intense’ music, seen as aggressive,
tense and characterised by loud, distorted sounds has the rebellious connotations that allow
adolescents to stake a claim for the autonomy that is one of this period’s key ‘life challenges’.”
As ‘intense’
gives way to the rising tide of ‘contemporary’ and introduction of ‘mellow’ – such as electronic
and R & B – in early adulthood, the next musical age emerges. These two “preference
dimensions” are considered “romantic, emotionally positive and danceable,” write the
researchers. “Once
people overcome the need for autonomy, the next ‘life challenge’ concerns finding love and
being loved – people who appreciate this ‘you’ that has emerged,” said Rentfrow. “What
we took away from the results is that these forms of music reinforce the desire for intimacy and
complement settings where people come together with the goal of establishing close
relationships – parties, bars, clubs and so on.
“Whereas the first musical age is about asserting independence, the next appears to be
more about gaining acceptance from others.”
As we settle down and middle age begins to creep in, the last musical age, as identified
by the researchers, is dominated by ‘sophisticated’ – such as jazz and classical – and
‘unpretentious’ – such as country, folk and blues.
 Researchers write that both these dimensions are seen as “positive and relaxing” - with
‘sophisticated’ indicating the complex aesthetic of high culture that could be linked to social
status and perceived intellect, while ‘unpretentious’ echoes sentiments of family, love and loss –
emotionally direct music that speaks to the experiences most will have had by this life stage.
“As we settle into ourselves and acquire more resources to express ourselves – career,
home, family, car – music remains an extension of this, and at this stage there are aspects of
wanting to promote social status, intellect and wealth that play into the increased gravitation
towards ‘sophisticated’ music,” said Rentfrow, “as social standing is seen as a key ‘life challenge’
to be achieved by this point”. “At the same
time, for many this life stage is frequently exhausted by work and family, and there is a
requirement for relaxing, emotive music for those rare down times that reflects the other major
‘life challenge’ of this stage – that of nurturing a family and maintaining long-term relationships,
perhaps the hardest of all.” Adds
Bonneville-Roussy: “Due to our very large sample size, gathered from online forms and social
media channels, we were able to find very robust age trends in musical taste. I find it fascinating
to see how seemingly trivial behaviour such as music listening relates to so many psychological
aspects, such as personality and age.”
 Music genres

A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces

of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions

Country artists
 The Official Top 40 Biggest Songs of 2017* so far are:

CHART
POS TITLE ARTIST
PEAK

1 SHAPE OF YOU ED SHEERAN 1

2 CASTLE ON THE HILL ED SHEERAN 2

3 HUMAN RAG'N'BONE MAN 2

4 YOU DON'T KNOW ME JAX JONES FT RAYE 3

5 TOUCH LITTLE MIX 4

6 ROCKABYE CLEAN BANDIT 1

7 GALWAY GIRL ED SHEERAN 2

8 CALL ON ME STARLEY 6

9 PARIS CHAINSMOKERS 5

10 SEPTEMBER SONG JP COOPER 7

I DON'T WANNA LIVE FOREVER (FIFTY

11 ZAYN/TAYLOR SWIFT 5
SHADES

12 I WOULD LIKE ZARA LARSSON 2

13 SAY YOU WON'T LET GO JAMES ARTHUR 1

14 SOMETHING JUST LIKE THIS CHAINSMOKERS & COLDPLAY 2

15 I FEEL IT COMING WEEKND FT DAFT PUNK 9

16 SEXUAL NEIKED 5

17 CHAINED TO THE RHYTHM KATY PERRY FT SKIP MARLEY 5

18 BE THE ONE DUA LIPA 9

19 STARBOY WEEKND FT DAFT PUNK 2

20 BIG FOR YOUR BOOTS STORMZY 6

21 NO LIE SEAN PAUL FT DUA LIPA 10

LOUIS TOMLINSON & STEVE

22 JUST HOLD ON 2
AOKI

23 SCARED TO BE LONELY MARTIN GARRIX & DUA LIPA 14

24 HOW WOULD YOU FEEL (PAEAN) ED SHEERAN 2

25 CLOSER CHAINSMOKERS FT HALSEY 1

26 SHOUT OUT TO MY EX LITTLE MIX 1

27 SOLO DANCE MARTIN JENSEN 8

28 FAKE LOVE DRAKE 10

29 IT AIN'T ME KYGO & SELENA GOMEZ 7

30 PERFECT ED SHEERAN 4

MAROON 5 FT KENDRICK
31 DON'T WANNA KNOW 5
LAMAR

32 NEW MAN ED SHEERAN 5

33 BAD THINGS MACHINE GUN KELLY/CABELLO 16

34 24K MAGIC BRUNO MARS 5

35 YOU WANT ME TOM ZANETTI FT SADIE AMA 22

36 ALL NIGHT VAMPS FT MATOMA 24

37 NOW AND LATER SAGE THE GEMINI 17

38 HAPPIER ED SHEERAN 6

39 CIAO ADIOS ANNE-MARIE 9

40 ONE DANCE DRAKE FT WIZKID & KYLA 1

Electronic artists

Folk artists
Hip hop artists

Jazz artists
Latin artists

Pop artists
R&B and soul

Rock artists
 Lungu Irina
Clasa a VI-a B