We stick with the music we loved as teens

OUR musical preferences are formed during our teenage years – and don’t change as we get older, a study says.

It shows that girls are likely to have decided what they like by the time they are 13, while boys are likely to do so by 14.

Researchers examined users of music streaming service Spotify to see how often songs were listened to by men and women of different age ranges.

In one example, the song Creep by Radiohead, from 1993 album Pablo Honey, was found to be the 164th most-popular song among men aged 38. But it was not in the top 300 for those born ten years earlier or later.

Author and economist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, who carried out the analysis, said: ‘The men who most like Creep now were roughly 14 when the song came out in 1993. This is a consistent pattern.’

He added: ‘The most important period for men in forming their adult tastes were the ages 13 to 16 ... for women it was the ages 11 to 14.’

The analysis was published in the New York Times.