POP MUSIC IS BORING AFTER 33

STUDIES SUGGEST THAT THIS IS THE AGE BY WHICH TASTE FOR MUSIC “MATURES”

As you move out of your teens and into your 20s and 30s, your musical tastes start to solidify and you likely quit keeping up with popular music. Now, research has found the average age at which your music library is unlikely to change: 33.

The study’s author reached this conclusion by analysing data on US Spotify users and comparing it to artist population data from music intelligence company The Echo Nest. “Whether the demands of parenthood and careers mean devoting less time to pop culture, or just because they’ve succumbed to good old- fashioned taste freeze, music fans beyond a certain age seem to reach a point where their tastes have ‘ matured’,” the study’s author writes.

The author gathered selfreported age data from Spotify and looked at users’ “Taste Profiles,” which tracks how many times listeners have streamed individual artists. These artists were then matched to their popularity rank on The Echo Nest. For example, as of January, Taylor Swift is the most popular artist while Norah Jones has a popularity rank of about 1,000.

The research revealed that the average teen listens to music among the Billboard, the 200 highest- ranking albums in the country, but this music represents a small proportion of their streaming as they age. By their mid- 30s, the listener rarely tunes in to this music.

They listen to less- popular artists or they return to the music that defined their teen years. But, the decline in popular music streaming is much more dramatic for men than for women.

By their mid30s, they rarely listen to this music