Started listening to Taylor Swift at 42? You’re having a mid-life crisis
A MID-LIFE crisis usually begins with a sudden interest in hair dye or buying a motorbike on impulse. But what happens if you’ve noticed your other half has started listening to trendy pop music?
According to a study it is as you feared – they’re having a mid-life crisis.
And researchers were able to pinpoint exactly when this behaviour will kick in and subside.
They said we are most likely to start trying to recapture our youth at the age of 42 and we behave like proper adults again three years later at 45. During this period we lis- ten to more pop music by global stars such as Taylor Swift, 25, and Ed Sheeran, 24 – a sign that we are trying to act younger than our age, the researchers suggested.
They analysed the tastes of millions of users of Spotify, an online service that allows subscribers to listen to and download music.
On average the youngest users listen to the most popular singers – world-famous stars with a string of number one hits.
As listeners age, they tend to move away from mainstream acts, and at around 35 the average listener seems to ‘mature’ and stabilise in their tastes.
There is however a small but pronounced blip at the age of 42, when millions veer back towards popular stars and bands, before returning to their more sophisticated tastes by the age of 45.
Quite why this happens is not clear. But Spotify’s Eliot Van Buskirk suggested: ‘Around age 42, music taste briefly curves back to the popular charts — an attempt to harken back to our youth, perhaps?’
The research was carried out in the US but is likely to reflect behaviour in Britain.