Spotify Wrapped is a nice annual summary of your listening behavior. Every year App for streaming music adds new features, like 2023, when it gave people a the city of soundthat is, a city that will adapt to your listening style. HE Spotify will end in 2025 It just launched on Wednesday and this year’s new features include a multiplayer game called Wrapped Party and an instant assessment of your hearing age.
This last bit threw me a little. My real age is 57 years. According to Spotify, my music listening age is 79.
SEVENTY NINE.
President Donald Trump and former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are 79 years old. Liza Minelli is 79 years old. Dear… he is ageless, but technically he is 79 years old.
I’m not a child, I understand. I am a proud Atari Wave Gen Xer. So it’s not like I was 18 and they told me I was listening to AARP songs. But does Spotify realize what it means to be influenced by a listening age that is 22 years older than me?
How old am I again?
I’m not the only one who thinks Spotify is outdated. My 18-year-old daughter was told she was 37, perhaps because of her love of 90s emo. Some people age: My colleague Corinne Reichert’s mother, 73, was classed as 21 (“She listens to a lot of K-pop,” says her daughter).
Spotify described my colleague Jon Skillings as an 86-year-old octogenarian, “because you’ve been into music since the late 1950s.”
This is due to his passion for jazz and a healthy dose of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington during his sonic excursions. At least Spotify had the good taste to play Count Basie’s version from April 1957 in Paris when the news was announced.
“I’m not going to lie. It hurts a little bit,” Skillings said. “I really thought I’d mix a lot more songs from this century.”
Spotify calls the 2024 release by contemporary jazz pianist Vijay Iyer its best album.
“To see?” said. “I can develop with time.”
I may be old, but I’ve seen the coolest bands.
I know 79 isn’t old to many. Last December I lost my sister Claudia at the age of 78, and her ghost will haunt me forever as I mourn an age she could never regret. But there’s something shocking about seeing someone 22 years older than you, especially in the music world, where the industry still depends on the support of a young, attractive singer.
Do I really care? Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. There’s a t-shirt that says, “I may be old, but I’ve seen the best bands.” It was probably made for baby boomers, but as an Xer who saw Prince living in his hometown of Minneapolis during his best decade, the 80s, I can proudly identify with this observation.
I’ve seen some older people at concerts, well, I can’t deny it. A few years ago I saw Steely Dan at an outdoor amphitheater near Seattle. (No noise.) One year I saw folk legend Pete Seeger perform with Arlo Guthrie at the University of Minnesota. My mother, born in the 1920s, and my brother, a boy born in 1944, were with me and we were all fascinated. In this performance, children jumped into the arms of their parents. Pete and Arlo’s music is timeless. And when I went to concerts in the 80s I saw bands like The Pet Shop Boys, REM, U2, Redd Kross, The Church and The Pixies.
But as a mother of a teenager, I’ve also been inundated with more modern music, and I love it too. Thanks to her I panicked! at the Disco, Alex G, Car Seat Headrest, Melanie Martinez and Slaughter Beach, Dog. And my daughter is not easy to categorize either. Right now, he’s been listening to music since before he was born and saw My Chemical Romance kick off their Long Live The Black Parade tour, performing their 2006 album The Black Parade in its entirety.
How does Spotify determine your listening age?
Spotify says I’m 79 years old for listening to music, not because I watch reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show, but because I’ve loved music since the early 1960s.
Friday, Spotify published a blog post He explained the Wrapped method, but did not explain how it determines hearing age. According to Business InsiderSpotify analyzes the release year of all the songs you listened to this year and finds music from an era you’ve listened to more often than others your actual age. The site assumes that people like music played between the ages of 16 and 21 (Welcome to the era of Prince, REM and The Smiths).
I think my musical age on Spotify has a lot to do with the fact that I saw Bob Dylan’s latest biography, A Complete Unknown, and suddenly decided that Spotify was the perfect way to explore Dylan’s music. I was a little early for climax, even though I lived right on the famous Highway 61, where God said to Abraham, “Slay me a son.” Well, I saw the movie and checked out Dylan stuff on Spotify.
So why don’t you give me a decade instead of an era? I was born in the 60s, so calling me a 60s child would suit me perfectly. (My birth year is 6-7, which can be a popular year for Gen Z and Alpha.) My music taste grew up in Minneapolis in the 80s, with Prince, The Replacements, Husker Du, and The Suburbs. So call me an 80’s kid and I’ll put this idiot in a t-shirt and show him off.
I decided to proudly display my Spotify age. No one should be put in a music box; There are great songs from every decade, if you’re open enough to listen to them, and an eight-year-old can listen to whoever he wants. I am proud that my taste in music is not only determined by the year I was born, but is open and inclusive.
So excuse me while I watch Spotify call me 79 and quote an iconic song from those Gen X gurus, Nirvana:
Well, whatever.
