It has given some in middle age dubious hope that they have their finger on the cultural pulse. Meanwhile, some younger users have been told their listening habits suggest they are well into retirement.<\/p>\n
Spotify has confected a wave of intrigue over what our musical preferences suggest about our vintage, with its \u201cyour listening age\u201d feature causing delight and consternation.<\/p>\n
The gimmick is a new addition to the streaming service\u2019s annual Wrapped feature, which uses the swaths of listening data it collects to deliver personalised insights into a user\u2019s year in sound.<\/p>\n
Many users found they had jumped generations in their musical habits. Some gen Zers noted they had been given an age in the 70s, while parents presumed their children\u2019s determination to listen to the KPop Demon Hunters<\/a> soundtrack on loop had dragged down their supposed listening maturity.<\/p>\n The artist Grimes posted a listening age of 92, which she put down to her \u201clove of the oldies\u201d.<\/p>\n Listening to Linda Ronstadt was blamed by one user for pushing up his listening age to 72. Photograph: Ed Perlstein\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Mark Morgan, 37, a principal ecologist, was admirably relaxed at being allocated a listening age of 72. He surmised that the figure had been pushed up by him listening to Long Long Time<\/a> by Linda Ronstadt, released in 1970.<\/p>\n \u201cI was neither happy nor annoyed by it but it maybe makes you feel a little less cool,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I was listening to Long Long Time because it featured on [the US drama] The Last of Us.\u201d<\/p>\n John Howes, 67, from Malvern, Worcestershire, said his musical age came through as 17 thanks to listening to new music for his local music sharing group.<\/p>\n In a generational reversal, Jon Porter, 60, a logistics consultant from Berkshire, was given a listening age of 21 \u2013 the Irish singer CMAT<\/a> featured in his streaming habits this year \u2013 while his daughter Bethan, 21, was given a listening age of 59.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The data science behind the feature is predictably thin. Spotify says it is based on a \u201creminiscence bump\u201d, or a tendency to listen to music from one\u2019s formative years. The feature examines a user\u2019s listening history, compares it with others of a similar generation and then \u201cplayfully hypothesises\u201d a listening age.<\/p>\n The real aim, which has proved successful, is to find new ways of encouraging users to share their Spotify findings.<\/p>\n \u201cSpotify Wrapped is the most successful marketing tactic of the last 10 years,\u201d said Troy Osinoff, a digital marketing entrepreneur. \u201c[It is] built on one simple idea: people are obsessed with themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor Swift was the most streamed artist on Spotify in the UK for the third year running, followed by Drake, Sabrina Carpenter and The Weeknd. The most streamed song was Alex Warren\u2019s Ordinary.<\/p>\n The annual Wrapped campaign has become a marketing boon for Spotify. However, a rival Unwrapped campaign aims to highlight the platform\u2019s hosting of AI-generated music<\/a> and willingness to run ads from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is tasked with finding, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n