Spotify Says People in Their 40s Listen to More Pop Music

What do 19 year-olds and 42 year-olds have in common? They're both actively seeking out pop music. At least that's according to Spotify, which published an analysis of recent listener data on their Insights blog yesterday.

According to Spotify data, which is based on what users are listening to on the streaming platform, listeners veer away from mainstream music around the age of 25. "We’re starting to listen to 'our' music, not 'the' music," at age 25, Spotify's Eliot van Buskirk posits. Listeners level off at 35, suggesting they've settled into their own groove. At age 42, users start listening to more mainstream music again. Nothing like pop music to recapture a little of that lost youth.

Of course, if you have kids, you can throw it all out the window. Listeners at any age who have kids listen to much less popular music. As Spotify product manager/data nerd Ajay Kalia puts it, "becoming a parent has an equivalent impact on your 'music relevancy' as aging about 4 years."

No, Spotify doesn't actually know whether or not you have kids. They just figure anyone who starts playing significant amounts of children's music is probably a parent. Of course, once Spotify can keep tabs on all that Taylor Swift vinyl you bought, they'll really have some data on their hands.