It is not uncommon for friends on Facebook
or other social media to post links to music videos for the sake of nostalgia, or
because the artist is in the news (possibly deceased), or just to express the
poster’s current state of mind. Unless I have some history with or personal
connection to the song or artist (such as my Bobby Darin story), I seldom
comment on the post whether I like the song or not. It means something to the
poster, and that is enough: de gustibus and all that. However, it is well known
(and a subject of recurrent research) that our musical tastes say much about
our personalities, so perhaps we reveal more than we intend when we post music
vids.
An acquaintance (the actual
face-to-face kind) who is also is a frequenter of my posts on this blogsite (and
thereby one of a smallish but I like to think discerning readership) asked me
the other day whether the music videos attached to most of them reflect my
personal taste. (I sensed a bit of judgment in the question, but didn’t pursue that
aspect of it.) The answer is by-and-large yes. Not always. Sometimes the title
or lyrics of a song are just apt for the topic of the blog, so I’ll attach it
even if I personally don’t like it much. But 9 times out of 10 I like the
attachment at least a little. Occasionally a lot. I’m not sure what that
reveals, but an online test purports to do so.
Research over the past 30 years
(confirming what was already obvious to casual observers) has shown that the
overwhelming majority of people form their musical tastes between the ages of
10 and 30, with 14 being the peak year. People remember notes and lyrics of
songs from this stage of life better than any they heard before or hear later. The
songs typically remain a core preference for life with ever deepening nostalgia
value. Our tastes as we grow older and more experienced may well expand far
beyond what we liked in youth, of course, (mine did) but usually in ways that
are unsurprising if you know the core. For example, heavy metal enthusiasts if
and when they explore classical tend to like Wagner. I get this completely.
Wagner is definitely the most metal of the classical composers.
For
this reason the most recent studies on musical preferences and personality
traits have focused less on broad genres per
se (e.g. country, rap, folk, classical, etc.) and more on musical attributes
within and across genres, such as arousal, valence and depth. David M.
Greenberg at Bar-Ilan University and the University of Cambridge in a 2021
study, also found that listeners tended to like artists who appeared to express
in their music personality traits similar to their own according to the Big 5
model. (The Big Five traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeableness and Neuroticism (OCEAN). “The match between the [personality of
the] listener and the artist was predictive of the musical preferences for the
artist beyond just the attributes from the music,” Greenberg said according to
the Washington Post.
Anyway, I took his 35-question test on personality
and musical taste. It can be found at https://musicaluniverse.io/ – if you take it, note
the warning to save the results manually. My first page results:
Score Summary
Below is a summary of your scores based on
comparisons to 350,000 people worldwide. To learn details and get personalized
recommendations based on your scores, download your 15-page eReport on the next
page.
Personality
Traits:
Openness | Average (25 to 75th Percentile)
Musical
Preferences:
Mellow | Average (25 to 75th Percentile)
Those are disturbingly normal results. So much for being
eccentric. An agreeable average Joe who doesn’t get newfangled stuff? I’ve been
called worse.
I’m not sure how any of that relates to
the musical attachments on this site – well OK, you’d be hard-pressed to find
much newfangled pop, I suppose. You’ll find new rock (e.g. Dorothy, Rival Sons,
The Pretty Reckless), though admittedly the style of these groups is much like
the rock of my 10-30 youth.
When I started blogging on this
site on a whim in 2009 (Yikes! That’s 15 years ago) the posts were just prose –
even photos were rare. The videos came along later to add a bit more… well…
pretension – and perhaps to inspire in the reader the question “Why THAT song?
My pick would have been much better.” You’re probably right, too. Hey, what do
you expect? I’m
just an agreeable average Joe who doesn’t get newfangled stuff.
Openness | Average (25 to 75th Percentile)
Mellow | Average (25 to 75th Percentile)
Nostalgia
Post: I first heard this number by Janis (when she was with Big Brother and the
Holding Company) on the radio in 1968 at age 15 – right in that 10-30 sweet
spot. I like several of her other numbers better but the first counts for
something. It ultimately prompted me to buy 4 albums between 1968 and 1971
including the posthumous Pearl. Janis
Joplin – Piece of My Heart
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