Overview

• Teenagers tend to share many favorites shaped by charts and trends, while older listeners explore fewer new artists and converge on personal staples.
• The dataset covers 542 million plays of more than one million tracks, enabling a life‑course view of listening habits across an international user base.
• Users on the unnamed service report their age and playback activity, allowing the researchers to track long‑term shifts in musical repertoires.
• By midlife, many listeners repeatedly return to music from their youth, and chart rankings matter less as tastes become more individual.
• Co‑author Alan Said of the University of Gothenburg says most 65‑year‑olds are not on musical discovery journeys, and he urges streaming platforms to tailor recommendations by age and nostalgic preference.