This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You

Because your brain is wired to experience rewards from different facets of music than my brain, it is misguided to suggest that anyone’s taste in music is superior to anyone else’s.

Personal identity is a dynamic phenomenon. It changes across time and circumstances. It's in flux most dramatically when we are young and trying to figure who we want to be—who we could be. Identity is both a social act (such as choosing to add "I dig!" to your discourse) and an aesthetic one (such as opting to wear hot pants but drawing the line at miniskirts). Music, and lyrics in particular, serve as a kind of encyclopedia of personas for us to explore and adopt. Lyrics provide us with a private dressing room to "try on" the words of others, to see if we can fit them onto our own persona.

Be it records or romantic partners, we fall in love with the ones who make us feel like our best and truest self.

I'm in my sixties, and at long last I am finally experiencing the welcome feeling of 'I don't get what the kids are listening to these days!

Listening is not the same as hearing. Listening is an active process, not a passive one, and becoming a competent musical listener requires curiosity, effort, and love. But it requires something else, too--something it took me years to fully comprehend. It requires understanding and embracing your unique identity as a listener.

Practically speaking, without a listener, music does not exist. By perceiving, feeling, and reacting to the many dimensions of a song, a listener closes the creative circle and completes the musical experience.

Some of the best musicians I know aren’t musicians.” And with that he turned away, impromptu jam session over.

For many listeners, the exciting new music we discovered when we were young becomes the reliable playlist we stick with in middle age.