My mom, grandmother, and I are alike in many ways: our dark hair, our light eyes, our penchant for coffee ice cream, our fondness of baking, and our love of good music. But if you ask us each to name our favorite music, you’re sure to get three very different answers. My grandmother will insist it’s Pete Seeger. For my mom, it’s Billy Joel. And while I can appreciate the occasional folk song and know the lyrics to “Vienna” by heart, if you ask me who the best musical artist is, I will unashamedly tell you that it’s Taylor Swift.
But why is that so? Do we really believe that the music written during our teens is objectively superior to music written in any other era?
What I do know is that Taylor Swift has provided the background track to some of my fondest and most vivid memories – screaming “Love Story” at the top of my lungs with my friends at karaoke night; blasting “Getaway Car” with my sister the first time we drove together after getting our drivers’ licenses; blowing out my seventeenth birthday candles as “Never Grow Up” played softly in the background.
Music is inseparably linked with memory, so it makes sense that Taylor Swift’s music maintains such a special place in my heart. In a study led by Petr Janata (Cerebral Cortex, 2009), college students listened to 30 songs from years when they were 8-18 years old while undergoing functional brain MRI. Subjects indicated whether each song was associated with any autobiographical memory and, indeed, researchers found that spikes in the prefrontal cortex correlated with listening to the songs associated with autobiographical memories.
We also know that memories which are strongly associated with emotion – whether positive or negative – are encoded more effectively. The process is circularly reinforced; listening to our favorite songs stimulates the brain’s pleasure circuit which releases an influx of mood-boosting neurotransmitters including dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. We retrieve not just the song itself, but the associated memories, which in turn cements them further in our psyche.
But why does music from our teenage years specifically seem to trigger a disproportionate level of attachment? The brain undergoes rapid neurological development during adolescence, so our favorite music during those years becomes inextricably branded on to our neural pathways. According to Rathbone et al (Memory & Cognition, 2008), this period of our lives is when we develop into our “stable and enduring [selves].” This stage of explosive development may explain what is known as the reminiscence bump, the phenomenon by which we remember our teenage and young-adult lives more vividly than any other period. These years are marked by significant changes in our personal identity, with experiences that are “self-defining” (Singer & Salovey, 1993). Hearing a song rooted in that momentous stage recalls the formative time from which our current selves were born.
Further, the music we listen to as teenagers is central in shaping our budding social identity. We often learn of songs through our friends, and we derive a sense of community and belonging through the sharing of this music. In this way, our music becomes an external representation of how we wish to be perceived. Moreover, it defines who we are to ourselves.
So, when my own future teenager naively claims that the smash-hit boy band of 2054 is simply unparalleled, I’ll hold my tongue and pity her misguided conviction. After all, we all know that Taylor’s rule will never be toppled.
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