Editor’s note: Jemal Polson is a social media producer at CNN. A lover of popular culture, he has previously written for The Telegraph, The Independent and Variety.

CNN
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If you love Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Fall Out Boy’s “Dance, Dance” and Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” as much as I do, we were probably born around the same time.

When I listen to these songs now, I am hit with waves of nostalgia; first loves, the trials and tribulations of high school, and the ups and downs of living with my family.

While I’ve come to appreciate younger artists like Doja Cat, Lil Nas X, and Sabrina Carpenter in recent years, songs from the 2000s have a special place in my head and heart.

But a young colleague of mine recently told me that “the music from 2008 to 2016 was at its peak.” At the time, Meghan Trainor said she loved One Direction and Kesha; all were artists who soundtracked his crucial formative years.

When I saw other generations of music fans saying that music was so much better when they were younger, I wondered why. We can’t all be right, maybe we are? I talked to experts to find out how music affects our brains.

“The music wasn’t any better when we were younger; Music psychologist Dr. from New York University, who studies how people process music and how music and memories shape each other. Rita Aiello says music brings out very, very strong emotions.

Aiello remembers the Beatles’ “Yesterday” and Barbra Streisand’s “People” as two of her favorite songs from her youth. “Music is an extremely powerful cue for remembering things that have happened before in our lives,” he said.

So why is music so powerful? Dr., professor of music at the University of Southern California. “Music is episodic,” said Robert Cutietta. “If you look at a piece of art or something, you can look at it and go. Music happens over time. There is a part of our brain episodic memory – that’s where it goes.”

Logical. According to research, a person’s preference for popular music peaks around the age of 23. A study conducted in 1989 Published in the Journal of Consumer Research sequel to 2013 The age of 19 is reported in the magazine Musicae Scientiae. 2022 replica The results of the second study, in Marketing Letters: A Journal of Research in Marketing, found that a person’s music preference peaks at age 17.

“It’s part of your identity,” Cutietta said. “We develop so much of who we are in those years (and) we connect to the music.”

Cutietta, born in 1953, cited the works of the Beatles and conductor Leonard Bernstein as among his favorites. These artists helped shape his musical tastes in his youth.

This attachment to your identity may be why you feel less connected to contemporary music as you get older.

Emotions connected to music at impressionable ages help create a lifelong bond; While listening to a song, happy and sad emotions intertwine and even complement each other.

“If we were sad 20 years ago (listening to a song), we will still be sad today, but with some distance from that sadness… so there is a different sense of richness in this experience,” Aiello said, noting that “sadness can be the beginning of joy.”

It may also explain why listening to something you enjoyed during an earlier, more challenging period in your life can bring a sense of catharsis when you hear it now, he said.

But what if you think of the 1970s and 1980s as the holy grail of “real music,” even though it included good and bad songs throughout the decades?

It may be because you remember the artists, songs and albums that are meaningful to you, and forget the ones that are not. “There are circumstances that make some songs particularly meaningful to you, and as you listen to the songs, memories of those circumstances will come back,” Aiello said.

Cutietta said these meaningful songs still resonate with you, overshadowing the forgettable ones.

“Every era has terrible songs that become huge hits,” Cutietta said. “They are still there somewhere in our memory, but we choose not to bring them up. Naturally, we will feature the songs we love.

I’m sure young people today will hail the early 2020s as a great era in music and say the artists of 2038 have nothing left from their day.

But they’ll probably think about how their favorite artists shaped their youth and forget the songs that don’t matter at all.