Beyond Reason by Rob Perez
RPerez@cherryroad.com

It’s a new year. A time for fresh starts and new beginnings. A time to let go of the past and look boldly toward the future. And yet—before we leap ahead wholesale, I’d like to briefly call attention to one small thing from the past. It’s not a big thing. But it’s not nothing either.

You see, at the turn of the new year, Spotify does some kind of math. It takes all the music I played over the course of the calendar year and, with great confidence, informs me that my listening age for 2025 was 81 years old.

Now, to be clear, I am not 81 years old. My father is just past that, but not by much. If someone saw me on the tennis court or read this column or watched me get in and out of a chair and confidently arrived at 81, I’d want to know exactly what the heck they were looking at.

Which brings us to Spotify. And, look, I know it’s not some guy at Spotify whose job is to closely inspect my playlist and come up with a number. I know Spotify had one algorithm throw my playlist into another algorithm, and that thing spit out a number.

I just want to know how they got there.

I’m not saying 81 is old. I’m saying it’s older than me. And the truth is, maybe twenty-five percent of my playlist — K-Pop Demon Hunters; Wicked; Alvin and the Chipmunks; etc. — is actually seven years old.

If a full quarter of my listening is seven-year-old music and Spotify still lands on 81, then my real listening age is now north of 100.

And yet, ten percent of my playlist is Taylor Swift. That’s gotta bump my real listening age up another fifteen years.

I also have a new teenager who has recently discovered this new genre called rock. So when he moves from his record player that’s in his room to downstairs, where we all get to “enjoy” his selections, he surreptitiously grabs my phone and there’s a fusillade of Green Day and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Queens of the Stone Age. I suppose I went through a version of this phase as a much younger man. Maybe we all did. So if Spotify somehow pegs this teenager’s taste accurately, that should now put me past a buck thirty.

I should mention the grandparents visit about once a month. So I try to read the room. I pride myself on versatility. So I might spin a little Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, and John Denver. There’s also a lot more Kris Kristofferson, who I frankly don’t know how to spell. The true ears for this music are septuagenarians, so even my in-laws listen to younger music than I do?! Also, that probably adds another five or so years putting me in the ballpark of 140.

Lastly, there’s the problem with The Wife. She listens to the absolute newest hits out there. Could be pop or hip hop or folk. It’s just gotta be new. Then she’ll listen to it on repeat until it’s “old” – which I think is about a week, or at least until someone else discovers it. Yes, she has her own account but when we listen to music at home, it’s always on my account. So if Spotify thinks I’m into the latest thing, that would elbow my real listening age to comfortably past 160.

I confess I do listen to a lot of Mozart and Beethoven. Does that mean my listening age is near 250? And if I’m listening to Jon Batiste playing Beethoven—what’s my listening age then? Does the algorithm split the difference?

I’ll tell you a secret. When no one is listening to what I’m listening to, I listen to… many, many things. I listen to podcasts. Does that make me… curious? I listen to hip-hop. Does that make me dope? I listen to jazz. Does that make me a hep cat? I listen to a lot of global music. Does that make me worldly? But I also listen to Wet Leg (I saw them in concert, thank you very much). They’re rock but I think ‘em more as punk. Does that make me cool? Does asking whether or not I’m cool make me cool?

This is all very confusing but I want to clarify that any listening age Spotify called me would have annoyed me. I might have been more annoyed if Spotify got my listening age exactly right. I don’t want to be distilled to a number. I’m my own man. I’ve got taste. It’s eclectic. Like Morning Becomes Eclectic. Which I also listen to.

The thing is — listening to music is a team sport. We don’t need to put a number on it. Why not put a letter on it? Why not put a shape on it? Why not put a color on it? Because if Spotify told me my listening color was Viva Magenta, I’d think… Yeah, well, that’s alright.