At what age do you form the strongest attachment to particular music?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times:

When do the strongest adult musical preferences set in?

And:

For this project, the music streaming service Spotify gave me data on how frequently every song is listened to by men and women of each particular age.

And:

Consider, for example, the song “Creep,” by Radiohead. This is the 164th most popular song among men who are now 38 years old. But it is not in the top 300 for the cohort born 10 years earlier or 10 years later.

Note that the men who most like “Creep” now were roughly 14 when the song came out in 1993. In fact, this is a consistent pattern.

I did a similar analysis with every song that topped the Billboard charts from 1960 to 2000. In particular, I measured how old their biggest fans today were when these songs first came out.

I was about 11 when I first really latched on to music, 12 when I got my hands on my first guitar. And by 14, I was deeply immersed in what would become my forever comfort music.

Fascinating article.