I have heard this before as a joke "truism".  Something people jokingly say, like everyone identifies best with the music they like when they are 11. I think the Onion even did a piece on it at one point.  So I decided to use my favorite songs list, and assign a year to each of the songs and figure out if it were really true.  It's not 100% accurate, I know there's a few mistakes in the data, but it's "close enough" to get trend data.

http://chuckyg.com/songsByYearBig.png


year194819541955195619571958195919601961196219631964196519661967196819691970197119721973197419751976197719781979

songs137162030232225304375103137165116126130119121113100105121130193202

year19801981198219831984198519861987198819891990199119921993199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011

songs252234293322319295321248254183159121114108118140898050574931252419231378421


I was 11 in 1983... which comes in ahead of 1986 by one song.  1967 was the "Summer of Love" and clearly had a lot of big hits even for someone who wasn't alive when it was going on.  I'm assuming the bump in 1995 can be attributed to a subscription to CMJ New Music Monthly which introduced me to a lot of decent music.  Despite continuing that subscription for another ten years however, I never found much else to enjoy on those discs like I did that first year I had got them.

The biggest years are clearly 1979 to 1989... definitely an 80s child I guess.  1963 is the first big uptick, that's the start of the British Invasion...

the 2000s might as well be dead to me musically speaking.  I've been listening to the "Promo Only Modern Rock Radio" compilations for the past six months to see if there's anything I missed by not listening to the radio much in the past ten years.  I think so far I've added maybe a handful of songs out of 1000 listened to.

Based on the chart, 1983 seems like a favorite year for a lot of people! It was the year Michael Jackson's Thriller was the number one album.

Look at the 00s!  ;D

Based on the chart, 1983 seems like a favorite year for a lot of people! It was the year Michael Jackson's Thriller was the number one album.

Look at the 00s!  ;D


oddly enough, I don't count any of the tracks from Thriller as ones I like.  I liked them OK when they were new, but I can't stand them now even though I know they are top notch songs.

I would say that 11 is pretty correct for me.  That was the age when I really "discovered" music.  Up until that point, I just listened to whatever everyone else was listening to.  But in 5th grade, I got my very first boom box.  I started getting my own tapes, and listening to the radio a ton more.  Music really blew up for me, and I appreciated it in a whole new way. 

Interesting observation.  I agree - I think for me age 11 was when music was most formative in regards to my musical taste.  This was 1971.

I don't know if the largest number of my favorite songs came out in 1971, but it's probably the "center" of the bell curve.  In general the vast majority of my favorite music occurs between 1964 and 1984.  8)

oddly enough, I don't count any of the tracks from Thriller as ones I like.  I liked them OK when they were new, but I can't stand them now even though I know they are top notch songs.


They are sooo overplayed on the 80s weekend programs or channels in the US. I don't blame you for not wanting to hear them again, I mean, who hasn't heard Billie Jean, Beat It, and Thriller a gazillion times?  :D

They are sooo overplayed on the 80s weekend programs or channels in the US. I don't blame you for not wanting to hear them again, I mean, who hasn't heard Billie Jean, Beat It, and Thriller a gazillion times?  :D


well there's other songs that I could say the same thing about as well, but those in particular... I wasn't a huge fan of MJ to begin with, so I guess that's why I don't care as much for them now.

I was 11 in 1989, not my favourite year for music, but did have one of the most fun songs ever to sing along to ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArGdLkpDGCQ

hmmm...could be something to this, although my favorite years in music would be age 10 (1979) and age 15 (1984).  I wonder if it has something to do with growing up and becoming more aware of adult culture at that age... At 10, girls aren't usually playing with dolls as much, they aren't just listening to Disney soundtracks (or whatever children's entertainment is appropriate given the decade.)  They may become more aware of their surroundings because parents aren't shielding them as much from adult oriented music.

Age eleven doesn't hold true for me.

I feel the most affinity for pop music from 1982 -- 1988, when I was thirteen through nineteen.

1983 was the peak year for Top 40 for me (A Flock of Seagulls, The Fixx, Human League, Eurythmics, Police, Soft Cell, Talking Heads, etc.).  As the eighties progressed, I got deeper into alternative music.  Depeche Mode was still alternative in the U.S. when I discovered them in 1983.  So was The Cure and New Order. Then it was Cabaret Voltaire, Einsterzende Neubauten, Ministry, Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smiths, OMD, Fad Gadget, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Coil, RevCo, Skinny Puppy, and others to numerous to list.

In 1980-81, when I was eleven, it was still the seventies hangover.  Pop music from the seventies bugged me when I was a kid.  Back then I listened to old doo-wop and surf music on the oldies station.  I preferred it to Hall & Oates, REO Speedwagon, Juice Newton, Kool & The Gang, Queen, Styx, and all that stuff.  Yes, Punk and New Wave were out there, but not in the sticks or the burbs.  Unless you had a hip older brother who went to college in the city, you probably didn't know The Clash, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, or the Sex Pistols, let alone X-Ray Spex, Essential Logic, Scritti Politti, or Throbbing Gristle.

Furthermore, I didn't learn to like weird music until I was about fourteen.  However, my sister did come home from the LRY conferences in the summer of '81 with a tape of Laurie Anderson, which I thought was great!  The first song I heard was "Walk the Dog."  I've been a fan of Laurie Anderson for longer than perhaps any other artist!

My graph would look about the same as yous, Chucky, even though I'm a couple of years older.  It might be rising again with bands such as Cold Cave, Arcade Fire, and Sigur Ros out there...

Age eleven doesn't hold true for me either.

For true best music for me is from the 19th Century as of the music of Beethoven.

I discovered music when i ws 13 :p but i got to admit 2005 when i was 11 music was actually good

but the music i like the best was back in 1999 for me when every genre of music WAS actually GOOD!!

I was 11 in 1996, at the time I was into Weird Al, especially his song Amish Paradise ;D, that was generally a time of gangsta rap, late grunge, and euro-techno. My favorite music as an adult is from 1967 to 1983-ish, I actually like '00s music better than '90s music too.

I guess I'd have to say no because I've never liked music, I've loved it.  I don't know how young I was when I was watching the Disney channel do music with the cartoons and stuff.  93 was when I was 11 and no I don't like 90's music. 

I was 11 in 2001. Not really known for a good year in music (boybands, teen pop, nu-metal ect..) But songs from then still hold a place in my heart no matter how cheesy they sound now.

I was 11 in 2000. That year, teen pop was EVERYWHERE! Nsync, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Backstreet boys, etc, etc.

Also rap was starting to become pretty popular. Eminem's The Marshal Mathers LP was huge and has sold 10 million copies to this day, the rapper Nelly was making his debut, and Ja Rule had a hit song I think that year.

Based on the mainstream, I hated music in 2000. Music was starting to get pretty saturated and terrible! So no, the theory of age 11 doesn't hold true for me.

The music of the 80s and 90s is my favorite, though I might exclude 1999 in this!

So I decided to use my favorite songs list, and assign a year to each of the songs and figure out if it were really true.  It's not 100% accurate, I know there's a few mistakes in the data, but it's "close enough" to get trend data.


What are you using to get the year data in an easily-accessible form?  It's been a long time since I've thought about datamining my archives, but I was pretty diligent about ID3 tags when I was ripping stuff.  Most of my archives either have no year listed, or (if part of a compilation and it's easy to figure out the year of the original track), the year of original release.

I've got a hunch my histogram will tell me something interesting.  Maybe off by a year or two, but probably in the ballpark.  There might be a bicameral distribution that approximates the years when I added "stuff I could only hear on college radio" to "stuff I grew up hearing on the radio".

I was 11 in 1998, I mainly liked r&b pop and some post grunge. My favorite music overall probably goes from about 1992 to 2005. I don't know if 1998 is my absolute favorite year in that period but it was pretty good then. Music was definitely still very strong to me in the late '90s and early '00s, to me it started dying when record sales really tanked and it became mostly about gimmicks which wasn't until around 2005. My favorite stuff from '98 is like Aaliyah, Timbaland, Foo Fighters, Garbage, Missy Elliott, Matchbox Twenty, Destiny's Child, All Saints, Usher, Mya, Goo Goo Dolls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuWMW7hVdTs

I was 11 in 2001. Not really known for a good year in music (boybands, teen pop, nu-metal ect..) But songs from then still hold a place in my heart no matter how cheesy they sound now.


this is so true!!!!!!! they are wayy much better then electroppo sounds of today except westlife and some other boyband s are just unacceptably too cheesy and corny

What are you using to get the year data in an easily-accessible form?  It's been a long time since I've thought about datamining my archives, but I was pretty diligent about ID3 tags when I was ripping stuff.  Most of my archives either have no year listed, or (if part of a compilation and it's easy to figure out the year of the original track), the year of original release.

I've got a hunch my histogram will tell me something interesting.  Maybe off by a year or two, but probably in the ballpark.  There might be a bicameral distribution that approximates the years when I added "stuff I could only hear on college radio" to "stuff I grew up hearing on the radio".


I was really diligent about making sure the albums in my mp3 collection have the correct year, and I also have a bunch of Whitburn spreadsheets with the date a song entered the charts, peaked, etc.  so it was a combination of those two sources.  some mistakes crop in the process due to typos not catching an earlier date (and maybe assigning a compilation instead of a studio album, other weird things) but I'd guess that once I filled in the stuff that was missing I'm accurate for about 99% of it.  Wrote a bunch of PERL code to handle the matching.

as for the years...

One other thing I did note was the years for me do also roughly match peaks in when new music genres became big and shrank.  64 of course is when the Beatles and the British invasion took hold in the US, so there's a notable rise there.. then again in 1979 when new wave and punk were breaking big (in the US) and a definite decline in 85 when New Wave ran it's course... a further decline in 1995 is when the whole grunge sound began to fall out of favor. So age 11 could be a coincidence.  I know I was picky about my music choices as early as age 7, and had a radio of my own at that point as well. Age 8 I started going to summer camp for 2 weeks at a time, and remember getting exposed to a lot of music thank to the older kids I was around.  Most of the kids my age didn't seem to be all that big into music, or at least none that I knew.

What are you using to get the year data in an easily-accessible form?  It's been a long time since I've thought about datamining my archives, but I was pretty diligent about ID3 tags when I was ripping stuff.  Most of my archives either have no year listed, or (if part of a compilation and it's easy to figure out the year of the original track), the year of original release.

I've got a hunch my histogram will tell me something interesting.  Maybe off by a year or two, but probably in the ballpark.  There might be a bicameral distribution that approximates the years when I added "stuff I could only hear on college radio" to "stuff I grew up hearing on the radio".


Support college radio.  It's the only thing keeping the FM band alive.  Commercial radio is fascist computer god ClearChannel dogsh*t -- lights on, nobody home.  NPR -- National Pentagon Radio -- is for snobs and squares.

If you like music, satellite radio is also a wasteland.  They might have 30 genres to pick from, but the programmers don't dick about any of them. 

Unfortunately, colleges and universities are selling off their stations to NPR, Christian broadcasters, and commercial interests.  These stations don't generate profit for the schools, the major sports are carried on commercial stations, and music...who gives a crap about music, right?

Well...I do.

If you like a college radio station, tell them so, and tell the institution. 
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/14/protest.gif

Support college radio.  It's the only thing keeping the FM band alive.  Commercial radio is fascist computer god ClearChannel dogsh*t -- lights on, nobody home.  NPR -- National Pentagon Radio -- is for snobs and squares.

If you like music, satellite radio is also a wasteland.  They might have 30 genres to pick from, but the programmers don't dick about any of them. 

Unfortunately, colleges and universities are selling off their stations to NPR, Christian broadcasters, and commercial interests.  These stations don't generate profit for the schools, the major sports are carried on commercial stations, and music...who gives a crap about music, right?

Well...I do.

If you like a college radio station, tell them so, and tell the institution. 
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/14/protest.gif


KFAI to the rescue... I live nowhere near Minnesota, yet I'm in their auto-club.  I had a friend build an FM transmitter for my house so I can listen to my computer anywhere in the yard with just an ordinary radio.  I'll either listen to KFAI or my favorites folder before I listen to commercial radio again.  FM radio died for me years ago.

I was 11 in 2002, there are a few good songs from that  year, mostly R&B though.

Here is an assortment of songs from 1971 (when I was 11) that have been among my 'favorites':

Want Ads ~ Honey Cone                    Have You Ever Seen The Rain ~ Creedence Clearwater Revival
Me And Bobby McGee ~ Janis Joplin      Just My Imagination ~ Temptations
Proud Mary ~ Ike & Tina Turner          One Toke Over The Line ~ Brewer & Shipley
Eighteen ~ Alice Cooper                      Love's Lines, Angles And Rhymes ~ 5th Dimension
Free ~ Chicago                                  Doesn't Somebody Want To Be Wanted ~ Partridge Family
What's Going On ~ Marvin Gaye          She's A Lady ~ Tom Jones
What Is Life ~ George Harrison            Oye Como Va ~ Santana
Chick-A-Boom ~ Daddy Dewdrop          Woodstock ~ Matthews' Southern Comfort
Another Day ~ Paul McCartney            Joy To The World ~ Three Dog Night
Put Your Hand In The Hand ~ Ocean    When You're Hot, You're Hot ~ Jerry Reed
We Can Work It Out ~ Stevie Wonder  Sweet And Innocent ~ Donny Osmond
Here Comes The Sun ~ Richie Havens  Me And You And A Dog Named Boo ~ Lobo
Love Her Madly ~ Doors                      Knock Three Times ~ Tony Orlando & Dawn
Mama's Pearl ~ Jackson 5                    Funky Nassau ~ Beginning Of The End
It Don't Come Easy ~ Ringo Starr          That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be ~ Carly Simon
Brown Sugar ~ Rolling Stones              Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee) ~ Raiders
Rainy Days And Mondays ~ Carpenters  Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again ~ Fortunes
It's Too Late ~ Carole King                    Don't Pull Your Love ~ Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds
Get It On ~ Chase                                Sooner Or Later ~ Grass Roots
Mr. Big Stuff ~ Jean Knight                  Draggin' The Line ~ Tommy James
Ain't No Sunshine ~ Bill Withers            I Just Want To Celebrate ~ Rare Earth
Peace Train ~ Cat Stevens                  Do You Know What I Mean ~ Lee Michaels
Maggie May ~ Rod Stewart                  Make It Funky ~ James Brown
Gypsys, Tramps And Thieves ~ Cher    The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down ~ Joan Baez
Respect Yourself ~ Staple Singers        Baby I'm-A Want You ~ Bread
Theme From Shaft ~ Isaac Hayes          Wild Night ~ Van Morrison
Rock Steady ~ Aretha Franklin              Scorpio ~ Dennis Coffey & Detroit Guitar Band

8)

Really? Why at that age?

When I was 11 it was in 1991. I listened to everything that was popular/playing on the radio at the time. I did every year since I was a year old actually, thanks to my parents...THANKS MOM AND DAD I LOVE YOU BOTH FOR ALWAYS HAVING THE RADIO ON lol. 

I also turned 11 in the year 1991, and I did listen to the radio now and then during the summer...but mainly soft-pop/adult contemporary stations. Songs I remember from that time were "You're In Love" by Wilson-Phillips (a track from their self-titled debut, which was released a year earlier), "Lily Was Here" by David A. Stewart and Candy Dulfer (which was actually recorded two years earlier, but a hit in the U.S. in the summer of '91), and of course, "Too Many Walls" by Cathy Dennis, which remains an all-time favourite of mine.

I now know and enjoy additional songs from that year...but it doesn't stand out for me as the year whose music I enjoyed the best.

It wasn't until 1994 when I began listening to music on the radio regularly. I turned 14 that year, and enjoyed listening to music by groups/artists such as Ace Of Base, All-4-One, Collective Soul, Jon Secada, Boyz II Men, Gin Blossoms, and Sheryl Crow (among others). Most of my fellow schoolmates liked listening to those performers as well.

I was 11 in 2001. Not really known for a good year in music (boybands, teen pop, nu-metal ect..) But songs from then still hold a place in my heart no matter how cheesy they sound now.


I personally think 2001 was the most decent year in music for the '00s, that year was more about R&B/southern rap getting more popular, there was alot of variety in music in the early '00s(and '90s).
Teen-pop was dying off that year/or starting to blend in with R&B influenced production(example: Britney's I'm A Slave 4 You was produced by The Neptunes), nu-metal was at it's absolute peak though. The biggest acts that year was Alicia Keys, Eminem, Nelly, Ja Rule, Linkin Park, Nickelback, Destiny's Child, J Lo, ect., 2001 had that kind of variety, nu-metal, late teen-pop, euro-trance, post-grunge, R&B style rap, neo soul, disco-house, southern rap, all that seemed to have almost equal footing in 2001. Now in 2011 electro-pop totally dominates the mainstream music scene with some country, indie-rock, and alt-rap on the side.

When I was 11 it was 1968 and looking at the Top Hits of 1968 the list does contain some of my favourite hits records.

Top Hits of 1968
   1 Louis Armstrong ~ What A Wonderful World
   2 Des O'Connor ~ I Pretend
   3 Mary Hopkin ~ Those Were The Days
   4 Tom Jones ~ Help Yourself
   5 The Union Gap ~ Young Girl
   6 Tom Jones ~ Delilah
   7 Leapy Lee ~ Little Arrows
   8 The Equals ~ Baby Come Back
   9 Hugo Montengro ~ The Good The Bad And The Ugly
   10 The Beatles ~ Hey Jude

When I was 11 it was 1968 and looking at the Top Hits of 1968 the list does contain some of my favourite hits records.


I have to ask - was it as kooky in your part of the world in 1968 as it was in the U.S.?  I was only eight in 1968, so I wasn't nearly attentive enough, but there was a whole lot of societal upheaval going on in the U.S. at that time.  What were things like there?

I have to ask - was it as kooky in your part of the world in 1968 as it was in the U.S.?  I was only eight in 1968, so I wasn't nearly attentive enough, but there was a whole lot of societal upheaval going on in the U.S. at that time.  What were things like there?
I was attentive back then, for I had an older sister who would bring home pop records, that I would hear being played from her room.

I didn't like most new music when I was 11 (1996), save for some eurodance and some pop ballads, and seemed to like what my parents played on the oldies stations more. My "representive graph" would be represented by my huge 45 RPM vinyl collection, though it is bigger than this graph suggests, but includes over 400 45 RPM singles every year between 1963 and 1987, the years which will always have the best music. I just can't stand today's junk; just listening to it on commercials drives me nuts!

I was 11 from spring 1992 till spring 1993.

On my website, I've published 'favorite songs lists', sorted by year, with the number of tracks mentioned since the year 1988. In those lists are only my absolute top favorites. I've made a graph like the topic starter did.

There's indeed a peak in 1992, but for the rest, my graph looks a lot more strange.

Many music from the early 00s simply fits my taste (The Neptunes and such stuff), and that strange peak in 2005 has been caused by discovering internet radio, and the fact there was a trend in dance music fitting my taste, that year. The low áfter that by a combination of becoming ill, and new music trends which weren't all that for me.

Spring 2010, I've bought a wi-fi radio (so I don't have to sit behind the pc anymore to discover nice music), and it shows. It brought much (for me) unknown songs, often released since 2008. Although many recent favorites are quite obscure. Still no huge peak like 1992/2001/2005, but also no low anymore like 2007.

http://www.wwzapper.com/graph.png

I was 11 from spring 1992 till spring 1993.

On my website, I've published 'favorite songs lists', sorted by year, with the number of tracks mentioned since the year 1988. In those lists are only my absolute top favorites. I've made a graph like the topic starter did.

There's indeed a peak in 1992, but for the rest, my graph looks a lot more strange.

Many music from the early 00s simply fits my taste (The Neptunes and such stuff), and that strange peak in 2005 has been caused by discovering internet radio, and the fact there was a trend in dance music fitting my taste, that year. The low áfter that by a combination of becoming ill, and new music trends which weren't all that for me.

Spring 2010, I've bought a wi-fi radio (so I don't have to sit behind the pc anymore to discover nice music), and it shows. It brought much (for me) unknown songs, often released since 2008. Although many recent favorites are quite obscure. Still no huge peak like 1992/2001/2005, but also no low anymore like 2007.

http://www.wwzapper.com/graph.png


this looks accurate to general people's preferenfces :p i mean it fits mine and i come to dislike musi9c from 2007 tooo... i don't ike anything from 2007