Weird science

I read an article about how aging affects the brain and how that affects our musical tastes. Dopamine, one of the important chemicals that affect the brain's reward centre and gives us chills when we hear new catchy hooks and exciting tunes, has a lesser effect when we get older. Thus, no more insane excitement over the newest fad in the musical world, and more nostalgia driven choices of playlists. Nostalgia is a natural antidepressant and evolutionally important in that remembering the 'good ole days' will prevent you from dwelling in your cave and whimpering about how life is hard and then dying of hunger or getting mauled by a saber tooth tiger.

Conclusion: Today's music is not shit and older music is not decidedly better, our brains just react differently to them because of actual physical differences. Our tastes do not become more refined and sophisticated because we get older and wiser but because our brain chemistry is different.

Dopamine is also the reason why our brains are secretly into Justin Bieber, no matter how carefully hipster our existence or how loyally hard rock we pretend to be. Predictable pop music is physically addictive, fo realz.

Special thanks to Cracked.com for introducing me to these articles.