1 of 2

Nelson Creath

Comm 1500-505

22 June 2022

Midterm: The 5-Step Critical Process (Analysis 1)

Music Preferences Across Generations

Description: For this 5 step analysis I chose the prompt about musical taste among peo-
ple of different ages. For my research I interviewed 4 of my friends ranging in age from 21 to 30.
I chose two of my coworkers and two of my friends outside of work. My first one was Meg who
is 30. She is from Maine and was raised listening to rock and a lot of bluegrass type music. My
other co-worker, Kale, is 28 and from Utah. He listens to a lot of music but his roots are in the
Grateful Dead because that’s what he was raised on. My friend Nick was the third and he is 21.
He listens to mostly Rap and a lot of Music from the UK, he told me that it was because he is
from South Africa where that music is very popular. The final person that I interviewed was my
friend Leigh who is 25. She is from the Midwest and loves pop punk music and country. All of
the people I interviewed were of the same educational background. The main differences were
their age and where they are from.
Analysis: There were a couple things that I noticed. The first thing is that the people that
I interviewed was that they all listen to and favor the music they were raised on. The music their
parents shared with them growing up was the music that stuck around in their lives. The second
thing I noticed was that location made a huge difference in taste. People from different areas like
different music. All of these people love music and are passionate about the artists that they en-
joy. There seems to be an emotional connection that forms when people listen to certain music.
Interpretation: Through my analysis I found that musical taste is affected and influ-
enced by some things that are inevitable. Unavoidable things like where you are from, who your
parents listened to, and age. The people I interviewed liked the music they were raised listening
to. This was the main factor even though age and location were factors as well. It appeared that
the most influential thing was the parents music taste and how it was passed down. Even though
their taste had changed a bit over time, that was a constant.
 2 of 2

Evaluation: The people I interviewed all developed their taste in music from their par-
ents. The music they listened to growing up was the music that they like the most. Their differ-
ences in taste stemmed from their musical taste developing and branching out from the original
but the roots were the same. All of the people interviewed seemed open minded to new music.
Meg mentioned she hated rap and Nick mentioned he hated country. Those two genres seem to
be the most controversial. Rap music is newer and more modern so it can be hard for people to
enjoy it if they are from and older generation. Country music is older but people who were not
raised around it typically do not enjoy the way it sounds. I understand how peoples taste is influ-
enced and I didn’t see any criticism as invalid. They have the right to not enjoy something if they
do not like it. Personal preference is something that is hard to argue as invalid or valid. It may be
invalid to someone else but to that person, obviously, their own opinion regarding their personal
preference is valid.
Engagement: Using Music Map I input mine and my friends favorite bands/ artists in
and got a random bunch of new bands to listen to. For me, Meg, Kale, and Leigh, we all got mu-
sic that we were familiar with. In Music Map there were only a couple bands that we didn’t al-
ready know about. However, for my friend Nick, he found only new music practically. None of
the new music that was shown to him was familiar. I wondered if him being from South Africa
had anything to do with. Hip Hop culture and music is mostly based in North America with some
exceptions. America was the birthplace of rap. It makes sense that when tons of American artists
came up after searching on Music Map, he was not familiar with them. When he showed me his
music I was not familiar with any of it. This also proves how much of an impact location and
parental influence has on musical taste and how it develops. This piece of the assignment was
my favorite because we all got to really dive into each others musical taste and Music Map
helped open that conversation up.