Romanos 1

Brianna Romanos

English 1302-206

Mr. Keaton- Powers

1 February 2023

Can college students recognize popular music outside their preferred music genre?

Abstract

Everybody has a favorite genre of music, but the objective of this experiment is to identify the

characteristics that encourage people to venture outside of their musical comfort zones. Most

college students listen to music while doing everyday tasks like studying, driving, and taking a

shower. Can college students identify popular music outside of their favorite musical genre? If

yes, what other influences may have made them aware of music outside their predetermined

tastes? Since there are other elements, such as memories, people, and social media, that could

expose the subjects to music outside of their preferred genres, it is expected that college students

will be able to recognize most of these songs. Twenty popular music videos from 1950 to the

present will be viewed by 23 participants, who will then indicate whether they are familiar with

the song included in the video. To learn more about the participants' preferred musical genres and

potential listening locations, they will respond to the ten following questions. A google form

made specifically for this experiment was used to ask these questions. The survey was circulated

via the snowball method to reach a larger group. Data for seven days, from Saturday to Friday,

were gathered for this poll. The findings suggest that because of external factors that may have

exposed college students to some of the songs in this experiment, they can detect music that isn't

necessarily in their musical preferences.

 Romanos 2

Introduction

Music is all around, and most people have their own music preferences, so this

experiment will determine people's ability to recognize popular music outside their preferred

genres. After reading many articles and trying to find a decent way to incorporate music into a

question, it was decided to test music preference and the ability to recognize older music outside

established music preferences. According to Rentfrow and Gosling (2003), the term "music

preference" refers to how much a person favors or enjoys one type of music over another.

(Rentfrow and Gosling 1237) Can college students recognize popular music outside their

preferred music genre, and if so, what external factors have exposed them to music outside their

set preferences? There were quite a few articles dealing with music taste and age demographics.

For example, Glevarec (2020) mentions how music taste is an issue in the sociology of culture

and how it is mobilized and enacted in everyday life. (Glevarec 182) This statement stuck out

because it is true every individual has their preference when it comes to music. Still, this

experiment aims to understand what factors allow people to branch out of their preferred music

genres. Most college students incorporate music into their mundane activities, for example,

showering, studying, and driving. Music is often used to fill in the silence, so will college

students be able to branch out beyond their music preferences. Lamont and Webb (2010)

discovered via their research that the idea of a favorite musical piece is complicated, fluid, and

influenced by a variety of various elements, frequently acting in unison. (Lamont and Webb 235)

To hypothesize, college students will be able to recognize most of these songs since there are

outside factors such as memories, people, and social media that could expose the subjects to

music outside of their preferred genres. Keston and Pinto (1955) carried out studies with the
 Romanos 3

realization that the factors that contribute to musical preference are many, complex, and

interrelated. (Keston and Pinto 101)

Method

First, twenty three subjects will view twenty popular music videos from 1950 to now, and

they will note whether they recognize the song from the video or not. Then the following ten

questions pertaining to the student's personal music preference: 1)What is your favorite music

genre? 2)What artists outside of this decade do you listen to the most? 3)How would you

describe your music taste? 4)Do you resonate more with current music or music from past

decades? 5)Of the twenty music videos you saw, which one is closest to your music preference?

6)Do you think you tend to stick to your music preference rather than branch out into other

genres? 7)Based on the videos, do you think you have a well-rounded knowledge of music? 8)

Are there any songs you have associated with a particular person? If so, why? 9)If you have

heard any of these songs, where did you hear them from? (ex. Social media, parents, friends, or

etc..) 10)Do you think social media has expanded your ability to recognize music? These

questions were asked via a google form created for this experiment. To spread the survey further,

the snowball method was used to distribute the survey. This survey collected data for seven days

Saturday through Friday. After having the google form open for a week there were a total of 23

participants, and all of them are college students from Laredo, Tx.

Results

With all the data gathered from the subjects responses, the top genres listened to by the subjects

are pop (44%), rock (26%), rap (17%), and reggaeton (13%). The first part of the google form

was the song recognition, so the chart below lists the subject's song recognition in order from

least to most recognized song. All the subjects were asked to reveal where they heard any of the
 Romanos 4

songs that they marked as recognizable. Most of the Subjects revealed that they heard these

songs from their family/friends, movies/television shows, and social media such as Tiktok. There

were two songs (Bohemian Rhapsody and Billie Jean) that were recognized by all 23 subjects

and when asked about these songs almost half of the responses said they heard these songs from

their parents or people close to them, and the rest said they had heard these songs from movies

and other forms of media. To better understand where the subjects heard these songs a pie chart

was created after analyzing their responses from the survey. The least recognized songs were

Ring of Fire and The Twist, this was an expected result as they are some of the oldest songs

chosen for this experiment. However, the subjects were still asked where they knew these songs

and again the main component was their older family members and many different forms of

media. When asked where they remember hearing the songs they recognized about half (49%)

of the subjects listed media such as Tiktok, movies, and Spotify as their response. About 45% of

the subjects listed other people such as family and friends as the reason they were able to

recognize some of these songs. 6% of the subjects considered some of the songs they recognized

as self-discovered meaning they introduced themselves to one of the songs. A pie chart was

created to show the exact percentages of the subjects' answers.

 Romanos 5

Analysis

According to the results, it can be stated that college students are able to recognized music

outside their preferences due to the outside variables that may have exposed them to some of the

songs in this experiment. Based off of this experiment, the most recognizable songs were

Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. Some subjects revealed that

they heard these songs from some of their older relatives, while others revealed they heard

Bohemian Rhapsody from the movie with the same title and some also stated they heard this

song appear on the television show Glee. As for the least recognized songs Ring of Fire by

Johnny Cash and The Twist by Chubby Checker it was revealed that subjects only heard these

songs due to their older relatives. One subject even revealed that their grandparents taught them

how to dance the twist, and this provides evidence to the theory that family members and the

correlation between fond memories allow for broader music recognition. After reviewing the
 Romanos 6

data, it can be said that due to outside variables such as media and people college students are

able to recognized music outside their preferred genres.

Discussion

The findings indicate that because of external factors that might have exposed college students to

some of the songs in this experiment, they are able to detect music that is not typically their taste.

This experiment proves the established hypothesis correct. These results allow people to

understand how music is passed down from generation to generation. Music is always in rotation

and will never truly disappear. Eventhough, only three subjects were able to recognize Ring of

Fire and The Twist these results were better than zero. However, there are some restrictions for

this experiment including the limited number of participants, only twenty songs were included in

this experiment, and the usage of the snowball method came with the limitation of preferred

genres being so similar. Lastly, this investigation has shed light on the way music travels beyond

established preferences and even allows people influence others. For example, how people and

media have influnced the subjects ability to recognize songs outside their established tastes.
 Romanos 7

Work Cited

Glevarec, Hervé. “Tastes of Our Time: Analysing Age Cohort Effects in the Contemporary

Distribution of Music Tastes.” Cultural Trends, vol. 29, no. 3, July 2020, pp. 182-98.

EBSCOhost. Accessed 1 February 2023.

Rentfrow & Gosling (2003). The do re mi’s of everyday life: The structure and personality

correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(6).

EBSCOhost. Accessed 1 February 2023.

Lamont, A., & Webb, R. (2010). Short- and long-term musical preferences: what makes a

favourite piece of music? Psychology of Music, 38(2), 222–241. EBSCOhost. Accessed 7

February 2023.

Keston, Morton J., and Isabelle M. Pinto. “Possible Factors Influencing Musical Preference.”

The Journal of Genetic Psychology, vol. 86, no. 1, 1955, pp. 101-113. Accessed 5

February 2023.