There are five phases of music preference throughout the day

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-11-10 11:01

International

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The rhythms of daily life are accompanied by fluctuations in musical preference, according to international researchers who analysed listening habits on the Spotify streaming service and found five distinct phases of the day for people's music preference. These phases are morning, afternoon, evening, night, and late night/early morning, and they are defined by audio features such as tempo, loudness, and danceability, among others. The team found that the morning phase shows increased loudness which remains throughout the day before tapering off during the night phase, while tempo and danceability have a lull around 2pm but peak during the night phase. The researchers also found that the phases remain the same throughout the week, but differ in length and starting time over the weekend.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Diurnal fluctuations in musical preference

Royal Society Open Science

Today, most music listening happens on online streaming services allowing us to listen to what we want, when we want it. By analysing audio features from over two billion music streaming events, we find that the music people listen to can be divided into five different time blocks corresponding to morning, afternoon, evening, night and late night/early morning. These blocks follow the same order throughout the week, but differ in length and starting time when comparing workdays and weekends. This study provides an extremely robust and detailed understanding of our daily listening habits. It illustrates how circadian rhythms and 7-day cycles of Western life influence fluctuations in musical preference on an individual as well as population level.

Journal/
conference: Royal Society Open Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Aarhus University, Denmark

Funder: N/A

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