According to new research, 33 years old will be the year you stop listening to new music, and begin blasting *NSYNC in your car.* In data derived from Spotify listeners (combined with Echo Nest "artist popularity data"), pop culture/tech blog Skynet & Ebert broke down the age and gender of music listeners and produced a few nifty graphs documenting what you already suspected... once you hit age 33, your days of listening to new music are pretty much over! From S&E:

The Coolness Spiral of Death: Currently-popular artists lie in the center of a circle, with decreasing popularity represented by each larger ring. As users get older, they “age out” of mainstream music.
  • Via Skynet & Ebert
  • The Coolness Spiral of Death: Currently popular artists lie in the center of a circle, with decreasing popularity represented by each larger ring. As users get older, they “age out” of mainstream music.

According to what they've learned from Spotify data, little kids love popular music they hear on the radio... until they hit 12 or so. Then they discover less popular acts in the spectrum. (Remember the day you discovered Sunny Day Real Estate? Like that.) This trend continues into one's 20s—with men, it seems, more so than women—until you hit the magic age of 33, at which point you should just be checking into the retirement home, because all you want to listen to are Blur, Oasis, and Dinosaur Jr.

Other discoveries: If you happen to have kids, it doesn't matter what age you are because your attraction to currently popular music is in the shitter. (Thanks again, children... for ruining everything.) Also? Spotify is collecting a LOT of data on us, it seems. Sleep tight!

Read the rest here, and argue about the methodology of this study in the comments if you so prefer. Until then, I leave you with this, which I was blasting out my car window this morning:

* Hi, everybody! Or should I say, "Bye Bye Bye"?