The Brief

There's how old you are, and there's how old Spotify thinks you are.

That divide became clear this week with the release of Spotify Wrapped, the streaming platform's personalized year-end recap.

It walks listeners through their top artists, albums, genres and more in a self-reflective (and occasionally mortifying) interactive slideshow, based on data and delivered with sass. The decade-old tradition varies slightly in its aesthetics and substance every year, and this edition seems to have caught a lot of users off guard by bluntly informing them of their "listening age."

"Age is just a number, so don't take this personally," reads one of the slides, before proceeding to alternately humble, amuse and confuse.

Charli XCX, the 30-something electro-pop artist who invented "Brat," is spiritually 75, Spotify declared, because she listens to music from the late 1960s. The genre-defying, synth-savvy Grimes has a listening age of 92, while introspective singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams clocks in at 14, nearly half her real age. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, when asked by a reporter, revealed his comparatively youthful 44.

It's not just celebrities. Within hours of Wrapped dropping, social media was ablaze with screenshots and memes from listeners mostly either bragging or baffled about their listening age — particularly those many decades younger or older than their actual age. Jokes about "listening age gap relationship[s]," dinosaurs and psychiatric evaluations ensued.

It has become the norm for people to repost their top-five lists and listening-time tallies on social media — both giving Spotify free publicity and presenting a piece of themselves to their network. That was especially true in 2023, when Spotify assigned listeners to "Sound Towns," relegating them to places like Burlington, Vt., and Jakarta, Indonesia.

"[Spotify Wrapped] is a way by which we're able to project our identity based upon our cultural consumption," says Marcus Collins, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business (and an R&B fan with a listening age of 40, a few years younger than his real age).

Listening age, for better or worse, is another way to do that.

"It creates another identity project force, another … shock to the system for us to talk about," says Collins, who previously worked on iTunes initiatives at Apple and ran digital strategy for Beyoncé. "If you're 20 and your listening age is 70, what does that say about you?"

OK, so how did Spotify calculate this? 

Spotify did not respond to NPR's request for comment at the time of publication. But on a webpage explaining its process, the company says listening age is based on the idea of a "reminiscence bump," which it describes as the tendency for people to feel most connected to music from their youth.

Research shows that adults' brains especially hold onto memories from their teenage years, both generally and when it comes to music. One 2013 study, for example, found that young adults had strong positive memories of the music that their parents — and even grandparents — loved when they were that age.

"There's this idea that there are life stages … where we are receptive and open to new music, where music sort of shapes the experiences that we have, and as we get past those years, we kind of stay … in that moment in time," Collins says.

Spotify says it combs through a listener's songs to identify the "five-year span of music that you engaged with more than other listeners your age." It hypothesizes that this five-year window matches a listener's "reminiscence bump," assuming they were between 16 and 21 when those songs came out.

"For example, if you listen to way more music from the late 1970s than others your age, we playfully hypothesize that your 'listening' age is 63 today, the age of someone who would have been in their formative years in the late 1970s," it explains.

Collins says this approach not only plays into our sense of nostalgia but also helps "carve out where we sit in the timeline of our … social world." Our listening age tells us more about ourselves and gives us something new to talk about with our friends, especially if it's extreme or unexpected.

"We don't talk about things that are just boring — we talk about the things that are unbelievable," Collins says. "It gets our attention but also sparks this part of us that makes us want to engage."

What's the catch? 

Isn't this just a ploy by Spotify to get people listening and reposting? Is it turning our shock into free publicity? Are we being — the 2025 Oxford Word of the Year — rage baited?

Those are fair questions to ask, Collins says.

"What one may see as a productive way by which people can engage with people, one may also see it as a manipulative way of getting people to engage in consumption," he says. "The truth of the matter is, it's both of them at the same time."

Collins says it's a win-win situation because "the best marketing on the planet is us." Spotify is trying to get business for its platform, he says, but also helping people connect — which in turn helps it even more.

Collins says that he, like most people, learns that Spotify Wrapped is live from friends posting theirs on social media, rather than TV or online advertisements. That in turn makes him want to see and share his stats, "not because I love Spotify so much but because I want to participate in the social practices of my people."

"The best advertising isn't advertising — it's cultural production," he adds.

For its part, Spotify says that each of its slides is "made to be accurate, fair and reflective, while still keeping a sense of mystery and magic."

It's that mystery that some of us may find slightly maddening. Personally? As a fan of '70s music, I was pretty content with my listening age of 70 — until my much younger, cooler sister told me hers: 73.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Singer-songwriter Dwight Yoakam has lived in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. But coming up during the 1980s in the clubs of L.A. and the San Fernando Valley, you might say his style is more California Country than anything.

Yoakam recently sold out The Roxy for a concert benefitting Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles. The 69-year-old musician and actor had a lot of backup from a younger generation of country acts.

He was joined on stage by Grammy-nominated people like Lukas Nelson — as in Willie’s son — guitar prodigy Marcus King and others.

Dwight Yoakam and Lukas Nelson (center) take the stage at The Roxy.

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“It’s flattering on a personal level that five artists of that generation would come and collaborate with me to do this. But more importantly it was gratifying to hear their response to the charitable cause of Children’s Hospital,” Yoakam said.

Yoakam and wife, Emily Joyce, had a very personal inspiration for organizing the benefit concert. In 2020, during the peak of COVID, their own infant son was seen at Children’s Hospital. They were relieved it was nothing, but an experience Emily relayed to Yoakam changed him.

“She heard the little boy behind in another recovery bed come to. Five or six. And his eyes opened — I guess his father was there with him at his bedside. And he said ‘Was I brave daddy?’ And I said: ‘Wow, it puts everything in life in quick perspective.’"

Yoakam said the experience stuck with Joyce so much that she was determined to put a benefit show together. And it was heartening having so many of his friends back him up for the "Rockin’ for the Kids" concert, Yoakam said. The night even had a surprise on-stage FaceTime call from actor Billy Bob Thornton. The actor and director — who cast Yoakam in his 1996 film Sling Blade — was originally scheduled to help emcee the event, but was stuck at an iced out movie shoot in New Jersey.

Los Angeles calling

Yoakam came out to the warm California sun in the late 70s, and it wasn’t long before he was gigging hard at long gone honky-tonks like The Palomino and The Corral in the San Fernando Valley.

“[I] spent a year of my life on the off nights [at The Corral] — let me tell you — that’s the real world,” Yoakam recalled. “The time I was out there doing, you know, five sets a night. You’d start at nine and end at two in the morning... And you know I really made my bones there.”

It wasn’t long before Yoakam’s California Country music was mixing and merging with a new scene in L.A. One that blended the punk rock ethos with the twang of country.

“The crossroads of time and place happened again in the early 80s with the quote ‘Cowpunk’ movement. A lot of them were punk rock bands. Like The Dills became Rank and File. The Plugz — with a Z — became Los Cruzados,” Yoakam said.

He would go on to share the bill with bands like X and The Blasters. And Yoakam was embraced by crowds of punk rockers too.

“I said, ‘You know what? We don’t have to play The Roundup out in the Valley, we don’t have to play just The Palomino. I said ‘We can go over the hill,’” he said.

Yoakam remembered it was Bill Bentley, a former music editor for the LA Weekly, who saw him performing at The Palomino and then invited him to play Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd.

“That introduced me to a different audience. And then we started playing... the rock n’ roll side of the hill,” Yoakam said.

By 1986, Yoakam was playing at The Roxy for the record release party for “Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.” The live performance was recorded and included on later releases of the album.

“We did the record release party, 40 years ago in March, at The Roxy. It was kind of a full-circle moment. Interesting book-end, if you will, from 1986 to now,” Yoakam said.

Yoakam will play Ontario’s ONT Field on March 21, right before heading out on tour with ZZ Top.

Tickets are available via Ticketmaster.

Thousands more students joined walkouts Friday to protest the Trump administration’s militarized crackdown on immigrants, detainment of children and violence against U.S. citizens protesting the raids.

By mid-afternoon, nearly 12,500 students from more than 85 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District had walked out, according to a district spokesperson. Hundreds of students in other districts — from Pasadena and the greater San Gabriel Valley to Orange County — also marched in their communities.

At Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, about 100 students—some as young as 11—walked out of their science, English, and math classes, then walked to a nearby park.

For many students, Friday’s walkout marks the first time they’ve ever participated in a protest. And after months of watching federal immigration agents violently detain people on social media, the students told LAist that protesting — on behalf of their communities and in honor of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — filled them with a sense of freedom and power.

Isaac, a seventh grader, walked out of science class.

“This felt like I was breaking out of some sort of chamber,” he told LAist. “I felt like I was being free for once.”

Many of the 12-year-old’s family members are from Mexico and he’s been worried about what could happen if they’re detained.

“I'm standing up for my family and my friends, our community, really,” he said. “The most we [can] do is what we're doing right now.”

After months of being scared every time his parents go to work, Isaac said the protest was a type of salve.

“It makes us feel better,” he said. “It makes us stronger.”

M, right, is a sixth grader at Olive Vista and organized the school's walkout.

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How to organize a middle school

A few weeks ago, M, an 11-year-old sixth grader at Olive Vista Middle School, asked her mom, Maritza Ocegueda, why students in Minnesota and elsewhere were walking out of school. LAist has agreed to refer to her solely by her first initial, after her mom raised concerns for her safety.

Ocegueda shared with her daughter that she walked out of Van Nuys High School as a junior in 2006 to protest proposed federal immigration legislation. Nearly 40,000 students from across Southern California joined the movement.

“ I was floored,” Ocegueda said. “It inspires me and gives me that little bit of hope… Maybe we can make a change.”

M decided to organize a walkout at her school concurrently with other students in the community. 

She made several lunchtime announcements about a walkout on Friday, Feb. 6 at 10:24 a.m.

“If you'd like to join, please come over here and if you have any questions, just ask me.”

Those announcements did not come easily to M, who is soft spoken and admittedly shy. “ I try to be the bravest I can,” she said. “ I want [my classmates] to understand how serious this [is] … [The federal government is not] letting people be themselves, like, they can't go to Home Depot without feeling unsafe.”

M, and several other students said some teachers and administrators discouraged their organizing. M said at one point she was pulled out of class for more than an hour to talk about the walkout.

“ One of the things I told the school [is] you dropped the ball because this is a learning moment,” Ocegueda said. However, she said she’s open to more conversations with school and district leaders on how to support students.

Maritza Ocegueda's daughter M organized Olive Vista Middle School's walkout. She said she's active in the community passing out food and clothes to unhoused neighbors and helping other people connect with resources.

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A Los Angeles Unified School District spokesperson provided a statement that said students were informed that walkouts are not school-sponsored, there are spaces on campus for students to exercise their freedom of speech and that they would be marked absent for missed class periods. A similar message was posted to the school’s Facebook page Thursday afternoon.

“Administrators routinely meet with students to share safety information and clarify options for on-campus expression—not to threaten or discipline,” the statement read. “Leaving campus during instructional time without permission is discouraged; that message is about safety and supervision, not suppressing speech.”

M said that other teachers were more supportive and helped her spread the word about the walkout to other students.

“ What I've learned is students should not have to come protest 'cause that's what the adults should be doing,” M said. “Adults should know better to help out the community and students should not have to come out.”

Honks of support 

By mid-morning, students began to trickle out of Olive Vista.

As students joined the group of young activists, those already outside cheered and passing cars honked their horns in support. One SUV had a Mexican flag poking out of the sunroof.

Out by the curb, some of their parents, including M’s mom, were waiting. The adults encouraged the students to stick together and made sure the group waited for the light to turn before crossing the street to Sylmar Park.

" What's in my heart is that my parents are Mexican and I wanna support," said Jayden, an Olive Vista 6th grader.

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Once they gathered, the middle schoolers marched to a nearby park, carrying homemade signs and flags of Latin America.

One student turned to a friend and nervously quipped: “I just really hope we don’t get shot or tear gassed.”

‘They don't understand how much we love our parents.’

In conversation with LAist, multiple students said they live in fear of being separated from their families. They also worry that their parents could be mistreated if they are detained by federal agents.

Eleven-year-old Alejandro, for instance, usually goes to Sylmar Park to play baseball. Today, he said, he went to the protest to honor his mom and dad, Mexican immigrants from the states of Michoacán and Jalisco.

To critics who think he should have stayed in class, he said: “They don't understand how much we love our parents.”

“I just don't like how Donald Trump is calling us ‘animals,’ when we're the ones working our asses off to live paycheck to paycheck, while he's up there sitting in his chair throwing out orders at Kristi Noem,” said eighth-grader Jesús, referring to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

The 13-year-old had his family and his neighbors in mind during the protest, along with 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, whose deportation the federal government is working to expedite.

“The little boy who was captured with his little bunny hat, he was captured and he was sent to prison,” Jesús noted. “And that's just crazy, because how are you going to let a little kid inside a prison?”

The federal immigration activity in the San Fernando Valley has also left him feeling nervous, even when he is on campus. “I'm trying to study and then I just get reminded: maybe there's somebody waiting outside to take us.”

Sixth grader Sophia’ said she walked out for her grandmother who’s from Mexico. "I wanna represent our people and show that we aren't bad," Sophia said. "We are actually, like, a great community."

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As the students chanted and waved their signs, adults passed out snacks, water and pizza purchased with money donated from the community.

“They're here with clear intentions and they're here for a purpose,” said Michelle, the parent of another young protestor who requested LAist only use her first name. “I’m just proud of them.”

M, the organizer, said she wouldn’t have used that term to describe herself before the protest.

“Now that I'm looking at myself, I do see myself as a helper,” M said. She plans to continue helping her community, for example by distributing food and clothes to unhoused neighbors.

And she has some advice for any aspiring student organizers.

“ I was a shy kid, so I want them to be brave and speak up,” M said.

She said she planned to finish up the day at school after she ate.

Topline:

Why it matters: King Taco helped establish the template for the modern L.A. taqueria — shifting the city's understanding of tacos from the hard-shell, Americanized version to soft tortillas filled with carne asada, carnitas and tacos al pastor. As the late food critic Jonathan Gold noted, King Taco "solidified what we all think of as the modern Los Angeles taco sensibility."

Why now: The nomination comes as part of the city's ongoing effort to recognize Latino cultural landmarks.

The backstory: Founder Raul Martinez launched King Taco from a converted ice cream truck in 1974, eventually opening the Cypress Park brick-and-mortar location that became the chain's flagship. The business grew to 24 locations across Southern California, becoming a model for immigrant entrepreneurship and establishing key Mexican dishes like tacos al pastor and carnitas as L.A. staples.

What's next: The Cultural Heritage Commission will determine whether King Taco's original location retains sufficient historic integrity and continues to convey its cultural significance. If approved, King Taco would become one of the few designated restaurant landmarks recognizing Latino culinary contributions.