Which musical era were you born to love?
It's not always the one you actually lived through.
Start the quiz →What this quiz explores
Taste tends to fix around what was playing when you were seventeen, which means a lot of people are loyal to an era that doesn't suit them. This asks what you respond to in a recording, the songwriting, the room, the machines, or the freedom, and names the period built around it.
How it works
The quiz has 3 possible results. Each answer option was written to lean toward one of them.
Your result is the one your answers pointed to most often. Skipped questions, and the occasional answer that does not lean toward any result, are not counted.
Alongside the result you see your answer profile: the share of your answers that pointed to each result. Close percentages mean you sit between two results, which is common.
Three musical eras
The Songwriting Era
You're built for roughly 1963 to 1973, when the song itself was the unit and everything else served it.
Melody and words first, two and a half minutes is plenty, and a cover version is the test of whether something's any good. What annoys you is a weak song under a good arrangement. Mono is often better because everything's in one place. You'd rescue a songbook. Where to go: the obvious canon is worth having, and the more rewarding route is sideways into the writers rather than the stars. Laura Nyro, Bobbie Gentry, Judee Sill, Randy Newman's first three records, Curtis Mayfield with the Impressions, the Brill Building writers, Jimmy Webb, Bill Withers, and the whole catalogue of Motown's writing rooms. Then British folk: Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Richard Thompson.
The Studio Era
You're built for the album decade, when a room, a band, and an engineer were the whole point.
Drums and the room they're in. Let it run seven minutes. Production is half the record, sequencing matters enormously, and what annoys you is a thin, flat-sounding recording. You'd rescue a record and a stereo, and you find modern compression exhausting. Where to go: beyond the obvious, the pleasure is in engineers and studios rather than bands. Follow Tom Dowd, Glyn Johns, and the Muscle Shoals and Stax rhythm sections. Then Little Feat, Steely Dan's middle records, Bill Evans's trios for the same values in jazz, Fela Kuti for what a locked band can do at length, and dub reggae's King Tubby, which is the same craft pointed somewhere strange. Where you'll be surprised: contemporary records made live to tape exist and are excellent. Try Khruangbin, Hiss Golden Messenger, and the Daptone catalogue, which is made with your values by people who share them.
Machine Era
You're built for roughly 1978 to 1998, when new tools arrived faster than anyone could exhaust them.
Texture and how it was made. Programmed, and you like hearing the machine. Repetition is the point, virtuosity is suspicious, sampling is one of the great inventions, and what annoys you is timid, conventional choices. You'd rescue a synthesizer. Nostalgia bores you, which is the interesting part. Where to go: the deep seams are Detroit techno and Chicago house at source, Sheffield and Manchester's early electronic records, Basic Channel and the Berlin lineage, Arthur Russell, the whole of the ZTT and Factory catalogues, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and the Bristol sound. Then dub and Jamaican production, which is where most of it comes from. Where you'll be surprised: your ear suits contemporary experimental electronic music more than most people's, so the current underground is open to you. Also worth going backwards to musique concrete and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which is the machine era before the machines got easy.
What this quiz can’t tell you
- It matches you on the preferences you report, so the result is only as good as the options offered. Your real favourite may not be among them.
- Taste shifts with mood and season. Treat the result as a suggestion to try, not a verdict.
Read more about how our quizzes are created, including how scoring works and what we do and do not claim.