Matthew Moore, Media Correspondent
The Times
Soul lovers tend to be agreeable, so if you find Aretha Franklin in your new partner’s record collection, stick with them
PAUL NATKIN/GETTY IMAGES
The blues may be the sound of hard times and lost love but those drawn to the genre’s melancholy tunes are more emotionally stable than most, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that musical taste can be a highly accurate indicator of personality type and that our preferences, from jazz to death metal, offer a window to the soul.
The findings are based on an analysis of 17.6 million songs streamed by 5,800 Spotify users over a three month period.
Some of the insights are unexpected — blues fans are more likely to be emotionally stable — but others are arguably less surprising.
A penchant for punk is correlated with disagreeableness and a lack of conscientiousness, a finding the Sex Pistols would surely have worn