What’s With All The Ruckus?

Illustration by Baran Forootan

Why teenagers love music that their parents hate.

There is a prominent stereotype about teenagers and the kind of music they listen to. Teens are commonly believed to have a taste for loud, noisy, often disturbing music, a stereotype that might not be widely applicable but is definitely widely recognized. This cliché even seems to be popular in movies and TV shows. Think: Lindsey Lohan’s character Anna from Freaky Friday, Kat from 10 Things I Hate About You, or even more recently, the older brother Rodrick from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. However, this belief that teenagers are just more interested in loud, noisy music might have a more scientific explanation than simply “it’s just how teens are.” Turns out, the way the brain develops during adolescence has a lot to do with the kind of music teenagers choose to listen to. 

Music and Dopamine 

Before diving into the teenage mind, we first have to understand how dopamine works in our brains. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, meaning it sends chemical messages from our brain to the rest of our body. Specifically, it gives us feelings of pleasure or happiness when we do something necessary for our survival. Every time we make a good amount of money or eat good food, dopamine is released in our brains, making us feel motivated or happy. The evolutionary reason for this pathway was to reinforce habits that would keep us alive as humans. However, over time, humans have gained the ability to obtain the same kind of dopamine response from more abstract forms of stimuli, such as art and music. There have been plenty of studies on the effects of music on dopamine transmission in the brain.  The results: listening to music increases activity in the nucleus accumbens, the region that releases dopamine in your brain. At first, this seems far-fetched, like music has some magical property that will make you feel better, but it actually makes a lot of sense. Any time you’ve ever listened to one of your favourite songs and got chills, or goosebumps, those are physical responses to the increase in dopamine in your brain. 

The Teen Brain 

Now, how does this relate to teenagers? Well, adolescence is a prime transitional period for brain development. The nucleus accumbens, which I mentioned earlier, is the part of the brain responsible for releasing dopamine and is located in the prefrontal cortex, which is the last part of the brain to fully develop. Because teens have a premature, underdeveloped nucleus accumbens, they have significantly fewer prefrontal dopamine fibres than adults. Teens, on average, will need more external sensory stimuli to feel the same amount of pleasure and enjoyment, leading to extreme pleasure-seeking behaviour. If the average adult will get a dopamine boost from eating good food, getting paid and saving money, or listening to good music, a teen would have to eat plenty of junk food, spend a lot of money, or listen to music that is more stimulating to get the same effect. 

“It’s not a phase, mom!”

Naturally, we can infer where this stereotypical behaviour comes from (on a neurological level) from our understanding of dopamine, pleasure responses, and adolescent brains. Suppose music can stimulate the region of the brain that is responsible for dopamine release, and teenagers need more stimuli than adults on average to trigger the release of the same amount of dopamine. In that case, it makes sense why teens would necessarily gravitate towards music that parents might consider “loud,” “noisy,” or “rebellious.” We can see examples of this over the decades, too, not just in the modern day. During the 1950s and 60s, the relatively new genre of rock and roll dominated the radios in every teenager’s bedroom and convertible. Artists such as Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and The Beatles, who were considered inappropriate or controversial to parents, quickly became icons to teenagers in the Western world. In the 1990s, there was a massive surge in popularity in grunge music (thanks in no small part to bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam), a genre that felt rebellious, exciting, and new. Not to mention a sort of modern renaissance of rap and R&B in the U.S., genres that were so defiant they basically invented the “Parent Advisory” sticker. Nowadays, popular music among teenagers definitely overlaps more with the pop music on the Billboard charts. However, genres with a history of defiance and stimulation, such as rap and grunge, remain fairly popular among adolescents. Because, as much as times are changing and music is evolving, the science behind the music we listen to remains true.