Musical Preference is something that everybody can relate to. Whether it takes the form of a curated playlist in Spotify full of your favorite songs or listening to the radio in the car, there are styles of music you prefer to listen to and some songs or genres that you dislike listening to.
https://www.song-bar.com/song-blog/out-of-this-oeuvre-songs-and-music-that-defy-genre-definition
Music can be described and classified using various dimensions. Music classification for people often revolves around categories, such as genres, moods, and sound characteristics. Preference for music is usually measured by three factors in scientific research: Valence, Arousal, and Depth. In addition, preference for music is correlated with personality traits (something akin to the Big Five Personality test), shown in research conducted by (Doi et al., 2018) and (Fricke et al., 2018)
As of November 2023, the top 10 artists on Spotify are:
wikipedia- (#'s in millions of listeners)
These artists consist of a number of genres- but most are pop music or hip hop, which are the two most popular genres in the world today.
Preference for music can be boiled down to whether or not you like certain aspects of music. Some people like very loud music with driven bass parts and percussion. Others like classical music, which is notorious for being relaxing or soothing.
Everybody has preferences: whether you like coffee hot or iced or don't like it at all, what kind of food you like, etc. Why should individual music tastes be any different?
References
Doi, H., Basadonne, I., Venuti, P., & Shinohara, K. (2018, April 1). Negative correlation between salivary testosterone concentration and preference for sophisticated music in males. Personality and Individual Differences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.11.041
Fricke, K. R., Greenberg, D. M., Rentfrow, P. J., & Herzberg, P. Y. (2018, August 1). Computer-based music feature analysis mirrors human perception and can be used to measure individual music preference. Journal of Research in Personality. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.06.004