Maybe music was better back when you were a kid.
That’s at least a conclusion some may reach based on a study Luminate released on Wednesday, which suggests that with nostalgia in full force, younger audiences are starting to veer away from current releases in favor of music released before they were even born.
According to Luminate, music listeners aged 13 to 24 — the most important and oft-targeted audience in the industry — are getting more active in embracing music from the 1990s or earlier, while the number of listeners who say music from the 2020s is their favorite is going down.
To be clear, the 2020s remains the most popular decade among those listeners now, though, as Luminate reported Wednesday, the numbers have been trending downward for the past five years: In 2021, 55 percent of poll responders in that age group said music released in the 2020s was their favorite, but as of 2025, the number dropped to 44 percent. Meanwhile, back in 2021, 18 percent of responders said music from the 1990s and earlier was their favorite, but that number has climbed to 25 percent last year.
Luminate’s study further affirms the ongoing comeback of the 1990s overall, as ’90s music was the fastest-growing decade by streams from Q2 2024 to Q2 2025, growing eight percent. The 2000s came in second with 7 percent growth. The ’90s was also the most-consumed decade among the general population according to the Luminate study, as 64 percent of listeners in the poll said they listen to the ’90s. The ’80s came in second at 58 percent, followed by the 2000s at 57 percent and the 2020s at 53 percent.
