Genre and Gender in the Structure of Music Preferences

Abstract

Whereas young audiences are known to distinguish among several types of popular music, there is evidence that the several genres are organized from the listener's standpoint, that music types go together to form “metagenres.” In addition, it is suggested that, for a variety of reasons, gender is central to the ways in which popular music is used and tastes are organized. This article presents an analysis of the music preference structure of college students based on responses to a variety of music use and preference measures and concludes: first, that the underlying structure of music preference cannot be accounted for by reference to two or three factors but is multivariate; second, that there are crucial differences between males and females in terms of their “mapping” of music types.