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I'm 60 with a Spotify Listening Age of 19. Here's how you can be like me

OLD man? Look again, because according to my Spotify Wrapped, I am a svelte and fresh-faced 19. Here’s how you can get a musical age in the tantalising teens:

Music is cyclical

Instead of listening to comfortable 80s rock, why not listen to Chappell Roan? She paints her face like KISS, belts it out like Heart and the cheesy guitar solo at the end of Pink Pony Club is the equivalent of anything by Def Leppard’s Phil Collen. Plus it’s about finding true joy by being a stripper! Ignore the gay bits and that’s hair metal city.

Think sexually

But – and this is where you’ll have to stretch yourself – from the lady’s side of the bed. Because while there’s a sorry dearth of men boasting about their conquests in song, today’s young women are sex-crazed. Slap on a Sabrina Carpenter or Lola Young track about giving it up to the wrong guy, imagine yourself as him and you’re laughing.

Don’t trust your memory

Men try to reduce their Spotify age by streaming recent acts. Unfortunately getting older means your mind plays tricks, and they consider the likes of Notorious BIG, the Kooks and Fatboy Slim to be recent when actually they’re somewhat older. Spotify has loads of lists of new music; just put those on indiscriminately. But how will you stand it? Next point.

Other voices, other rooms

Who says you have to be in the same room you’re streaming in? Especially when you’ve got a multi-room Sonos set-up, like I have. Simply set Rap Caviar or K-Pop ON! streaming in the kitchen while you play Shades of Deep Purple on 180 gram vinyl. Your listening age is reducing by the minute while you’re vibing to real music.

Remember the remaster

What about when you’re out and about? Then deluxe versions, remasters and box sets are your friends. Springsteen’s seven-album Tracks II may comprise unreleased gems going back to the 1980s, but it only came out this year so it’s as 2025 as Sombr. Be up to the minute while mired in the past and it’s all on noise-cancelling cans. Nobody will know.

Grin and bear it

There are times when no substitute will do. When you’ve picked her up for the date and the leather seats in your BMW are crying out for Dire Straits? That’s when you play FKA Twigs. ‘Yeah, Eusexua?’ you’ll say, casually, ‘So much better now she’s updated the track order.’ And just like that, you’re Spotify Listening young.

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300, and other films that are nothing compared to your brave struggle with a cold

PEOPLE often fail to appreciate your bravery and stoicism when suffering from a cold. But as you lie on the sofa, you know your heroism outshine the wusses in these films.

The Shawshank Redemption

Audiences loved Andy Dufresne because he kept going with his admittedly stupid escape plan whatever the uncaring system and other inmates threw at him, which unfortunately was sometimes their cocks. Like Andy, you too refused to give up. You made some toast earlier. 

300

The Spartans are in danger of being overwhelmed by one million Persians rather than snot, but the principle is the same. And showing similar determination to Leonidas, you refused to stay in bed and came downstairs and watched This Morning under a duvet. However 300 is clearly a mythologised account, whereas your story is entirely true.

The Exorcist 

Quite simply, Regan’s projectile vomiting looks pretty mild compared to some of the greenies you’ve been hawking up. Is demonic possession the cause of your cold? It seems likely.

The Bridge Over the River Kwai

Being a WW2 Japanese prisoner of war wasn’t a barrel of laughs, and at one point Alec Guinness is put in the cramped metal ‘sweat box’ in the tropical heat for several days. However you doubt it compares to the dangerously high temperature you’ve been running, even if your girlfriend has pressed the back of her hand to your brow and says it ‘feels normal’.

The Revenant

Leo DiCaprio travels through the frozen Montana wilderness after being mauled by a bear, eating raw meat to survive. Similarly, you just went to Sainsbury’s to buy paracetamol and Lucozade. The difference is you only had a jacket on while Leo was wrapped up all snug and warm in a great big bear pelt. Your story is more worthy of a film adaptation.

127 Hours

Cutting off your own arm because it’s stuck under a rock must be agony, but let’s not forget the chafed skin where you’ve been blowing your nose. Danny Boyle’s film is a true story, but so is your dilemma over whether to have a good blow or let the mucus dribble down disgustingly. It’s the stuff of nightmares, and so is cutting off your arm.

Casino Royale 

True, Bond manages to hold out against Le Chiffre’s torture, but you held out for four hours before taking more paracetamol like it says in the instructions. Not for the first time, you thought you might be good MI6 material.

Rocky 

Supposedly the inspirational story of an underdog who refuses to give up, but you’ve got your doubts. You felt a bit dizzy when you were making a Lemsip, but you didn’t go down like Rocky does in the 15th round. Plus you’ve got a new deadly strain of flu, according to your self-diagnosis, whereas Rocky isn’t ill at all. You fail to see what the fuss is about.

Dying Young 

This 1991 tearjerker doesn’t end well due to Campbell Scott’s leukaemia, and you can empathise with his plight. Okay, you haven’t died, but you’ve kept fighting even without the incentive of the young Julia Roberts fawning over you. You are the better man here, you feel.

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