Technologies

Sorry, Spotify Wrapped. My Listening Age Is Not What You Think It Is

Commentary: I may be old in Spotify’s eyes, but I got to see Prince live in Minneapolis in the 1980s, so I can live with that.

Spotify Wrapped is a fun annual roundup of your listening habits. Every year, the music streaming app adds new features, like back in 2023, when it assigned people a Sound Town, meaning a city that supposedly matched their listening style. The Spotify Wrapped for 2025 just landed on Wednesday, and new features this year include a multiplayer game called Wrapped Party and an in-your-face assessment of your listening age.

That last one blew my mind a little. My actual age is 57. According to Spotify, my listening age is 79.

SEVENTY-NINE.

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President Donald Trump and former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are 79. Liza Minnelli is 79. Cher — well, she’s ageless, but technically, she’s 79.

Look, I’m no teenybopper, I get it. I’m a proud Atari Wave Gen Xer. So it’s not like I was 18 and was then told I was listening to AARP tunes. But does Spotify realize how it sounds to be hit with a listening age that’s 22 years older than I really am?

What’s my age again?

I’m not the only one Spotify is aging up. My 18-year-old daughter was told she was 37, maybe because of her love of 1990s emo. Some people get aged down — my colleague Corinne Reichert’s 73-year-old mom was labeled 21. («She listens to a lot of K-pop,» her daughter says.)

Spotify pegged my colleague Jon Skillings as an octogenarian, with a listening age of 86, «since you were into music from the late ’50s.» Blame that on his passion for jazz and a healthy dose of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington in his sonic excursions. At least Spotify had the good taste to play Count Basie’s 1957 version of April in Paris when it delivered the news.

«I won’t lie. That 86 did sting a little,» Skillings says. «I really thought I was mixing in a lot more tunes from this century.»

For the record, Spotify did flag a 2024 release from the contemporary jazz pianist Vijay Iyer as his top album. «See?» he says. «I can keep up with the times.»

But Skillings looks like a spring chicken next to CNET’s Ty Pendlebury, who wrote our main Spotify Wrapped article and revealed that Spotify bluntly told him he was 100.

I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands

I know 79 isn’t old to many people. I lost my sister Claudia last December at 78, and her ghost will haunt me forever if I get snippy about an age she never even got the chance to complain about. But there’s something jolting about seeing an age that’s 22 years older than you are, especially relating to music, where the industry is always riding on the back of some hot new young singer.

Do I really care? Maybe I shouldn’t. There’s a T-shirt that says something like, «I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands.» It’s probably made for Baby Boomers, but as an Xer who saw Prince live in his hometown of Minneapolis in his best decade, the 1980s, I proudly identify with that remark.

I’ve seen some oldsters in concert, yeah, can’t deny it. A couple of years ago, I saw Steely Dan at an outdoor amphitheater near Seattle. (No static at all.) I saw folk legend Pete Seeger perform with Arlo Guthrie at the University of Minnesota one year. My mom, born in the 1920s, and my brother, a 1944-born baby, were with me, and we were all rapt. There were kids bouncing on their parents’ laps at that show. Pete and Arlo’s music knew no age. And as an 1980s concert-goer, I’ve seen bands like The Pet Shop Boys, REM, U2, Redd Kross, The Church, and the Pixies.

But as mom of a teenage daughter, I’ve also been flooded with more modern music, and I love it, too. Thanks to her, I’ve seen Panic! at the Disco, Alex G, Car Seat Headrest, Melanie Martinez and Slaughter Beach, Dog. And my daughter isn’t easy to categorize, either. She’s in an emo groove these days, listening to music from before she was born, and saw My Chemical Romance kick off their Long Live The Black Parade tour, where they performed their 2006 album The Black Parade in its entirety.

How does Spotify determine your listening age?

Spotify claims my listening age is 79, not because I sit around watching Lawrence Welk Show reruns, but because I «was into music from the early ’60s.»

I think my Spotify musical age has a lot to do with me watching the recent Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and suddenly deciding Spotify was the perfect way to catch up on Dylan’s music. I was just a little too early for his heyday, although I lived just off the famous Highway 61, where God said to Abraham, kill me a son. OK, so I saw the movie, and I mainlined me some Dylan on Spotify.

So why not hand me a decade instead of an age? I was born in the ’60s, so dubbing me a ’60s baby would be just fine by me. (My birth year is 6-7, which should be a popular year with Gen Z and Alpha.) I grew into my musical tastes in Minneapolis in the 1980s, with Prince, The Replacements, Husker Du and The Suburbs, so call me an ’80s child and I will put that sucker on a T-shirt and flaunt it.

I’ve decided I’m going to wear my Spotify age proudly. Nobody should be shoved into a musical pigeonhole; there are great tunes from every decade, if you’re open enough to listen, and an 80-year-old can listen to whoever they choose. I’m proud that my musical tastes aren’t narrowly defined by my birth year, but instead, are open and vast.

So you’ll excuse me if I look at Spotify calling me 79 and quote an iconic song from those Gen X gurus, Nirvana:

Oh well, whatever, never mind.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Feb. 21

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 21.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s the long Saturday version, and some of the clues are stumpers. I was really thrown by 10-Across. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: «Jersey Shore» channel
Answer: MTV

4A clue: «___ Knows» (rhyming ad slogan)
Answer: LOWES

6A clue: Second-best-selling female musician of all time, behind Taylor Swift
Answer: MADONNA

8A clue: Whiskey grain
Answer: RYE

9A clue: Dreaded workday: Abbr.
Answer: MON

10A clue: Backfiring blunder, in modern lingo
Answer: SELFOWN

12A clue: Lengthy sheet for a complicated board game, perhaps
Answer: RULES

13A clue: Subtle «Yes»
Answer: NOD

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: In which high schoolers might role-play as ambassadors
Answer: MODELUN

2D clue: This clue number
Answer: TWO

3D clue: Paid via app, perhaps
Answer: VENMOED

4D clue: Coat of paint
Answer: LAYER

5D clue: Falls in winter, say
Answer: SNOWS

6D clue: Married title
Answer: MRS

7D clue: ___ Arbor, Mich.
Answer: ANN

11D clue: Woman in Progressive ads
Answer: FLO

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Feb. 21, #516

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Feb. 21, No. 516.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one. I actually thought the purple category, usually the most difficult, was the easiest of the four. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Old Line State.

Green group hint: Hoops legend.

Blue group hint: Robert Redford movie.

Purple group hint: Vroom-vroom.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Maryland teams.

Green group: Shaquille O’Neal nicknames.

Blue group: Associated with «The Natural.»

Purple group: Sports that have a driver.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is Maryland teams. The four answers are Midshipmen, Orioles, Ravens and Terrapins.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is Shaquille O’Neal nicknames. The four answers are Big Aristotle, Diesel, Shaq and Superman.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with «The Natural.» The four answers are baseball, Hobbs, Knights and Wonderboy.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is sports that have a driver. The four answers are bobsled, F1, golf and water polo.

Technologies

Wisconsin Reverses Decision to Ban VPNs in Age-Verification Bill

The law would have required websites to block VPN users from accessing «harmful material.»

Following a wave of criticism, Wisconsin lawmakers have decided not to include a ban on VPN services in their age-verification law, making its way through the state legislature.

Wisconsin Senate Bill 130 (and its sister Assembly Bill 105), introduced in March 2025, aims to prohibit businesses from «publishing or distributing material harmful to minors» unless there is a reasonable «method to verify the age of individuals attempting to access the website.»

One provision would have required businesses to bar people from accessing their sites via «a virtual private network system or virtual private network provider.»

A VPN lets you access the internet via an encrypted connection, enabling you to bypass firewalls and unblock geographically restricted websites and streaming content. While using a VPN, your IP address and physical location are masked, and your internet service provider doesn’t know which websites you visit.

Wisconsin state Sen. Van Wanggaard moved to delete that provision in the legislation, thereby releasing VPNs from any liability. The state assembly agreed to remove the VPN ban, and the bill now awaits Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’s signature.

Rindala Alajaji, associate director of state affairs at the digital freedom nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, says Wisconsin’s U-turn is «great news.»

«This shows the power of public advocacy and pushback,» Alajaji says. «Politicians heard the VPN users who shared their worries and fears, and the experts who explained how the ban wouldn’t work.»

Earlier this week, the EFF had written an open letter arguing that the draft laws did not «meaningfully advance the goal of keeping young people safe online.» The EFF said that blocking VPNs would harm many groups that rely on that software for private and secure internet connections, including «businesses, universities, journalists and ordinary citizens,» and that «many law enforcement professionals, veterans and small business owners rely on VPNs to safely use the internet.»

VPNs can also help you get around age-verification laws — for instance, if you live in a state or country that requires age verification to access certain material, you can use a VPN to make it look like you live elsewhere, thereby gaining access to that material. As age-restriction laws increase around the US, VPN use has also increased. However, many people are using free VPNs, which are fertile ground for cybercriminals.

In its letter to Wisconsin lawmakers prior to the reversal, the EFF argued that it is «unworkable» to require websites to block VPN users from accessing adult content. The EFF said such sites cannot «reliably determine» where a VPN customer lives — it could be any US state or even other countries.

«As a result, covered websites would face an impossible choice: either block all VPN users everywhere, disrupting access for millions of people nationwide, or cease offering services in Wisconsin altogether,» the EFF wrote.

Wisconsin is not the only state to consider VPN bans to prevent access to adult material. Last year, Michigan introduced the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act, which would ban all use of VPNs. If passed, it would force ISPs to detect and block VPN usage and also ban the sale of VPNs in the state. Fines could reach $500,000.