Someone posted today.... if you were stranded on an island with only 10 songs what would they be.
I liked this question because it made it personal. It doesn't matter what the top 50 songs in the world are.. it matters what resonates with you..
For example... Vincent ( Starry Starry Night) wouldn't make anyones top ten list but I would want it on the island with me along with Rocketman...
Both released 1972, interesting whether a particuarly good or pivotal year for you or maybe just coincidental. To your point above, I find that a huge component of the 'personal' aspect, beyond the quality of the music itself, is the time of your life that you discover it, with the base often being aligned reasonably within the range of the younger years, say early teens to mid-20s due to the obvious inputs (finding your identity, your 'first' whatever in a perfect summer and associated hooked in memories, less external commitments etc)
While absolutely we can and do discover more great music as we get older, it's likely fair to say,
to generalise, that these later finds can often lack the added sugar of the above that resonate so deeply: we all have our own Rosebuds basically that no one else can fully or needs to understand, music is emotion and feeling not logic and algorithms
