“Fourteen is a sort of magic age for the development of musical tastes,”
says Daniel J. Levitin, a professor of psychology and the director of
the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill
University. “Pubertal growth hormones make everything we’re
experiencing, including music, seem very important. We’re just reaching a
point in our cognitive development when we’re developing our own
tastes. And musical tastes become a badge of identity.”

From New York Times article.