The subject of this research is analysis of the impact of tastes in music and art upon self-determination of youth. The key problem is to identify the specificity of formation of personal preferences of youth in the process of music consumption in the context of modern cultural industries. The scale and mechanisms of the impact of music as a sociocultural factor of socialization, identification, cultural demarcation and, most importantly, social differentiation and cultural diversity are insufficiently studied. The problem of studying sociocultural capacity of tastes in music and art consists in poor perception for the sociological research on cultural determination of the practices of within and outside the intergenerational semantic (symbolic) distinction and unity within the youth environment. The goal is to search the methods for formation and representation of tastes in culture, and namely, in music and art as the elements comprising semantic and value structure of identity of a young person.  The core of the strategies for creating semantic and value structure in the course of sociocultural socialization of a person are music and art patterns that manifest in Russian youth born between 1987 and 1997 in relation to various musical genres, practices, performers and those with different tastes in music and art. Music alongside tastes in music in the context of self-determination of youth fulfill a function of worldview, behavioral and ideological reference points, an instrument for postulating new values, as well as reconsideration and of the established preferences, attitudes and patterns.