The Four Year Experience

     Inspiration for a blog always hits at the funniest, most random of moments. I had been struggling to come up with a concept for a blog for a while now, since not much has been happening lately that I would deem writing a blog for. However, as I was lying in bed listening to music, wondering about what I could write about, I realized that it was my music that I could talk about today!

    Specifically, I wanted to talk about how I organize the music I listen to, since that's probably the most unique part about what I listen to (I'm not one to be bragging about how good my music taste is, the quality varies wildly). Most people I know organize their music into different "moods" or "vibes", and some others just keep all of their music in one mega playlist. However, I have yet to find another person who sorts their music by year: meaning that I have one playlist per year, and after the year passes, I can't listen to that playlist for a year.

    I'm not really sure why I started this practice. Ever since I first got the Spotify app all the way back in 8th grade, I had made a new playlist when I started the new school year as a freshman in high school. Maybe it was to differentiate my middle school music with high school? Or maybe it was because by that point, I had gotten so sick of the songs I listened to... The verdict is still processing. Regardless, I had effectively started a tradition with myself that I would keep going for every year that followed, resulting in a nice catalogue of playlists that captured the music for that year.

    It wasn't until recently, when I decided to listen to one of my early playlists for no reason, that I had finally grasped the significance of what I had accidentally done through the yearly playlists. As soon as the first song hit my ears, I literally had the reaction of that one GIF from the Ratatouille movie. I've always been a strong believer in the power of music, but its a completely different sensation altogether when you actually feel yourself being taken back to a time in your life solely through music. Even if it was a song that didn't fit with my music taste now, I was taken back to a time where it was my music taste, at a time where I remember feeling all the things the song wanted me to feel... and that sensation is as addictive as a drug.

    Immediately after the first song, I went on a bit of a binge, furiously going through the shuffle function on Spotify and reexperiencing all of my memories through music. With each song, I relived an experience that I almost forgot how it felt: with one song, I remembered my first breakup with my first girlfriend, with another song, I relived walking home from the park after meeting with my friends during the COVID pandemic. I'm sure I sound redundant, but its truly shocking how powerful each song felt. And before you go: "well john, that's what music does for EVERYONE," I understand that people relate strongly to music, but what I'm arguing is that by not listening to these songs past the year they were archived into my playlist, I effectively locked these songs in those time periods.

    It's not an argument of whether music takes you back to a memory or not. I just want to share the sheer impact of how it felt to listen to these songs after years of not listening to them at all. I imagine this is what it must be like for older people (looking at you, Mom and Dad) to randomly hear a song from their childhood on the radio decades after first hearing them. Isn't it absurd how those sensations of nostalgia can be so strong through music? The influence music has on the mind and memories cannot be emphasized enough- how come it's impossible for me to listen to INDUSTRY BABY without immediately remembering how me and my friends would cram the 9 of us into a 5 person car and sing together as we drove home from whatever dinner or activity we were doing??

    I can already feel myself doing my signature rambling- I'm not really sure I have a point to make about all of this. I guess I just wanted to share how I listen to music and how that's impacted my reaction to hearing old songs. I can only imagine how much harder that sensation of nostalgia will hit when I'm older... it's hard to process how even the earliest of my playlists were only made about five years ago. I'm happy with my yearly playlist tradition, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon!

Bonus: If you'd be interested to listen to some of the music I mentioned in this blog post, you're welcome to check out this playlist, which is the combination of all four years of my high school playlists!