The Ever-Changing World of Music
October 26, 2021
By Alex Shores
What is your favorite song right now? How many times have you listened to it this week? How many times today? How about two years from now? Ten years from now?
The role music plays in our lives is tremendous. Maybe you listen to hard rock during a workout, jazz in the shower, pop on a long drive with friends, or soft piano music when you are feeling down. Music is undeniably a reflection of who we are, how we are feeling, and how we want to feel.
There are these overarching genres associated with certain moods, but don’t tell me you never went through an embarrassing “phase” of music that you look back on now and hate. We all did. But when you were that age listening to that music, you loved it more than anything. But now you’re past that, and onto new songs, new genres.
To say you have already found your “lifelong taste in music” is most likely false. Maybe you have an idea of it. Maybe you “only” listen to jazz, or “only” listen to classic rock, but given how many new songs, albums, and up-and-coming artists pop up every year, challenging genre norms and embodying the changing world around them, who’s to say you might not fall in love with their music?
I mean, look at everyone’s favorite Spotify “Wrapped”, which captures your top genres and artists each year. Two years ago, my number one artist was Carrie Underwood. Last year, I listened to her a bit less and replacing her as my number one was Shawn Mendes. If taste can change that much in one year, who knows how much it will change by the time we graduate and move across the globe, where our locations and new friends and colleagues will continue to shape our music tastes.
Although for us some artists just fade into the backs of our minds, not all musical artists and their songs disappear entirely. Look at artists like Bon Jovi, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, and The Beatles from our parents’ generation that many of us still listen to occasionally. Their music has impacted generation after generation and continues to live on.
Even if our music tastes and favorite artists shift, in this ever-changing world of music, maybe some of it is influential enough to stand the test of time. Maybe our children’s generation and even our grandchildren’s generation will turn on their iPhone 1,000 and play Olivia Rodrigo or Harry Styles. Or maybe not. Only time will tell.
All that matters is this: music, like most things in life, changes. And it will probably never stop changing. So whatever music you like now, embrace it. Whatever songs you wake up to, find comfort in, or need to get through a long day, listen to them. There is beauty in every new song we hear, but there is also something special about the classics that take us back in time and put a smile on our faces.