āan experimental rock music that combined elements of art rock, jazz, and alternative with electronic influences to create richly textured soundscapesā ive had a personal ābeefā with spotify and their recommendation interface for the past few years. the algorithm can be repetitive and creates an echo chamber of oneās listening habits. but recently, a very rare thing occuredāspotify had created a playlist for me that was of a genre i had very shallowly dipped my toes into and ive been hooked ever since. mogwai. slint. tristeza. pop rock might just be the best thing that has happened to me since shoegaze. (pro-tip: pop rock if youre sad, shoegaze if youre high)
he wasnāt right about everything but this playlist is a tome. when wading through nonsense spotify algorithmlically-generated playlists, itās nice to go back to see what the human tastemakers of the era before are reccing. i do this with a few other writers.
iām not saying i want to or will put on every subgenre (bc i will not!) but i love being able to listen to most genres or at least appreciate most genres when playing their best. iāve got playlists for so many moments and genres and moods and it makes me so happy having such a variety of music in my life!
iāve found that people who say āi listen to everything but country and rapā usually donāt even have a wide variety of music preferences within the āeverything butā they refer to. music is such a diverse form of art and restricting yourself to a few artists or only whatās popular (hello tiktokā¦) is doing a disservice to the medium and to yourself as someone able to listen to music. now, iām not at all saying that liking āpopularā music is bad in and of itself. i also love charli xcx and tyler the creator and so on, but i donāt think you should restrict yourself to the top 40 and your daily life will likely be improved if you listen to all kinds of music, on the reg or least occasionally in an exploratory way.
it also makes me sad when artists iāve liked a while become popular online for a few songs but it seems like people new to the artist donāt bother listening to their earlier music or subgenre. iām happy more people enjoy them but omg! like for example, charli XCX being seen as ānewā by some people - but thereād be no brat without how iām feeling now and pop 2, nor without pc music and SOPHIE. i actually suspect the percentage of people streaming apple who could tell you who SOPHIE is is probably depressingly low :(
anyways, iām no purist and of course have my own regular rotation but, i really really recommend exploring within different genres to find more of what you like. you might even be surprised! maybe you donāt like all kinds of country, but you learn you fuck with folk (or at least johnny cash, i mean, cāmon); maybe you think hyperpop is ātoo weirdā for you but you discover some electropop youāre obsessed with. exploring musicāālistening to everythingāāis very worth it!
So, lately, I have been looking up just one song that fits the vibe I am in, and then let Spotify just go crazy. It's actually insane the amount of music I have discovered this way.
āhow can a person know everything at eighteen, but nothing at twenty-twoā life truly humbles you. as you start growing older, you stop only chasing the big things, and start valuing the little things too. being able to weave stories of experiences and begin applying themāintegrating the lessons and learning curves. in the past few hours of being eighteen, ive learnt how limited our time on earth truly is. i was advised (perhaps even lectured) that i shouldnāt try to defy natureās course with futile attempts to āage gracefullyā, but to rather age with mischief, audacity and a good story to tell. beyond grateful for the love that surrounds me, and the love that i am bound to give out.
An ideal world is one that knows no pain. That, sadly, is not the one we live in. Pain is a part of the human experienceābut failure to move on from it makes you miserable. If you dwell too much on what has happened, you will never be fulfilled enough to see all the good you have/ that is to come. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of a situation. āAnd in fact, itās time to forsake someone elseās idea of what gives you a spark or no spark. Block the āotherā from the picture. No more audience. Just you.ā Whether you choose to take that responsibility (of acceptance), or give it up to the disappointments of life, you return to yourself. The choice is whether to wallow in the misery of that pain, or take it as it comes and look at what it has to offer you.
"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place. Like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again."
- Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran The best decision Iāve made this year was to start a video journal of my senior year and capture every momentāno matter how insignificantāto keep the year frozen in time. No matter how much time goes by; no matter how many characters I change to become, Iāll always have these videos to remind me of my essenceāwhere I come from, and what made me. It doesnāt matter that the cusp of them are 0.5x videos of my friendsā foreheads, clips of me crying in public restrooms, and logs of us stealing grocery store carts to race them down the streetāthese moments are what I stay alive for.