Unsubscribing from Spotify - Music fatigue & learning about people and the world through podcasts
Musings from mid-2021
Hello everyone.
Today I just wanted to express my recent thoughts about music. I have had a deep connection to music for a long time since my late teens, with a passion for learning about the artists that I connected with the most and especially connecting with their music if I knew that they stood for something in their artistic expression that I related to as well.
From The Cure to Charli XCX, I was drawn to something dark, punk, poppy, weird, dance-y, euphoric, a soundscape and something oddly hopeful in its loud and somber yet beautiful tone. What can I say, I guess my musical palette consists of sounds that are happy-sad and those where I feel the artist has made something beautiful and uplifting despite the sadness that they feel or surrounds them.
I think I will always be drawn to these types of musical sensibilities but currently I have discovered that I am just not as keen on catching up on new music because there is just sooo much of it and it all sounds the same. I am not as inclined to really hear out the artist and what they're trying to say and I feel like lyrics don't even matter all that much in today's musical landscape.
So I have decided to unsubscribe from my Spotify Premium subscription. I just don't find the content I am hearing or am being introduced to as something I should try, as something that is really worthwhile. Oversaturation can be a killer.
I have on the other hand been really enjoying podcasts; a lot. I think this has something to do with us being in proper lockdown here in Sydney, Australia again. As the case numbers rise and rise and I see shock footage of protests going on in the city and most likely leading to even larger spreads of the virus, I am feeling more exhausted and less hopeful that we will be able to leave this state of being in the near future and with my first vaccine jab scheduled for October, it's throwing me for a loop even more than I would have thought.
I am generally a hopeful person and one who tries to find the positives in a situation and still stay connected to others as much as I can but this week especially has been quite difficult for me heading into our fourth (or maybe fifth) week in lockdown now.
Through podcasts and storytelling mediums like TV series and movies however I feel like I have been able to hang on to hope through escapism and the remembrance of times past, and keeping my mind occupied by discussions of topics that genuinely interest me like relationships, the stories of people's lives, people that have been misunderstood, history and the evolution of social movements and language.
If you are also in lockdown at this time, I really feel for you and I hope you don't lose hope (see what I did there 😋). I hope you can still keep that desire to progress as a person and learn something about the world, the people in it and past, and yourself.
Quick tip: it's totally ok, if not a necessary step to prop yourself up and keep some normalcy, to put on some makeup or that dress shirt or pants you have in your closet. Dress up for you even if no one's there to see it and it's not even a special occasion. ❤️
I hope you all have a good week ahead and take care of yourself. See you for the next post 🙂
Originally published on July 25, 2021