Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about music’s role in my life, how it relates to my mood, my outlook, and overall well-being. In general, I’ve come to the conclusion that it mostly comes down to how I consume music, rather than how much or how little I consume or even how new the music is. 

In the time we live in, it makes it very easy for me to discount the role that music can play in my life. What I mean by that is how very very easy it is to obtain entire albums, even entire discographies sometimes in seconds, and so when I get that itch to go and find new music, it’s a quick matter of finding band X’s new album Y and clicking on a download link. The music so quickly gets cycled into and then back out of my listening rotation because I have almost no connection to the finding of the music or the experience of hearing it for the first time in a specific context.

For example, certain songs and albums have a very specific memory attached to the first time I heard them, like hearing Radiohead’s Everything in its Right Place over the loudspeakers in a record store so many years ago, prompting me to ask a clerk what was playing, and then buying the CD and taking it home and just sort of absorbing it for what must have been weeks… Or like the first time I heard the band Rose Blossom Punch’s album Ephemere while sitting with headphones on in the control room of the radio station I was working at at the time, in the basement of this house back in St. Helens, Oregon… It can be like finding a hidden treasure, absorbing a sort of audio-spiritual connection through a good pair of headphones. All of a sudden, life seems brand new again through the light shed on it by this discovery.

Years later though, it’s very difficult to maintain a connection like that to any one particular album or song or even artist. If I had to blame any one reason why, it might be the years spent working in the music business, from radio and CD shops to starting my own label and even producing concerts, or it might be the swift advances of technology taking the music business from records and tapes to CDs to MP3 downloads almost entirely within the span of my teen years. I almost feel lucky to be old enough to remember buying tapes and CDs in stores – something I haven’t done in a very long time, since I don’t like the clutter of CD cases, bulk plastic that takes up unnecessary space since I only listen to MP3s now on my computer and smartphones.

I do miss the physical connection to an album’s artwork, the work that the bands and their designer(s) put into reflecting the mood of an album visually. I remember fondly working in one music shop and discussing with co-workers which artwork we liked the best, or even which CD booklet was printed with inks that smelled great. Memories like that make me give credence to the idea that we form strong emotional connections to inanimate objects that we touch frequently. 

In that regard, it gets quite hard to form a real bond to the music that I hear, but lately, I’ve changed the how and the why and when I listen to music, and it’s made a huge difference. For quite a while, I was in a rut of not trying to find new music, not caring about my mindset when I did listen to music, and generally not getting much enjoyment out of it when I did. Now, though, I’ve begun to change that. When I download new music, I make sure it’s something I’m excited to hear – something from an artist I already enjoy, or something from a new artist in a genre I normally prefer. Then, I take the time to listen to it. Front to back, forwards and backwards, even on shuffle. I give the album time to get some traction, not to overplay it, but to learn the words, live in the melodies and feel the rhythms long enough so that the music breathes and the songs get stuck in my head again.

If I’m sitting in front of my laptop working for a few hours, one album will likely be on repeat the whole time while I move pixels around on the screen, slowly getting into my subconscious. If I have a friend or a date over, I’ll put music on that reflects the mood we’re in, something fun if we’re hanging out, something light for a meal, or something soft or sentimental to lay down and relax to. The music then becomes something we connect to collectively, and new memories can be made with a beautiful soundtrack. 

Yes, music is a business, and a terrible one to get into at that, but I’ve tired of being jaded by it. I want to enjoy music, to live in and around it, not just download it, rate it mentally from one to five stars and then go about my day. I know it might seem disrespectful/illegal/etc., but I want to share it, too – to give it away and help others experience and be connected to those same sounds and ideas and feelings, those same hidden treasures I’ve found. 

So, who wants to swap mixtapes?

-h