Music! I love music.
Music has truly been one of the true factors that makes me who I am. Between listening to it or singing it, it has impacted my life as I am sure it has everyone else’s. When people ask my favorite genre, I simply just say all. And it is absolutely true, I love and respect really any music genre. I will go from listening to 70s Funkadelic, then to 90s rapper MF Doom, then to Bjork. This infrequent pattern seems to happen a lot whenever I listen to music, especially when sharing music with friends. I have noticed that during my time here at Alfred and meeting new people, my music taste and range has extremely increased. Now learning about Napster (which is very interesting that I have never heard of Napster prior to this class), I feel very privileged to live in the era of music streaming services. My thoughts on Napster as a whole are pretty split. On one hand, I think its approach of piracy it is kinda unethical towards the music artists. I am not going to lie, I defiantly have pirated things before. Like whom wants to pay 40 dollars for a video game when you can just find it illegally? I say that half kidding, of course. My thoughts on selling music in general are pretty harsh as well. I think it is just my bias of loving music so much, but I think artists and record labels are charging way too much for music. It is definitely easier listening to music now since streaming services are just a monthly fee, but I distinctly remember having to pay around two dollars per song and twelve dollars an album on ITunes. Two dollars does not sound like a lot, but it sure does add up when you have a thousand songs in your library. It was bizarre, I would spend all of my Christmas and birthday money on music when I was a kid. Despite my opinions on putting a price tag on music, I understand why it has to happen. One of my close friends brought up a great point when I was debating the idea of paying for music or not. If you consider music art, then there should be no reason to complain. Especially as an artist myself, that resinated with me. Of course I would charge people for my artwork since I spent the time and effort to make it. Maybe it is because I am not a musician, but the idea of musicians also being considered artists did not click in my brain up until recently (which is funny because musicians are also referred to as artists). Now having this mindset about musicians and just music in general, it has defiantly changed my mindset and thoughts on purchasing music.
HOWEVER.
My thoughts on modern pop/rap music are very closed minded. I hate it. And its not because I hate how the music sounds. I just hate the idea of modern day musicians pumping out bullshit boring songs just to make a quick buck and their record labels happy. Modern day record labels also are not helping this sad, sad music era. They one hundred percent are the masterminds behind the absent-minded music. It especially sad to see this happen in the social media world, like Tiktok. Ive had to delete Tiktok multiple times just because I am sick and tired of how that app chews and spits out music. I am definitely not one to gatekeep music, (which that could be a whole other thousand word rant) but there seems to be a step by step trend as to music getting really popular on social media, then people get bored of that song, then it is hated forever. It also kinda sucks how much judging people do if you like a song that is popular on social media. A classic example of this that happened over the summer was Running up that Hill by Kate Bush. It obviously did not help that the song was also featured on one of the biggest tv shows ever, but the amount of hate and annoyance that the song got after it ran its course through tiktok was upsetting. I have always been a huge Kate Bush fan, before and after the show, but people were also judging me on my love for her. It was only because that one song had gotten so popular.
Anyways, I would love to share some of my music. I hope whoever is reading this takes a listen! Let me know your favorites!
Question: What are your thoughts on modern day music?
Mass Media & American Life 
We appreciate modern-day music not only for its catchy, light rhythm and friendly nature but also for its presentation. Sometimes its strong rhythm makes our body dance with it, and sometimes its softness makes us feel like someone is whispering in our ears. This is the best way to relax after a busy day of study and work. Modern-day music has the characteristic of novelty i.e. the popularity or fashionability of pop music. Novelty is the distinctive feature of all popular things, and curiosity is a characteristic of human psychology. As a kind of commercialized entertainment music mainly for the purpose of satisfying consumption, pop music is necessarily “based on a representative social psychology and thus generally accepted by the public.” Modern-day music is based on this foundation, and therefore is bound to “cause the behavior of singing, playing, listening to a certain repertoire or using a certain style and its objects to expand and spread within a certain social scope, and to form different degrees of social popularity and social group frenzy.” Popularity and fashion are the basis of popular music.
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Every so often or so, new music comes out depending on where I am and my mood. I listen to many genres of music. Sometimes EDM, Electric, Lofi, and many more. I like to listen to music when I am doing HW.
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I find a good chunk of popular modern day music to be lacking. This is less because of the social impact on it, but more because it feels like it has a different purpose than the things I usually listen to. I don’t listen to songs because it makes me want to move, or because the rhythm is good. I listen to music for the emotional impact it can have on me, and this is primarily done through the lyrics having some kind of meaning to them; and this is usually shown through the lyrics presented. I spent a majority of my writing talking about this, but it is something that I can never find myself able to stop talking about. If a song can’t provide that deep emotional impact, I genuinely want nothing to do with it, but that isn’t unique to modern day music. At work I would be subjected to hits from all eras, a good chunk being from the 1980’s, and it would make work more miserable than it already was. In the end, I am a sucker for a good story, and the emotions that resonate within me from hearing them carries over into music as well, it just so happens that I find modern day music to be more lacking than some previous eras; even if they too had their lack of it.
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I like modern day music personally but I am a little picky when the songs are either just pointless flexing. Modern Day music is not as bad as it may seem it really depends on what artists you choose to listen top. Rappers like J Cole and Kendrick Lamar are artists I can say have meaningful songs that are not just bullshit about money, girls and fast cars. I agree with your comment on how songs usually get played out on tik tok. Obviously being only 18 years old I really never knew about Kate bush’s running up that hill but first hearing it I actually thought it was a good song and watched it slowly die out through the amount of times I heard it on tik tok.
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