Through this pandemic and time of uncertainty, music has been a massive part of the journey. For the predecessor to this article, I wrote about how music could help influence my mood, and how I had the time to actually make playlists that coordinated to my various moods. Whether I wanted to scream my head off or listen to some bops in the car, I had plenty of songs to choose from and sort through. However, this is a sequel article, not as good as the first, but ties up a few loose ends.
Much like this article’s predecessor from 2020 “Covid Chords: Changing the Tune of My Spotify” states, music has still been the one constant getting me through this pandemic. While it’s been just over a year since the original article was published, it has definitely felt a lot longer. In retrospect, I can see where the expression “time flies” comes from. While I look back and feel like not a lot of time has passed to explain my drastic change in music tastes, a lot of important life-changing events have happened between then and now.
Artists big and small were all affected by Covid-19, from being prohibited from recording studios, tour dates rescheduled or canceled, and plenty of other setbacks. For smaller bands with tours set up and gigs booked, not getting that income can have a larger negative impact than a more popular and widely known group.
I’ve usually been the type of person to find a band through a genre, and stick to more popular bands in various genres that range from rock, punk, metal, and the smallest spec of kpop. (I can’t help it, my friend is obsessed so I listen to it when we hang out). However, through the pandemic, I’ve been more interested in smaller artists, and keep getting into smaller artists’ music. I’ve also been watching various livestreams on Twitch, and whether the streamer is making music live or just has a track playing for background noise, there’s always a new song to be discovered.
Of course, a couple other things influence my choice of music. As I discover new songs and create more Spotify playlists, I stop listening to my older playlists and sort of move on from them. There’s a specific folder in my Spotify for archived playlists that I made when I first started my account. While there are a couple songs that I revisit and get back into listening to, my taste of music has developed well beyond my One Direction phase.
Now I look back to my old playlists from back in high school, and almost cringe at the songs I listened to. I only listened to mainstream music as I didn’t have much ability to seek out smaller artists like I do now, and enjoy. Nowadays my music taste has strayed very far from what popular musicians are producing, pop and rap aren’t really my genres, but there are plenty of other artists releasing other types of music that I love.
As an example, I’ll share a couple of my spotify playlist rosters, one of my first playlists compared to one of the ones I currently listen to and enjoy.
One of the first playlists I ever made is called Generic Mood. It was filled with songs that I liked that were more upbeat to keep me in a chill and semi-neutral mood. Currently it has 164 songs, and has a length of just over nine and a half hours. While I still enjoy the songs on it, they all fit into a persona that I was forcing myself into that I didn’t really like, so it’s sort of my pre-evolution. On it are several Panic! At The Disco albums, quite a bit of Fall Out Boy, some Imagine Dragons, 5 Seconds of Summer’s “Sounds Good Feels Good” album specifically, and a bit of My Chemical Romance to add that small bit of sadness and pain. There’s plenty more, all of the same sort of era and category that I got stuck in, and while I still love the songs on the playlist, I just have other music that I prefer listening to more.
In February of 2021, I was sucked into the world of Minecraft and Minecraft Content Creators. People like Ranboo, Wilbur Soot, Tubbo, and Ph1lza are only a few of the creators that I found I really like their content. I downloaded the Twitch streaming app and got on top of catching every stream I could. Being a part of the fandom, I discovered quite a bit of new music. Wilbur Soot is an artist and has plenty of songs I found I really liked, like “Jubilee Line”, “Maybe I Was Boring”, and “Internet Ruined Me”. Wilbur also is part of a band called LoveJoy that has released awesome music. Their first EP, “Are You Alright?” and their first album “Pebble Brain” came out last year, and I was lucky to be able to listen to them right as they hit Spotify.
One of my most recent playlists I find myself attached and listening to is a mix of LoveJoy and Wilbur Soot songs, as well as songs by Derivakat about the Minecraft Server that all of the creators are a part of. The entire “Records of the SMP” album by Derivakat, “Are You Alright?” by LoveJoy, a few Wilbur Soot singles, even other songs relating to the same vibe like “Vibrant Eyes” and “Muffin” by CG5, “Greedy” by Or3o and Swiblet based off of Cuphead, and “creature” by half•alive.
In retrospect, I can understand the expression “time flies” very well. In such a short amount of time I’ve changed so much, but “time is an illusion that helps things make sense,” so I’m making the most of it through my love of music.