The Pandemic Brought Music Back to Me
If you’re in the United States, it probably safe to say that you have been stuck at home for the majority of the past few months. It’s been difficult and being in one place for extended period of time can feel suffocating at the least.
If you’re a music lover like myself, that may mean that you’ve turned to searching through every pocket of Spotify for just the smallest bit of serotonin while weathering this storm. However, that research was already a huge part of my routine pre-pandemic, so how has scrolling through the “Alt Newbies” playlist become anything special during this trying time? I think that it’s because several music nerds have also moved over to TikTok and Twitter to pass the time as well, and with social media comes togetherness especially during darker times. This grasp for normalcy can easily foster a bond in nostalgia.
As the weeks have passed me by, I have found myself reaching for a particular style of music that some may say would be classified as “throwbacks.” Since I’m 24, this means the good ole 2000s and 2010s. As I listened to old Green Day and Fall Out Boy records, I felt a surge of something that I can only explained as first-listen elation. I’m head-banding, Lizzie McGuire shower singing to songs that were way more sexual than 10-year-old Missy realized. This elation is pushed even higher when I go to social media and see that several washed-up punk alternative 20-somethings agreed with me and grew up with the same sad anthems that I blast in the shower.
I smile as I scroll through top 10 lists and finish the lyric videos and think about a time where finding people who loved the same music that I did didn’t seem possible. My friends humored me and I love a good top 20 track so we connected with the No Doubts and Britney Spears’ of the world, but something feels different when I see someone screaming the lyrics to a Taking Back Sunday song that I put on high school playlist to impress some bassist in at school battle of the bands.
It feels good to be a part of something again, even if it’s just the fact that half of us had little to no friends and spent too much time creating playlists to go along with our fanfiction characters on Tumblr. Something about the all too familiar drop before the chorus in 505 by The Artic Monkeys and the rolling drums in This Ain’t A Scene by Fall Out Boy has changed. When I would have these songs shuffle through my playlist in January, I’d jam but it’d be pretty uneventful. During this time where music is one of the only things that keep me going, the familiar hooks and quick moving verses almost feel as tantalizing as it did when I listened to them for the first time.
Although the majority of the world is up in flames, this fire in my heart that’s been restored by replaying my favorite records has made me remember why I fell in love with music in the first place. These songs find you when you need them, and sometimes those songs that you cried to in your teens come back around when you’re 24 and crying because this song you love holds you together while you’re falling apart.
