Not Like The Other Playlists

“Varied,” “random,” “scattered,” “diverse” – does anyone have a defined music taste anymore? After interviewing about thirty students around campus about their musical preferences, I discovered a trend of what I will call “country-and-rap-exclusive openness.” 

Students leaped to tell me that they listen to anything. To describe his music taste in three words, “1) I, 2) Like, 3) Everything,” a junior, said. Many answers flowed in that vein: “Pretty much anything,” “Scattered, exotic, anything,” etc., and even if a student included words in their 3-word description that were more definitive, they would often have at least one word included that communicated some sort of randomness or broadness or variety in their taste. “I can go from rap to orchestral…I like music if it’s musically decent,” Isaiah, said.

If there were something that students were more emphatic about than their diversity, it would be the frequency of their listening, and the location – the car. “[I listen] mostly in the car,” Lillian, said. “I can’t drive somewhere without music playing.” Caelin agreed: “All day, but I listen at night the most.” he, said. 

The strongest response I got from people was when I asked them what they considered “bad music” to be. Nearly everyone I asked said rap or country, with moderate vehemence. Both could be considered “mainstream,” according to an article by TIME (“How Rap Became the Sound of the Mainstream”) and an article by The Atlantic (“Why Country Music is More Popular – And More Angsty – Than Ever”). I would have been surprised to see just how many people detested  “mainstream” music, had they not been so adamant about having an eclectic taste. “Bad music is overly produced,” by which she meant “the creativity of the artist is taken out of it and it lacks individuality.” a senior Leah, said.

These three observations – a) emphasis on eclecticness, b) listening all the time and especially in transit and c) individuality with a side of mainstream hate – all point to an expansion of music’s purpose in the modern age. While music used to be entirely a community activity and an activity in its own right, it has expanded from concert-esque-events-only and entered the realm of individually helpful background noise. Music is no longer a building block of culture, bringing people into the same physical atmosphere. Instead, we are quick to say our music has no rooted sound – it is as varied as we can make it, safe in our ears. The real result of all these interviews on music taste is that I have this exceedingly groovy song called “Still Feel” by Half Alive stuck in my head because an interviewee suggested it to me and I am, as they say, utterly hooked. If you would like to experience a similar phenomenon, the Waltonian just used these interviews and created a campus playlist. It’s fantastic and appropriately quite varied for the diverse listeners of Eastern.