My Changing Habits with Music

I hate Apple for killing the iPod. They took down the whole MP3 players industry with it. Steve announced the product with a brilliant marketing tagline of 1000 songs in your pocket. It also meant only 1000 songs in your pocket. I had to select those few songs I could listen to on a loop. Or day-in-day-out. I built my own playlists for the different moods. I memorised each of those 1000 songs — the first tune or the few beats were enough for me to start crooning along.

That is not the case anymore.

With streaming services in Spotify and Apple Music, I have all the songs I need in my pocket. And yet the experience has slowly grown to be hollow. These days, I put on the music more as background static than the immersed escapade that it earlier was. My mood doesn’t decide on the music I listen to. Some curator on Spotify does so. This thought in a recent Guardian article really resonated with me.

Streaming makes the listening experience much more passive. (…) This idea that you can just turn on a faucet, and out comes music. It’s something that leaves everyone to take it for granted.

Passive consumption is not suitable for any art — music is an art of the most extraordinary form. Listening to music was a hobby once. I listened to music as an activity, not a medium to put me in a focused mood to do something else. Or to mute the background noise. You don’t say, “I am reading a book”, when you skim through the pages only to go to sleep, do you?

I remember my changed habits when I see my daughter listen to music. It happened again recently when the first 2 seconds of the tune were enough for her to start singing along aloud. Not just the lyrics but even every tune. She has memorised her music — she has a set of some 50 songs which she listens to every day. She plays the same songs even on streaming services. She adds to the list selectively and only after a few listens. I love the way she enjoys her music.

Sure, there are a lot of positives to streaming services. The discovery of new music and artist is one big plus. But what is a discovery worth if I don’t feel the emotion behind it?