Take More Time With Your Music

When a friend asked me recently what music I’d been listening to, all I could think about was how sick I was of hearing “Paint” by the Paper Kites. Really, it wasn’t just “Paint.” All of the songs I’d been loving had lost their magic. I ended up telling my friend that I was kind of in a music rut. It felt like I’d listened to all the good music that’s ever been made.

I’m constantly finding myself in these music ruts. To make matters worse, it seems that I require a soundtrack to almost everything I do. I listen to music in the shower, at my office, on runs, while I finish chemistry assignments, while I do the dishes or while I pick out an outfit in the morning. It doesn’t matter if the songs I’m listening to fail to bring me any visceral pleasure, I can’t hit pause. I need my music.

This addiction — and yes, I think it’s safe to call it an addiction — started around the time I downloaded the Spotify app, about five years ago. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Spotify can always dream up another song for you, then another, then another, until you forget all together that you are listening to music. The app is turning music, one of life’s greatest delights, into background noise.

Everyone gets sick of a song if they hear it enough. But the problem is, I’m not intentionally playing the same few songs on repeat. Spotify serves these songs up to me in customized playlists with seductive titles like “Chaotic Cowgirl Hipster Monday Morning” or “Mellow Rock Romantic Comedy Friday Night.”

These custom playlists, or “Daylists,” as Spotify calls them, are the work of Artificial Intelligence (AI). According to Aim Research — an AI and data science market research firm — Spotify’s AI can analyze listener behavior as well as tempo or tonal quality within specific songs to predict what listeners may like. It then curates those oddly accurately-titled playlists that, for some reason, I can’t stop listening to.

Every time I delve into my custom AI-generated Spotify Daylist, I hold onto the hope that it will contain something sonorously groundbreaking, a lifeline from which to drag myself from the depths of my musical rut. And every time, I am disappointed. After all, here I am, once again, writing this article at my desk to the stale harmonies of the Paper Kites.

To get out of a musical rut, or any rut for that matter, I think it’s important to recall what it feels like to be un-rutted. I like to think back to when I saw Bon Iver play at Red Rocks Amphitheater in 2019. What I remember most from that concert was not the music, but the sensation of leaving the venue. I was weightless and raw as I walked down the steps. My body was pressed against all the other bodies, our collective awe propelling us into the night. As I drove home in silence, I could still feel the echoes of the concert in my bones.

Does describing a concert like this sound melodramatic? That is the problem. In our collective music ruts, we have grown deaf to the emotional resonance of music. Spotify leaves us no space to reflect between songs or albums. Before we get a chance to absorb what we have just listened to, we are launched into the next title, which is probably “Paint” by the Paper Kites. As we cycle through our infinite musical loops, we are missing out on moments of silence. It is only during these empty beats of reflection that the gift of music can truly be delivered to the soul.

Dissatisfaction with music can be attributed to the never-ending feed of music that Spotify provides us. If we were to accept a moment of quiet after a song, we would allow ourselves to appreciate music — the elixir that makes humans shake their hips, that makes grown men cry, that synchronizes a thousand heartbeats — once again.

Here’s your real lifeline out of that music rut: just hit pause. Hit pause to override Spotify’s quantity-over-quality music delivery model. Let the silence in. And after you’re quiet for a moment, after you’ve let that last song into your soul, then you’ll be ready for the next — as long as it’s not “Paint” by the Paper Kites.