Junior Dylan Chen needs a break. He’s tired, hours of work slowly grinding down his stamina, but he knows just what he needs to do. He throws on a pair of headphones and pulls up his rock playlist, cranking up the volume to drown out the outside world.
Besides using music to study, Chen, like many students, said he also listens to music to relax during the day.
“If I’m in a different mood, I listen to different music, and it’s just a great thing to have around me, especially on my laptop and phone,” Chen said.
The country is listening to more music than ever before. In 2023, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry found that people listen to an average of 20.7 hours per week, up from 20.1 hours per week in 2022 — or almost 45 days per year.
For some, music can take on different roles. Senior William Tu said music plays an important role in his daily life.
“I need music to dance,” Tu said. “I also listen when studying or when I’m driving, honestly anywhere.”
Tu said all his listening has helped him make social connections with those who have shared musical tastes, both online and at Paly.
“I know a lot of people that listen to the same genre, so it’s something I can talk about with other people,” Tu said. “Also, albums and idols are very good looking, so it’s nice to have those photo card things and it’s great bonding time with other people.”
For math teacher Alexander Dade, it was during the COVID-19 pandemic where he started to see artists start breaking out of the mold.
“People spent a lot of time in lockdown learning music, and there are a lot of great musicians who came from COVID because they had the time to actually sit down and learn music,” Dade said.
He also said that COVID affected people’s moods, further shaping the musical landscape.
“The general vibe made people more introspective, and that made people crave more introspective music,” Dade said. “It also made people bored, which meant that people wanted to dance. And so we’ve had sort of a resurgence of disco, and electronic music has exploded, which I think is awesome.”
Dade also said the current innovation with top artists in today’s music, makes the landscape more diverse.
“It is interesting to see an explosion of hip-hop and pop as the dominant genres,” Dade said. “They always have been, but it’s interesting to see more experimental aspects of those genres starting to come into the mainstream with artists like Charlie XCX and Kendrick Lamar and Chappell Roan, who are really pushing the boundaries of pop and hip-hop music, but also are some of the most successful people in their fields.”
Dade said some popular artists are starting to explore their music and working with sounds others hadn’t used before.
“For example, Kendrick Lamar with his 2015 album ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’,” Dade said. “He incorporated so much jazz, live jazz, jazz samples, spoken word and stuff that hadn’t really been explored, at least at that level.”
But the growing popularity of music has also created downsides.
Chen said streaming services have homogenized music rather than diversifying it.
“Let’s say you like Taylor Swift, right?” Chen said. “Suddenly, it’s a nationwide, worldwide sensation that Swift’s music is so good, and people just tune their taste to Swift and that genre of music, and that takes up all the market.”
Dade said the rise of streaming has changed the way music is consumed.
“As someone who previously pretty much only listened to albums front to back, I definitely think the album is not quite as much emphasized as singles, and the way that music is released just looks very different,” Dade said.
For those who feel that contemporary music is bland, Chen said he recommends older music.
“I like exploring different styles, like rock, ‘70s, ‘80s,” Chen said. “I think music of the past was way more diverse and had much more soul to it.”
On the other hand, Dade said it’s an exciting time to be keeping up with the music landscape.
“I think pre-COVID, things were a little bit stagnant,” Dade said. “If we’re talking the past couple years post-COVID, I think music’s in a pretty good state right now.”