“The Last Time I’ll Ever Listen to This”: My Life in Music
My earliest memory of listening to music is in my parents’ car—a white Toyota minivan with grey leather seats that stuck to my legs in the summer heat back in China. Driving home from school, the old AUX speaker on the van would always crackle to life. The speakers played all the pop and soft rock hits from the 80s and 90s—everything from “Every Breath You Take” by The Police and the 1994 Hell Freezes Over version of “Hotel California.” Listening to those catchy chord progressions and rhythmic drumming planted seeds in my mind for an obsession that shaped how I listened to music throughout my life.
My parents never spoke perfect English, so they didn’t bother to search up any new English songs other than the ones they already had in their playlist. As a result, the few tunes that dominated my childhood music-listening experience were the only songs I fell in love with. During that time, I unconsciously assimilated the habit that when I listened to the same kind of music—same songs, genre, and artist—over and over again, I would like it.
I would like the music I listened to up to a point, however, until I decided not to. I’d cycle the same music until those few tunes no longer “hit” at all.
But here’s the problem: if I am going to like any song, album, or artist, is this how it’s going to end every time? Would every musical discovery I made be destined to exhaust itself, drained of all meaning and fun through repetition? I couldn’t control my way of listening to music. My mind made no effort to pause and just stop listening to the same music over and over again. Listening to music felt like a task. My habit in doing so compelled me to listen as if my ears had grown fully accustomed to something as vital as breathing—something that gives me the reasons to open Apple Music every day on my way to school and back. The worst part was that I had lost something essential: that initial drive and enthusiasm that made music magical for me after hearing the music for the first or second time.
Would every musical discovery I made be destined to exhaust itself, drained of all meaning and fun through repetition?
When I moved to Singapore for high school, many of my musical memories were left behind. The places and media through which I listened to music all changed. But one thing didn’t: the way I obsessively listened to music.
At the start of the second semester of my sophomore year, I found myself listening to an album titled La La Land - The Complete Musical Experience. Growing up in a film and music-obsessed household, a second viewing of La La Land and listening to its soundtrack back in China during winter break struck a chord in my heart. I carried the soundtrack with me everywhere. I loved every moment of listening to it. I listened to it surgically, making sure the order of the songs was correct so I could relive those moments in the cinema. I started to associate music with events in my life: a place, a conversation, and sometimes a person.
This felt meaningful at first, like I was deepening my relationship with music. But all of this only exacerbated my way of enjoying—not enjoying—music.
After two months of “Another Day of Sun” almost every day and having obsessively and compulsively listened to the La La Land album at least 50 times from start to finish, my mind snapped. It told me that was enough. In that instance, I had decided I no longer enjoyed it. The magic was gone. And I felt vulnerable, yes, but I also started questioning my way of listening to music: how do I learn to enjoy music again?
It’s not that passion for music is bad. But passion is, as my English teacher, Dr. Michael Clark, said in his TED Talk, something that “borders on chaos.” And to me, that “chaos” was my obsession with music rooted in passion. That passion was for the La La Land album and the many other songs and artists before it. Still, instead of utilizing that passion to push me to discover new music through an exploration of my volatile tastes, it made my musical life regimented and closed off to all other possibilities. There was order in my chaotic obsession with music. The issue wasn’t the music itself; it was how I consumed it.
Recently, I got into Mandopop—a genre that I honestly never thought I would like. In fact, quite the opposite. I’d been avoiding it since I was a kid, believing that it never suited my exotic, “sophisticated” taste for Western pop music ever since I enrolled in an international school for first grade. The lyrics felt too earnest, too dramatic in their declarations and croonings of love and heartbreak. The production seemed dated compared to more polished Western tracks I was used to. I thought the things they sang about were too corny or too sentimental without irony. But as my taste shifted, I realized I was wrong.
I became acquainted with Jay Chou last year. Of course, I had heard of him before. He’s very famous in China as the artist who shaped an entire generation of Mandopop music—“周董” or “President Zhou,” as he’s known among his fans. Whereas I didn’t listen to him that carefully before (I’ve only heard some of his songs in the mall), I now have an entire playlist dedicated to his discography. With Jay Chou, I’ve been trying out new things with how I listen to music: I stopped listening to one playlist 24/7 on repeat. I started to explore more of the Mandopop genre through the Radio feature to discover new music related to Jay Chou. Very often, songs I discovered through it were just as good, if not better, than some of Jay Chou’s songs (like Eason Chan, whose "淘汰" rivals some of my Jay Chou favorites like "枫").
I realized as long as the 'dominant status' of a song, album, or artist that I liked can be challenged by others, I can maintain my initial drive and enthusiasm for music.
Through my attempt to change the way I listened to music, I realized as long as the “dominant status” of a song, album, or artist that I liked can be challenged by others, I can maintain my initial drive and enthusiasm for music. Sometimes when I want to press play for my Jay Chou playlist, I pause, look at all the other saved songs, and ask myself, “Maybe today is Dire Straits day?” Or, you know, “let’s see what Alexandre Desplat has been up to with the new Netflix Frankenstein movie.” After spending my entire life in music, I realized range is important in listening to music because for me, once obsession takes over, there’s a small chance that I come back to a song, album, or artist a year from now. But at least, with how things are going now, I am optimistic that I will be coming back to the music I enjoy now. But we’ll see.