Why Music Still Shapes Entire Eras of Our Lives
It’s strange how a single song can bring back a version of yourself you forgot existed.
You hear a certain intro and suddenly you’re back in a taxi at 2am, sitting on a beach somewhere, getting ready for a night out with friends, or walking home after a breakup pretending you were fine when you absolutely were not. Music has a way of attaching itself to people, places, and emotions without asking permission first.
That’s probably why everyone becomes slightly unbearable when they’re handed the aux cord. Music feels personal in a way few things do.
Over the last few years, the way people consume music has changed completely. We no longer listen to albums in order while lying on bedroom floors staring at ceilings. Most people are discovering songs through TikTok edits, gym playlists, Instagram stories, or 15-second clips attached to someone’s holiday montage in Italy.
And yet, despite the shorter attention spans and endless algorithms, music still manages to define entire periods of life.
There’s always a song of the summer. A song that follows you around accidentally. It’s playing in cafés, beach clubs, supermarkets, someone’s car with the windows down. Eventually you get sick of it, then six months later it comes on again and suddenly you feel weirdly emotional about a random Thursday in July.
That’s the thing about music. It documents life quietly in the background.
Even trends in music say a lot about how people are feeling collectively. The rise of soft jazz playlists, ambient music, vinyl culture, and slower indie artists feels connected to how overstimulated everyone has become. People are craving calm again. At the same time, chaotic club music and early 2000s party tracks are back because people also want escapism. One minute everyone wants wellness and routines, the next they want to dance in a packed bar listening to songs they knew every lyric to at 16.
Both can exist at once.
Music also shapes identity far more than people admit. Entire aesthetics are built around playlists now. The “clean girl” era had soft house and minimal pop in the background. Indie sleaze returning means messy electro music and nostalgic party anthems are suddenly everywhere again. Even cities have soundtracks. London feels different from Dubai. New York feels different from Paris. The music people listen to changes with the pace of the place they’re living in.
There’s also something comforting about the fact that no matter how much technology changes, music remains one of the few things people consistently return to for comfort, confidence, distraction, or routine.
People listen to music while getting ready for dates, cleaning apartments, sitting on long flights, going through heartbreak, working out, romanticising solo walks, or trying not to cry on public transport. Sometimes all within the same week.
And unlike most trends online, music doesn’t always need to be productive or meaningful. Sometimes a song is just good because it makes life feel slightly better for three minutes.
Honestly, that’s probably enough.