A Short (Non) Film: To Go Through a Musical Drought

Words by Matthew Spence

Oh, what we do for music. Search, scroll, and Shazam, and poorly recite vague melody we barely remember to your tone-deaf friend in hopes they recognize it (Plot Twist: They actually know the song for once). To put it in the most layman of layman’s terms: I love music, you love music, we all love music. It’s just as important as food and health………I’m only 40% ironic too when I say this. We go through hoops, climb up a ladder, and buy new aux chords in hope of finding your next favorite artists. Then you lose aux privilege once you play that new favorite artist in the car with your friends (but hey no judgment wanting to share the wealth). In today’s time, it’s better, as our new favs are just a click away, we need to take advantage of it. But it takes crawling through the tunnel before you get to the light. In fact, sometimes you need to tunnel through the shit like Shawshank Redemption.  Trial and Error yo.

Cause not every go at finding new music is gonna be an easy JV3 Stock. Never a flawless victory. Not every playlist you explore is a goldmine. The Youtube Gods don’t always deliver blessings in their recommendations. That IG Post that recommended songs to cry to didn’t hit. You’ll give it a go, but, end up either empty-handed or indifferent. Finding songs that don’t fit your mood, average/interchangeable tracks and/or songs you do feel are good but don’t hook you enough to where you’d want to go back to them again. No one’s fault. “If I don’t like it, I don’t like it, doesn’t mean I’m hating” in the words of Common. If it doesn’t connect, it doesn’t. Trying the Spotify recommendations and that doesn’t always go to plan. Go in hoping for an Olivia Rodrigo peer and walk away empty-handed. Try to find someone in the lane of Men I Trust and then BAM……Nothing. Try to find someone that sounds like Paris, Texas, and BOOM……walking away still in a musical drought. Sadly not of the same quality as the Lil’  “F is for Fenomenal” Wayne mixtapes.

Whatever the genre, it’s universal as we eventually want new colors in our musical palettes. Sometimes it’s not a short and sweet easy road trip. Luckily it never lasts forever though, as we’re never too far away from music that’ll soon be important to us. It’s lucky that we put more effort into trying to find new music to enjoy than we do in places like…school, but music is more important than an isosceles triangle. Granted I suck at math, so maybe I’m biased

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