I never understood why people like music so much. I get that songs are catchy and all, but to me that was the bad part about music. Not only would it distract me from interesting thoughts I’d otherwise be having whilst the music is playing, it then wormed itself into my ears and mind and played itself back against my will even when I didn’t listen to it (i.e. when I got out of my mom’s car, I barely ever listened to music by myself). When letting myself get distracted from my thoughts it might as well be a podcast or audiobook; which is why I went hard into those once I knew of and had access to them.
That’s why I kinda liked classical music – less catchy and just instrumental – and loved LoFi music once I discovered it since it was even less catchy than classical music and lends itself to blend into the background even better! (I just hate it when they have this one random 2s voice clip in a 1h video; instant dislike)
I like to… wait a second… Here we go, better.
I like to listen to LoFi when working, reading or just as background music when doing stuff I can’t listen to a podcast/audiobook to.
I just don’t have an emotional connection to music like others seem to have. They’re just an whatever thing that provides mild but cheap feeling entertainment. I’m less bored but I’d rather get entertainment either from my own thoughts or through someone else’s (podcast, audiobook).
The one exception I found is music that has some external connection. Music like Vuelie is ofc associated w Frozen and the emotions, actions, and story told on-screen and then I can feel some emotion in their music (or of the other pieces in that movie), same w Aladdin’s Speechless. The soundtracks for RWBY by Jeff and Casey Lee Williams also work for me; here, the songs tell me more about the characters, their past, and the relationships they have to each other 1, smth the very action-packed series itself often doesn’t have so much time for. So, it’s pretty perfect that they tell these through the medium that tabs into our emotions more easily (or so I’m told).
Part of what I like about their music is that it’s sometimes fitted to the visuals and vice versa, which elevates it so much more for me. AMVs that do that make a song so much better for me 2.
A music video, on the other hand, usually doesn’t do it for me. Rarely they tell a story (that I care about) and almost never sync the actions that are shown to the music, neither in swift-action-happens-on-beat(?) nor that what the lyrics is saying happens or is referenced in the video. The ones I’ve seen are usually just stuff that happens so you have something to look at.
Whilst the Nichijou S1 Opening doesn’t do those either all the time, it at least does it some times and the rest of the times the animations are very intriguing to me. The S2 Opening does the syncing a bit better, but in both cases they’re also connected to an anime I really like.
I’ve also had a fondness for all the old-timey songs that play in the game Mafia 2 (which played in that time period), which is a mostly story focused game with nice theme-park-ride scripted happenings things you can observe. Although on relistening, that seems to have mostly faded. Also, I think it’s more the general vibe, style, and texture those songs had than any song in particular.
There’s also other songs I like that don’t have these things, they are mostly songs I’m already well familiar with by virtue of having heard them lots on the radio or my mom’s audio system when I was a child/teen.
Not sure to which extend this lack of emotional connection to most music stems from having had troubles to connect and perceive my emotions and how much of that is fear of judgement for my preferences.
On a long trip to somewhere my dad insisted we play some music from my phone. It was a very short playlist and I kept skipping over one song 3 that wasn’t the same radio pop music like the rest, out of fear that he wouldn’t like it, say that it’s bad, or smth like that. Eventually, I managed to get myself to not scramble to skip it once more but actually let it play. He didn’t say anything, we never talked a word on it. I felt bad and ashamed for it.
In middle school English class our teacher had us all stand up, then announced different music genres and had us sit down when she named our favorite one. At the end, I was the only person still standing (yeah yeah yeah ♫).
Update 2026-01-04
The topic came up w a semi-random person I’ve met today and they said that listening to music and focusing on it whilst being on mushrooms helped them get a better emotional connection to it and whilst the effect diminishes over time, parts of it are quite long lasting for them and its easier to tap into that aspect of being now.
Footnotes
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Examples of RWBY Songs
Gold tells us about the protective, sisterly-love of Yang towards her younger sibling Ruby.
Armed and Ready is Yang dealing w a traumatic event that happened in S3 and doubling down on her vast strength.
Red Like Roses gives some insights into Ruby and her relationship to her deceased mother. It’s also the background music to her Red Trailer, which are made to fit each other (action-on-beat).
I Burn similarly is Yang’s Yellow Trailer and tells us a bit more about her whilst being fit to the on-screen action. Don’t like this one so much, but I still appreciate the insights it gives. ↩ -
For example, Bang Goes the Railgun merges the song “Bang Bang” and anime “A Certain Scientific Railgun”. I love how the lyrics “but I can send you into overdrive” is paired w a thug doing a racing start w a car; at “hold her hand” they are holding hands; at the mention of “ferrari” a respective car drives across the screen; or just how each “BANG” has us see an explosion on screen!
Or how for this This Is It AMV something always happens to the beat (? I don’t know music terms). Also at “light it up” the beat (?) is synced to ppl flicking open their lighters!
Dopamine, combining “Obsession” by OK Go with the anime “Happy Sugar Life”, doesn’t do the visual sync-up all that well, but instead, like the RWBY songs, tells a story where the visuals fit really well and expand on what the lyrics says. Spoiler and trigger warning for murder and violence. The anime is probably much better not having seen the AMV first. ↩ -
it was a CoD inspired re-lyricsed (?) version of Over the Rainbow ↩