Music that got me through the quarantine

Music+that+got+me+through+the+quarantine

Kenzo Cogswell, Staff Writer

Throughout this awful school year, it was a newfound discovery of many musical artists that kept me going through this hard time.

As I was always home on a computer for e-learning, I often had a lot more time to listen to music. In this time where I feel demotivated to do anything productive, it was these worlds of sound and rhythm that brought the motion back in me to accomplish assignments. One of my favorite albums that I would often listen to is the posthumous Circles by Mac Miller. It was the perfect album to calm myself down to as I tackled incredibly difficult precalculus assignments with frustration. Something was strangely comforting about this man who has already passed telling me that it was going to be alright. An anonymous reviewer on the popular music review website rateyourmusic.com summarizes what made this album special to me: “…what makes this album so special is the sum of the parts. They all combine to create an incredibly intimate, melodic, and personal record.”

Much like Circles, there were many albums that kept my focus and mindset intact, even if barely. Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo felt relatable in a sense where much like how songs go from exciting rushes of sound to somber, introspective pieces of music, I would often go through from bursts of motivation to being unable to do a single assignment. Knowing that I wasn’t alone in my chaotic situation kept me grounded in safety in a sense. There were of course many albums by artists like Run the Jewels, Flying Lotus, and Genesis Owusu that kept me sane over this school year, but if I had to talk about every album that helped me I would have to write 50 pages. Popular music reviewer Anthony Fantano summarizes this point for all the music in 2020: “2020 has been a hellish year, so it’s surprising that so many artists would drop a single song, let-alone a whole album.”

The light at the end of the tunnel has shown itself, however. With COVID-19 vaccines starting to become readily available across America also comes the end of this era of never leaving our homes. But even though it’s over, the passions and interests that sprouted from it will not share the same fate. Just as I will continue to seek out new albums to listen to, I encourage everyone reading this to keep up the activities and hobbies they started during in quarantine; it doesn’t even have to be music related. Reddit user Tadoof states a universal reason for a specific activity, beat-making: “…in a year you’ll be proud to show them off, and then a year later your beats will have improved so much more you will wonder why you showed the old ones off.”

This year has been tough, it really has. Music is what personally got me going, but maybe it was something else that kept you happy. If that same thing kept you happy back then, why stop now? The quarantine may have ended, but that does not mean the activities that you did because of it happening have to end as well. Who knows, you might even get really good at it.