An Outbreak of Musical Discovery
new music and found a love they did not know existed. “I don’t care for what’s on the radio these days,” Riana Kraft, fr. said. “So I was curious about more of the music that the artists (with only 1-2 widely known songs, an hen we couldn’t see friends, example being couldn’t travel, couldn’t do ac- The Neighbortivities, we still had music. We could plug hood), have in headphones and drown out the ques- created, and tions we had for the future. We could it turns out turn on a speaker and let the music take I like them us somewhere, anywhere else. more than I “I would say that music has helped me thought!” a lot through the pandemic because it’s This past a really good distraction from reality,” year, we’ve Maddie Hodgins, jr. said. “Like lots of had the times during quarantine I would just put time to dison music and listen to the words, with- cover what out doing anything else, because they genres we enhelped distract and get my mind off all joy and broadthe scary stuff happening in the world.” en our musical Like Hodgins, Trisiyah Hurt, fr. also horizons. Spotify, used music to improve her year. “The which curates a varimusic that I’ve listened to has been dis- ety of playlists for your covered through friends recommending taste, earned 1.25 billion songs to me and TikTok,” Hurt said. users in 2020 alone. Hurt isn’t the only one. Many teens “I’ve definitely found out I have a have found new music in the past year wider music taste than I used to,” Jersey through TikTok. Due to the trends that Bileyeu, fr. said. “I used to just listen to TikTok produces, songs can go from pop, but now I listen to pop, classic rock, underground to climbing the charts in musical theatre, indie, even a little bit of weeks. Teens have been introduced to disco.”
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Elise Hrabik 12
