I sat down sometime at the beginning of January with a goal for my year, to keep track of my music choices every month. To do so I decided to make a playlist each month that included some old songs and some new ones. Doing this allowed me to learn a lot about myself through the music I listened to as well as to see how I changed throughout the year.
At the beginning of 2021 I was still in high school, so looking back on what I was listening to then shows how much I’ve changed since coming to college. As it was January, there were way more slow songs, she’s sad, she’s cold, she wants to go home. I lived in a small town so most of my musical influence was just from social media, like TikTok. Some of the popular songs on there at the time were by Penelope Scott, Mother Mother, and songs from the musical Heathers. Everyone’s For You page is a little different so it is interesting to hear what everyone was listening to at the time. You can listen to the playlists from January here.
Later in the year is when my high school graduation was coming up. I can see through my playlists that my mood was lightening up and my friends and I were getting excited to enter a new chapter of our lives. A big player in June seems to be the album SOUR by Olivia Rodrigo, that album carried my summer. It also looks like I was too busy having fun to make those months’ playlists very long but the few songs I did list really captured how my friends and I were feeling. You can listen to my June playlist here.
The last big shift I noticed in my year was when I started going to UNH! My music taste got much more diverse as I met people through school. One friend I met was really into rap music but DESPISED country… I was living for country. They wanted to introduce me to “good music” and I can’t lie, they definitely showed me songs I still listen to all the time. Some of the artists I got introduced to were MF DOOM, some Drake songs, and they brought back my old love for Tyler, The Creator and Odd Future. If you’re interested in listening to my October playlist you can here.
Overall, keeping track of my music through the year gave me something amazing to look back on and I would definitely recommend others do it if music is a big part of your life. I’d also love to hear what our Her Campus readers have been listening to, so I’ve made this public playlist anyone can feel free to add to here!