Late Boomer
I: Arriving late to the party
I just came back from a walk. It’s one of the first days of Spring — not just according to the calendar, but the weather, which has aligned to deliver one of those magically sunny days that rewards Ann Arbor in mid-March. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one itching to take a stroll. Hoards of students were busy crisscrossing campus, driven out of their rooms by an empowering combination of fresh air and a cool breeze.
For half of my walk, I listened to the natural sounds occurring around me: the shuffling of shoes along paved concrete sidewalks, cars rumbling down busy, pothole-laden streets, jumbled conversations among friends, the occasional chirp from a bird perched in a tree branch overhead. It was peaceful, and yet I wasn’t exactly content. I wanted to take off into my own little world, and so I did, filling my ears with the buds to my wired headphones and opening up my Spotify app. It was time for music.
For most of my life, I never would’ve even thought about listening to music. It just didn’t interest me. Yeah, I know it’s weird. But that oddity articulates the genesis of this project.
Before we dive in, let’s focus on the weirdness for a second: Not only does it seem weird to the naked eye, but it’s actually statistically proven to be weird. I’m an outlier. Among men, the most critical period of music development occurs between the ages of 13 to 16. In that stretch, a male’s music taste is “virtually cemented,” according to Daniel Levitin, researcher and author of the book, This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession. At 14, men and women experience what Levitin refers to as the “magical age,” a point in which one’s musical taste is most malleable, most easily-influenced and thus subject to a high degree of change.
There isn’t a one-size fits-all cutoff point, sure. But the overwhelming majority of people form their individual music tastes by their 18th birthday; after that, new music becomes less influential due to a variety of factors, including decreased sensitivity to higher pitches and more rigid personal identities. Then, by the age of 24, one officially reaches what Levitin coins the “peak of musical taste acquisition.”
That left me in a peculiar position — a position that drives my curiosity for this project. When I was 14, I couldn’t tell The Beatles apart from Jay-Z or discern Bruce Springsteen’s songs from Rhianna’s. When I was 18 — when most people have already formed their music tastes — my interest in music had just begun to form. The summer before I went to college, I downloaded Spotify, suddenly eager to dive headfirst into a world I long ignored.
I love music now. So, four years later, I sought out to revisit 12 songs that I’ve forged a connection with in that vital — albeit late — stage of my music development. These 12 songs aren’t necessarily my favorite songs (though some of them are), but rather songs that are personable. They are songs that I’ve related to and clung to; songs that I’ve binged for days, perhaps weeks, at a time; songs that I’ve relied on when in need and rejoiced with when times turned better. They are songs that are intertwined with my college experience — my first true experience navigating the musical sphere.
While you explore my project, you’ll notice that I’ve embedded Spotify links to each of the songs underneath their titles. For the optimal experience, I encourage you to listen as follows: Play the song and then begin to scroll, letting a combination of music and words whisking you along, gliding you through the project.
It’s worth pulling back the curtain a little bit here, too. When I wrote, I listened to the specific song that I was writing about on a loop. I felt that doing so would allow me to most accurately portray the emotions, feelings and symptoms invoked by the song. It allowed me to reconnect with past moments and eras, rekindling a flame that once burned.
So I hope that you mimic my actions and listen while you read. Hopefully, doing so will provide you a better understanding of my perspective and, ideally, connect you with the song, too.