If you have had a bad day what do you turn to? Do you go to music, video games, friends, or family?
Very Well Mind did a survey that shows 97% of people turn to music to help with mental health and/or bad days.
Music has an impact on everyone that is incomparable, whether it is the artist or listeners. Music is an outlet that is needed to all humans because it gives you that chance to express yourself when you don’t have the words.
Music is more than just words and a melody but it’s emotion and pain and love and everything you can feel. It’s a mirror of the real you that you sometimes hide whether you mean to or not. Music is an outlet to emotions and a glass window to one’s soul.
Many people don’t realize how many genres and artists there truly are because we focus on pop, rock, hip-hop/rap, electronic, R&B and soul, classical, jazz, blues, and country but there are over 1,300 music genres on Spotify and many more undiscovered. On Spotify alone there are an estimated 11 million musical artists, many just lesser known but still just as good as the more popular ones.
Music is the story of the artists and the mirror of the listeners. Whether people realize it or not the music you listen to tells a lot about your personality and story. Everyone has a unique story and music is a part of the story because it’s how you’ve handled your experiences and what’s helped you.
Music Artist Stray Kids’ Story
Whether you’ve heard of them or not, Stray Kids are a popular and revolutionary 4th generation K-pop band. They’ve gone through many hardships from the leader training for 7 years and leaving his home in Australia alone at the age of 13 to do so to a member leaving only 1 year 7 months and 2 days after debut.
They also produce and write their own music, giving them a different music style compared to the ‘normal’ standards and were the first ever k-pop group where all members were picked by the leader specifically. Because of all these reasons and many more they were considered the company’s flop group and failures but, despite not debuting popular, they used their story in their music and even won MTV’s 2023 VMA award show for best K-pop group.
They expressed their gratitude towards fans by making song specifically for the fandom (STAY) such as #LoveSTAY, Grow Up, Youtiful, You Can STAY, For You, Silent Cry, and I am You. They wrote songs for each other and to show their genuine happiness with the group such as the songs Can’t Live Without Changbin (only found on YouTube), Behind The Light, Fam, and Broken Compass. They used their music to express their confidence towards the group, not caring what others or anti-fans think, with songs like Haven, Easy, 3RACHA, Domino, Cheese, Thunderous, and Wolfgang.They used their music to get out their stories, past, and feelings with the songs Hellevator, Spread My Wings, Mirror, 19, Voices, One Day, and Secret Secret.
The point is, Stray Kids are a prime example of why music is so important. They show us that music is an outlet for emotions and feelings. They write these songs so they can express themselves and their fans just connect to it because of their genuineness with themselves and the music they make.
One of the powerful quotes they use in the song Spread My Wings is “My eyes went from sneakers to dress shoes Days that used to feel long now feel so short As soon as the bell rang for break time I used to run to the food cart But now, my footsteps are pitiful and trembling…It was nice when I acted like an adult But I don’t wanna change, even if they say I’m immature Even if I’m bad at it, I like the word, beginning It’s foolish but i’m still young.” This song talks about having to grow up eventually so they acted like an adult before they actually grew up but now that they have to they would rather stay young and act immature. I feel like, especially in today’s world, everyone is growing up too fast and this song is relatable to those who were in similar positions. This is only one of the many songs they have written with powerful and/or relatable and deep quotes.
Closing
All in all, music connects people in ways like no other thing can. It’s the invisible string attaching us to each other that we don’t see but we feel.
