When I was a kid, I always read. I would read to escape reality, but as I got older, the only thing that helped me to block out what was happening around me was music. I remember being in sixth grade listening to Jacob Sartorius and Troye Sivan. I remember being 10 years old listening to Lana Del Rey and crying because of how much I loved her music and how emotional it made me feel. Since then I’ve been obsessed with her music and everything about her, honestly. 

Back in the “good old days” of seventh grade I would listen to Lana Del Rey, Melanie Martinez, and Marina and the Diamonds and just sit in bed and think about how the music affected me, and the way the lyrics spilled out into the sound. Music has always been something I could use to distract myself and help get over things. I remember breakups and drama in school and I’d come home and tune it out and be fine the next day. 

For the longest time I was bullied for my acne or the way I dressed, and I would just listen to music and nothing seemed to matter. For a good two years, I had horrible acne to the point where I didn’t want to show my face in public because I was so self conscious. I would get bullied for being a smart kid, for being in the gifted program, and I would get made fun of for liking certain stuff, like certain artists and I liked to read more than I liked talking to people. I had horrible social anxiety that crippled my ability to talk to anyone who I hadn’t known for years beforehand. Because I didn’t like country music, I would get bullied for the stuff I listened to, only to find out that two years later, everybody would be listening to the same stuff I was listening to. 

 I’ll get into an argument with one of my friends and I’ll be so upset that I don’t know what to do, and Lana or Melanie or basically anything will start playing on my playlist and I’ll be fine within a couple of minutes. Music gives me the break I need to be able to compose myself and keep myself sane. 

The Melanie Martinez songs that got me through so much are: “Crybaby”, “Play Date”, and “Mrs. Potato Head”. I really started listening to her in the fall/winter of 2016, after a friend of mine talked about her music and I went and bought the entire “Crybaby” album the next day. These songs resonated with me and helped me to not feel so alone. Around the time when I was listening to these artists, I was grounded. I didn’t really have anything but music to help keep me sane, so I heavily depended on it.

Lana Del Rey has always been my favorite artist, ever since I could really understand music and the emotion put into it. The first time I heard anything of hers was in the car on the way to the beach in 2012, “Summertime Sadness”. I adored the song, and to this day it’s one of my favorites ever written by her. I never really listened to her after that, until I saw “The Great Gatsby” movie that came out in 2013, where she recorded the song “Young and Beautiful” for the film. I would lay in bed in seventh grade and listen to her album “Born To Die” for hours at a time, and it wasn’t until about a year ago when I really started to comprehend her music. I realized that she was singing about depression and being severely unhappy, and when I would listen to her music, it spoke to me because it felt like she related to what I felt.  A few of the many songs I listened to of hers would be “Born To Die”, “Video Games”, “Diet Mountain Dew”, and “Blue Jeans”. 

Most of the time when I find a new artist, I overplay the songs until I hate them, but with Lana and Melanie, I’ve been listening to their music fairly consistently and I’m still obsessed. 

The music I listened to a year ago, or two years ago is very different from what I listen to now.I still listen to Lana Del Rey, and some Melanie sprinkled here and there, but it’s mostly stuff I hear while listening to the radio. I’ll figure out stuff I like, make a radio station based on it, and it goes on from there. 

Lately, I’ve been listening to Blackbear, NF, SUN SILVA, LÉON, and some old stuff from the mid 2000’s. My Spotify playlist consists of around 850 songs, mostly because I’m too scared to delete music, but because my tastes change weekly.