What is art

 

There is this feature on Spotify called DJ, where an Ai sort of becomes your own personal DJ that is equipped with your favorite music. It doesn’t just play songs you currently listen to, it analyzes your listening habits, favorite artists, genre, etc.  Then it creates these mini playlists of different genres like and gives a small introduction before it plays them, where it says stuff like “here’s what you have been listening too” or “here’s some music from your favorite artist”. There are so many different prompts, but there was this one I recently heard that really stuck to me and it was “here’s your top songs from 2021”. And in that moment, I felt a wave of nostalgia. Songs I completely forgot I loved started playing, and suddenly I’m transported back to the person I was before.

Over the past four years that I have owned Spotify, I’ve changed a lot; in the way I think, the way I act, and even what I value. Looking back at the music I once listened to, I realize that my Spotify account has unintentionally captured snapshots of those changes.

Spotify is more than just a music streaming app to me. It’s more of a personal archive of ones emotions. Every playlist and every liked song is a timestamp of who I was in that moment. I have playlists that are tied to a specific emotion or task. Music isn’t just sound waves that tickle your brain, it’s a mood, a memory, a motivation. It shapes me just as much as I shape it, creating and editing each playlist is like a journal entry. Spotify holds every version of me past and present.

What excites me most is that my archive is constantly growing. As I enter a new chapters of my life, I know new songs will find their way into my rotation of songs, and old ones will removed. But one day, when somehow the old songs come back, I will be brought back to the person I was before.

That’s the power of art. It grows with us, moves with us, and quietly reveals who we are then, now, and always

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