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With less than half of NYC office employees returning to in-person work by September, many are reveling in a summer without a sweaty rush-hour commute. But others are settling even ever-deeper into the seat they’ve been sitting in for the past year and a half, with Fifth Harmony’s 2016 hit stuck on replay.
In this study involving 400 WFH-themed playlists and 50,000 songs, the most featured artists included Bach (#1), Fleetwood Mac (#3), Native American Flute (#7), and The Weekend (#10). This list is… simultaneously shocking and also completely unsurprising. I believe this disparity is the result of a single question: do you want to be energized while you work (i.e. you need motivation), or do you want to be calmed down (i.e. your manager’s Slack messages do never not feel passive aggressive so you must remain in complete denial of your stress level in order to avoid breaking out in hives)?
The “focus music” category is dominated by sounds that are most suitable for babies. That’s not even meant to be a drag, I really mean it—it soothes us, it warms us, it may even put us to sleep. The Mozart Effect has long been credited for encouraging intellectual capabilities. But while there is some evidence it may enhance spatial reasoning, it doesn’t make you smarter or more focused—it just enhances your listening experience.
Studying or working to classical music is understandably a default for many. But it also baffles me because there is no sound MORE devastating than a single piano!! Recently, YouTube randomly recommended a Pride and Prejudice Playlist to me, which promptly bewitched me body and soul (and this is coming from someone who in brashly denounced Jane Austen in their 10th grade English class, proclaiming love is a scam). So if you listen to classical music and you’re anything *close* to a water sign, you’re skating on thin ice. The algorithm shoves in a little Claire de Lune? Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op 18: II. Adagio Sostenuto? Absolutely not, no sir, I will not be okay for the rest of my day or, perhaps, life.
Our generation’s Mozart, aka LoFi Girl, is an especially popular choice at 8 million YouTube subscribers. In case you’ve never been on the internet before, this icon delivers a constant live stream of homemade jazz/hip-hop beats. You can read much more about her influence and history, but basically a French teenager formerly referred to as ChilledCow helped birth a distinctly current musical movement. While most lo-fi songs themselves sound quite similar, the song titles and album art and lowercase aesthetics are the real prizes.
For those who seek more dramatic variation in their days, soundtracks are another dynamic instrumental option: Pixar, Hans Zimmer, the whimsical guy who plays the accordion in the film Amelie, etc. Some even recommend delving into video game soundtracks to further foster a “sense of achievement” while working (*turns on 6 hour loop of Rainbow Road, promptly remembers I suck at Mario Kart*). I didn’t play video games growing up because I might as well have been homeschooled, but I did play one particularly era-defining game: The Sims. I could and probably will write a full length essay on The Sims, but I’ll keep it brief by saying that when I played the first edition theme just now, I suddenly transformed into a nerdy nine year-old with an overheated Dell in my lap. Do yourself a favor and revisit these nostalgic tracks to mourn the fact that your full-time job is no longer building doorless rooms and rollercoasters of death and wide open chimpanzee pens.
Although my current work does not allow me to listen to music, I do discuss music frequently with my teenaged students (to keep me young). One thinks Olivia Rodrigo is overrated, another one is still sad One Direction broke up, and another listens to Beyonce before taking the ACT. And while at-home schooling is challenging for many, it does give some students the unique option to reduce uncontrollable audio. Now, they can selectively lower volume while testing, use noise cancelling headphones, turn off the thing that’s bothering them, etc. And being accustomed to and comfortable with the sounds around you is, effectively, more accommodating, right? Here’s to hoping the accommodations that at-home learning and working can provide remain in place regardless of what the future holds.
TLDR; so do the tunes help or not? When I was younger, I begged my parents and teachers to let me listen to music while doing my homework. Honestly, I don’t think it improved my focus at all1. But it did increase my joy while converting fractions to decimals. So I guess that’s the takeaway: listen to whatever makes the weight of capitalism (or math) more bearable.
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we can wfh, May ‘21 - a (VERY DIVERSE) mix of the instrumentals mentioned above. Shuffle for a choose-your-own-adventure type of feel and trigger warning: the theme from Up is somewhere on it sry
country club summer - the Official Summer 2021 Soundtrack that I will be flicking on as soon as you grant me Bluetooth speaker access. Disclaimer: I have never been to a country club, I’m just declaring it as such because I will never not be wearing a tennis skort from June to September
the millennium can have a beer now: this years new music, which I’m scrambling to keep up with but it is HARD y’all, there are TOO many goodies
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Olivia Rodrigo, Sour: So far I’ve mentioned Olivia Rodrigo in every newsletter this year so today is no surprise! Liv dropped her debut album this month and of course the internet and charts and anyone-who-has-ever-been-seventeen lost their damn minds. The first time I listened through, I was paying such close attention to LYRICS and VOCALS and PRODUCTION value that it did not once even occur to me to think about my recent breakup! Wow! I only thought, “How many of these songs are about Joshua Bassett and who are the other ones about?” Her Power!
CHAI, WINK: This album is a sugar rush. What did they inject into it. Very cool that this four-woman Japanese band is reinventing pop-punk. Not only is the music upbeat and fun, but it also challenges norms around femininity, beauty, and the term “kawaii” (a.k.a. “delicate cuteness”). Would die for them.
St. Vincent, Daddy’s Home: Okayyyyy I don’t think I’m supposed to do this but I’M writing the email so I’m going to disclose a spicy secret—although Annie Clark is my lifelong personal hero, and although I’m recommending it now, I didn’t love it! HA it’s fine it just sounds like the soundtrack to my freshman year production of Hair: A Tribal Love Rock Musical. Great background album for a 1960s themed party where no one is paying attention to the music.
I ofc wrote this NL in complete silence and, at one point, actually had to close my door so as to not hear the refrigerator running and this is to say that, sure, all noise is music, EXCEPT if it is white noise, the sleep soundtrack of psychopaths, no I will not be taking any questions at this time ty
I don't think I'd have been able to work from home at https://www.forever-group.co.uk without some decent music as a distraction. Mainly rock for me.