Why Music Still Matters

What is music to you? For some, music is the way you relax after a long day at work. For others, it's the only way to get through a research paper without dying. For me, music is how I understand this world; it's the lighthouse that brings me home from the stormy seas every day. Music is and always has been my saving grace.

Only a few short years ago, I fell in love with One Direction. Which usually gets me laughed at, but it couldn't bother me less. Sure, liking a "boyband" may seem childish for a young woman like myself, but isn't that the point of music? My enjoyment? It's become very clear that the creative industry is dying and it breaks my heart. Art and music programs have been cut from schools and no one seems to care about it.

I understand that to a lot of people, One Direction may not seem like the most legitimate platform to stand and preach about music on. I think it's absolutely fitting however, because I'm not preaching for One Direction, I'm preaching for music. 50 years ago, music was a completely different thing; it was loved and celebrated and untainted by fame. The attractiveness of the lead singer wasn't the most important thing about a band. What mattered was the beautiful art they were putting into the world. But that idea doesn't exist anymore. And no one seems to care that the music these artists are making is saving lives. That their songs are making a difference to someone somewhere. The world is too busy with their noses in the gossip section of the artist's life.

Music was my lifeline in the deepest parts of my depression. Without it, I don't know if I would be here today yelling my head off about how important it is. Music are the words when you don't have any, the emotions you're afraid to feel, the butterflies in your stomach when you fall in love. It's a universal language that everyone speaks. Music connects you to strangers and friends and everyone in-between. The relationship between human and sound is a sacred bond that's been forgotten because people are too interested in celebrity dirt to notice music doesn't matter anymore. We don't realize or remember or appreciate music for what it is anymore because it's overshadowed by fame.

Just imagine standing at Woodstock next to a complete stranger watching Jimi Hendrix remaster the "Star Spangled Banner." Or seeing The Beatles perform on "The Ed Sullivan Show" for the very first time in America. Fathom sitting in the studio writing with Stevie Nicks as she changed Fleetwood Mac's history forever. That's what music should be about and that's where we need to get back to. I love music because every time I hear a song, I see the world in a completely different way. Music is magic in a world where magic doesn't exist.

Music - as a whole - is now about the person/band/group singing, not what they're singing. It's about who they're dating and what clubs they went to and where they're eating lunch on a Sunday in LA. That's not music, that's the socially constructed idea of music and I don't want that to become music's entirety. If there's one thing I do with my life, I hope that it's helping to keep music alive, just as it kept me alive. Because that's what music is to me; my lighthouse.

So, what is music to you?