Science shows that listening to music can link to improved memory, creativity, and cognitive ability. So when you’re trying to study, listening to music gives you that needed boost of energy you need to power through. Listening to music can help you open up to challenges and make tedious tasks more manageable.

Video game OSTs are specifically beneficial because music in video games are most of the time designed to help keep you motivated.

“The music in video games is specifically designed to motivate players while staying in the background. It sets the mood and the tone of the game, keeps up a good rhythm, but never distracts from the game’s objectives. It fosters a sense of achievement while motivating players to reach the next level and keep moving forward.” – DeskTime

Video game music also isn’t designed to distract you as well as to keep you focused on the task at hand. This idea also applies to the Lo-fi Hip Hop music trend.

The slower instrumental beats in Lo-Fi help to keep us focused on study or even work. The music unlike video game music is never to tempo centric and will allow you to calm down and relax, which we all need from time to time when studying.

“Instead of loud, fast, and abrasive tunes, lo-fi offers an unobtrusive soundtrack that’s calming enough to enhance studying while low-key enough to let students focus on the task at hand.” – Best Colleges

There are countless benefits to listening to music from parts of your brain to cushioning neurons in your brains from things like stress. Music is an essential part of your life and here are some benefits it gives you.

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Listening to music outside your comfort zone can have positive effects on both your mind and body. The new music challenges the brain to take in a lot of new information all at once and research says you should be shuffling in new music into your favorites to keep your brain as an active listener.

“Pay attention to how you react to different forms of music, and pick the kind that works for you. What helps one person concentrate might be distracting to someone else, and what helps one person unwind might make another person jumpy.” – John Hopkins Medicine

Not only that but music can help with memory loss as research shows that patients with dementia can have an easier time connecting memories to music rather than photographs or word of mouth. Take a moment next time a song “takes you back” and try and figure pout why it’s doing that, what emotions did you feel in that memory, why does this song in particular stick out, these are all parts of how our brain ties together with emotions and music corelating as one. Sometimes it may be useful to take a break and listen to music and you can view it as a health benefit.

So the next time you feel stressed or lost without answers listen to music you like and even music you’ve never heard before and allow your brain to reset, think of it like a detox for your brain.

Now in one of my previous stories I stated that listening to music in a car is the best location to listen to music, due to its freedom to listen to pretty much anything you want.  That all changes however as soon as you hit traffic.

If you’re viewing music as an escape, it’s important to listen to music in times of stress or fear or worry anything of the sort. but you can’t use music to escape. when you’re sitting in traffic. Traffic is this unified hatred towards the commute where everyone is in a bad mood as soon as you get into it especially when you first get into traffic which then escalates depending on how long you have been said traffic, and God forbid you think about how much longer you will be in traffic. This is why I believe that traffic is the worst place to listen to music because your mind will never stop focusing on being in traffic and the negativity towards that. The next time you’re sitting in traffic for a large amount of time try listening to some of your most favorite songs, you will notice that even though you’re listening to your all-time favourites, you have this negativity packed on with it simply because you’re sitting in traffic and then it sullies the listening experience.

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I think it’s important as soon as you get into traffic to stop listening to music and turn on something like say a podcast which is in a similar vein as music when driving but a podcast allows you to put your focus into say a conversation rather than the enjoyment of music because podcasts are more analytical when music is more art. and then I think it’s smart too as soon as you get out of traffic transition into listening to music because the music will sound so much better to you because you’re in a better mood because you just got out of traffic.

Or if all else fails, when you’re in traffic start listening to heavy metal or really angry music so you can just wallow in self-pity as you sit on the port Mann bridge for another 20 minutes before you even entered coquitlam.

Sometimes where you listen to music can dramatically change the tone of the music you’re listening to and how it affects your brain. For example, listening to music in your room sort of creates a control area where you’re able to feel all of the tones you’re meant to feel because you are uninterrupted by any outside stimuli, but you can’t really get the same effect from music like dance or electronic music that would better be listened to in say a music venue or a club.

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And I think it’s more of an instinctual matter because even when you’re trying to listen to the wrong music in the wrong location your body enjoys it less. But it also works in the opposite end on if you’re in a location listening to a certain type of music it can vastly affect your perception of set place.  using the same dance and electronic music as an example which is better attributed to clubs or parties, at said clubs and parties you’re not going to want to put on a dramatic or emotional song because that will bring the mood down within set location.

The most common locations to listen to music as stated by status Canada are, in a car, at home, outdoors (specifically while walking or running), at work, at the gym, music venues, or on public transportation.  Now just by looking at this list you could imagine what type of music you would be listening to in these locations and the easiest ones to listen to music in are in a car or at home. I believe this has to do with the same thing I stated prior where you can listen to the most types of music within these locations which will entice you to start listening to music, it’s as easy as that.

My favourite place to listen to music is in a car specially when I’m driving almost an hour out to campus every day because the music I listened to before I get onto the highway to when I’m on the highway or completely different and you can create a sort of play list in your mind of what you want to listen to in each given location and time of day factors into it as well where the music you listen to first thing in the morning on your drive is going to be a lot different than the music you listen to middle of the day and middle of the night.

I feel it’s pretty safe to say that everybody uses music as a sort of escape from reality, and I know you could say that about TV’s movies and podcasts i know you could say that about TV’s movies and podcasts but music has this way of taking your entire focus away from the world when you really listen to it.

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Music has this sort of ability to take away all other senses within your mind and just focus on the sense of sound even though you’re still using all of your other senses while listening to music. Music just has that sort of power over your mind that you can just put 100% of your focus into and forget about all other stresses, it’s probably because it reaches so many parts of your brain when listening that you don’t even have the ability to think of anything else. Personally, I find when I’m listening to music and then try and think about something else it’s either I’m listening to the music or I’m thinking about something else because as soon as I start diverting from the path of music you become unable to really focus on it.

It probably wasn’t the best Idea to be constantly listening to music while I was in high school because that same issue came up where if I was focusing on the music I was listening to I wasn’t really paying attention to whatever class I was in.  and sure you have those people that are saying that they can pay attention and listen to music at the same time, but be honest with yourself, did that ever really work?

I appreciate music for being a tool for escaping reality, I don’t think I’d be the person I am today without it.  However, I should probably stop trying to escape with music while driving down Hwy 1 because that could create some complications.

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Do you ever find that you listen to music like you do podcasts, sort of that passive listening experience attuned to that of listening to music in your car?

I feel like podcasts have that energy to them where their best listened to while doing something else like driving, browsing online, or homework and I feel that are brains have practiced with things like music and radio to get accustomed to consuming media in such a way.

If these kinds of media never existed, I don’t think we would understand the point of listening to podcasts.

“The choice between podcasts and music is purely a matter of personal preference and the goal which you desire to accomplish. Each have purposes and are designed with a specific audience in mind.” – Connor Flannery (Quora)

Music and podcast exist in the same realm of entertainment where you’re able to passively listen and enjoy while also being able to really focus on them when you’re wanting fully engage with the artform. When you thin of it music and podcasts are just a deconstruction of radio in that one is music based and the other in personality and current event based. Throw in some advertisements, which podcasts usually have, and you’ve just got the typical radio listening experience.

podcasts can inform people of novel topics as well as entertain. Music is more of an art form and not as educational. Neither is necessarily objectively better than the other, it depends on the goals and aspirations of the listener whether a podcast or a song will better fit their wants and desires. – Connor Flannery (Quora)

It’s easy to see when looking at selling out in music that a band or artist started with creating something they care about but then transitioned into only caring about making money. However, what about when band are put together purely for means of profit.

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We’ve all seen the boy bands like One Direction and backstreet boys that were only made to make catchy songs for the mainstream and appeal to a specific target audience to create a devout following. My question is, was their music ever art at all? I mean look at Harry Styles, who after leaving One Direction stared a solo career where he had control and create art.

The worst contender to the commercialization of music would have to be Kpop, with Agencies that just pump out “teams” of members just to appeal to specific target audiences.

“Music produced in kpop often have very unoriginal structure, and lack meaning. It is created not out of creativity, but out of a need for commercialization. However, due to the insane budget, there will obviously be a high end production team working on it, which will make sure the song is catchy and well mixed. However, that does not negate the fact that the music is, to put it bluntly, soulless.” – Oahsnail (reddit)

Kpop is also the only genre of music on Wikipedia that has am “ethical controversy” section, as well as the stigma behind most Kpop idols being overworked and treated trash, because in the end the product is all that matters.

Is amazon in charge of these Kpop bands, like come on. (THIS IS A JOKE PLEASE DON’T COME AFTER ME JEFF BEZOS)

I think the biggest stigma towards art creation is the act of selling out. And a lot of the time with music we see it a lot, where you’ll have a band or artist dedicated to the craft and making sure everything they make is up to their standards but then when they start making a huge amount of money the worry to keep the art alive is outweighed by the need to sell to the consumer. I’m just wondering while looking at these bands is if the music they’re making could still be considered as art.

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As soon as the artist lose the drive to create and are just creating for the sake of money or contractual agreements, I believe it isn’t art. Art is something that requires compassion towards the artform from the creator and if you lack that drive fans notice and won’t want to support said art.

“Their first 4 albums defined heavy metal and thrash back in the day. (Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and… And Justice for All) After that, they became huge sellouts. The Black Album was ok, but it isn’t what Metallica should be. Everything they’ve released since 1991 has been alternative, hard rock, mainstream garbage.” -ryanrimmel (TheTopTens looking at Metallica as the #1 sellout in music.)

It’s definitely hard to watch, especially as fans as you know these bands or artist have stopped caring about something that you as a listener and as a supporter care about. It also creates worries when listening to other bands that they’ll also follow suit and sell out.

However way you look at it shows that if a band or artist specifically goes out of their way not to sell out, their art is worth caring about as the creator cares about it themselves.

Music is playing everywhere we go, from shopping malls to restaurants music is used to fill the void of silence in an otherwise noisy world.

At my old job I worked at a paint store. And at this paint store we played one radio station every day, I don’t even remember which one it was all I knew is that is played early 2000s pop hits. But what I found was even when I was working alone in an empty store I was never focused on the music that was playing. It was always just there to fill the emptiness while we worked.

A lot of the time you can’t afford to pay attention to the music that is playing because it will distract you from the task at hand but none the less, the music will continue to play.

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Do you think music is the entertainment we consume the most thereby allowing us to tune out music, or do you think we are listening to the music but just in a passive way.

I believe it’s the ladder, I believe music is the easiest entertainment to consume therefore we are able to listen and not use the same amount of brain power required to say, listen to a podcast or watch a tv show. This creates a strange relationship with the art form turning us into passive listeners not paying attention to said music and turning it into a sort of background noise. But occasionally, we are able to pull information from that background noise like when a song we like is playing comes on, but do you notice that when that happens, we lose all focus on everything else for a split second.