TRANSCRIPT:
INTRO – ANNIE BYRNES, HOST:
With their lives turned upside down this past year, Gen Zers have constantly searched for ways to pass time. Many have ultimately turned to music to fill in the void brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But as RW2’s Michael Tamsuriyamit reports, whether they are the artist or the listener, the pandemic has permanently impacted how Gen Zers are consuming their music.
NATURAL SOUND: Milan Badruddin counting down and humming
MICHAEL TAMSURIYAMIT, BYLINE: If there is one thing that hasn’t died down this past year, it is people’s love for music. And for Milan Badruddin, the pandemic has oddly enough given him the platform to let his voice be loud and heard.
MILAN BADRUDDIN: Once I kind of get like a feeling of the sound, I just start humming, and then the melodies just take me places.
TAMSURIYAMIT: Badruddin is just one of many Gen Zers who have found inspiration through the sound of music. As a newly solo artist, the 20-year-old singer-songwriter says he started to notice a change in his approach to music early last year.
BADRUDDIN: I feel like a lot of people who can work on music so often as I can in this time, I think they're thinking a lot more about what it is they're writing. One day, I could be out with some friends and I'm just like, thinking in my own head about that, and then another time I could be thinking about the idea of like, wow, I wish that my life could be this way because I kind of feel closed and boxed in right now.
TAMSURIYAMIT: Music consumers have also been impacted as well. In Spotify’s 2020 Culture Next Report, 85% of Gen Zers and Millennials surveyed reported a change in tone of what they were listening to.
According to her Spotify 2020 Wrapped, Lexi Chen streamed 181 songs in over 21,000 minutes last year. The 17-year-old says she saw her playlists become consumed with quote “very sad songs.”
LEXI CHEN: Before the pandemic, my playlist was more very upbeat music, especially like because the music that I listened to for volleyball practice, when we're planking we would be screeching out like Katy Perry's “Firework,” and I would listen to all those upbeat songs on my own time as well, but then during the pandemic, I felt like when those songs were playing it just didn't feel like the right mood for me.
TAMSURIYAMIT: Professor Ashley Jackson teaches music at Hunter College. She witnessed the immense impact that this past year has had on students.
PROFESSOR ASHLEY JACKSON: This has been a time of introspection for all of us. Since we've been essentially isolated, we've been forced to deal with our own thoughts and what's going on in here and so the music that goes with that experience, I imagine would naturally tend towards the mellower side.
TAMSURIYAMIT: Even with the vaccines, the pandemic continues to be a threat. Badruddin, however, remains unphased, and as his latest single says it best, he is quote, “Here to Stay,” and will continue to share his love for music during a time when people need it most.
OUTRO MUSIC: Milan Badruddin’s “Here to Stay”
TAMSURIYAMIT: This is Michael Tamsuriyamit, for Reporting & Writing 2.