Hey Mr DJ, put a podcast on

When did I stop listening to music?

In recent months and years – probably since the pandemic, in the convenient way that every trend is somehow the result of the pandemic, even things that happened before it – I have had lots of conversations with friends about them losing the ability to read.

Each of them seems to feel a kind of deep, private shame about this situation. They feel that their struggle to pick up a book and focus on it is a personal failing rather than a simple, blameless fact; that they just don’t fancy reading right now. 

I get it, of course. Lots of these friends are writers themselves, or people more broadly connected to the media, or else they’re people who did really well at school and can’t bear the idea of no longer getting an A in English Lit. For a certain type of person (mostly a certain type of woman, let’s be real – I haven’t encountered any male friends beating themselves up over not finishing enough of the Booker shortlist), reading has been equated to goodness our whole lives.

So much so that there was even a backlash a few years back, with quippy pieces satirising the whole precious business of being A Woman Who Reads. The Manic Bookish Dream Girl, with her Daunt tote and her glasses so big you haven’t noticed she’s beautiful. Bougie London Literary Woman, god rest her pond-soaked petticoats. Yet still the idea persists that reading is a healthier and more wholesome pursuit than other art forms, like TV and film and video games and TikTok, and that being an adult who doesn’t read is like being an adult who doesn’t like vegetables. That John Waters quote – “If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them” – has a lot to answer for, though it’s hard to tell if having the books but not reading them is a more or less fuckable crime.

Of course, this is nonsense. Some of my very favourite people in the world are not readers. My best friend has never, to my knowledge, finished one of my books (it’s fine, she’s not reading this either). “I’m so sorry I haven’t read your book yet!” people will wail before I’ve even sat down at brunch – to which I always point out that I’ve never read one of their spreadsheets or Powerpoints, or whatever they do all day at their job. And besides, if they’ve spent 20 quid on a hardback that is all the friendly support I need.

But I think the the whole thing cuts deeper than some socially ascribed shame. When people talk about losing the ability to read, there’s a personal sadness there too – that this thing they used to love, perhaps even defined themselves by, has fallen by the wayside. I suspect it’s often because reading has, in the past, had the power to comfort them, inspire them and heal them (see: my gal Daisy Buchanan’s brilliant forthcoming Read Yourself Happy) that they feel its absence so much.

I’m lucky that I don’t currently struggle much with reading, beyond normal obstacles like needing to look at Instagram every seven minutes. But I identify deeply with that sadness, because I feel exactly the same way about music. 

Once upon a time, I was A Woman Who Loves Music. I loved it earnestly, pretentiously, embarrassingly. Often misguidedly. I used to walk around sixth form with vinyl under my arm in the hope of attracting a boyfriend, like a stray dog with a liver treat. In lieu of a sexy social life I would spend hours on LyricsFreak.com, boning up for imaginary future singalongs. It’s fair to say that so far knowing all the words to Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues has not served me as well in life as, say, learning to drive might have done – but that Timothée Chalamet film comes out soon, so you suckers just wait.

None of this is original; teenagers have been using music as a tool of self-definition since they were invented as a by-product of rock ‘n’ roll. My listening habits weren’t even a rebellion against my parents’ tastes so much as an extension of them. I was dorkily proud – still am – of growing up in a house where there was always music playing, music stacked in piles in the dining room, music trivia swapped over the dinner table. The indie sleaze I worshipped was mostly a big-haired rehash of the stuff my parents had loved 30 years earlier, and I drank down the oldies and the newies with equal glee.

Discovering new music was my sport, back then. Let’s not forget this was the MySpace era (of course you hadn’t forgotten this was the MySpace era), a time when social caché was earned not with thirst traps but ear traps, choosing the perfect track for your profile a noble art form. It was that golden time on the internet where new music was thrillingly accessible, but not abundantly so. The treasures still had to be sifted out, by those who cared enough to put in the hours; snuffling through the music blogs and the BitTorrents in search of our precious truffles like the trendy little pigs we were.

I can still remember the bands I discovered this way, and still think of them as somehow mine, even the ones that went on to be massive. Ever heard of a little group called the Arctic Monkeys? Nice boys, I think they’ll do rather well.

But then, somewhere along the way, I lost that thirst for the new. My truffle pigging ran out of steam. It’s hard to pinpoint when (probably that point in the mid-2010s where middle class millennials were physically incapable of gathering in a social context without someone putting Graceland on) or why (probably because I got a boyfriend and he never once quizzed me on the lyrics to anything) but gradually I stopped seeking out new music, preferring to put on the same old playlists full of the same old songs I already knew I loved. Because they were mine.

Again, none of this is original. Numerous studies have confirmed that people tend to lose interest in new music as they get older. “A 2015 study of people’s listening habits on Spotify found that most people stop listening to new music at 33; a 2018 report by Deezer had it at 30,” reported Daniel Dylan Wray in his brilliant Guardian article on this topic in 2022. Certainly by my early 30s few pals were introducing me to new artists the way we used to in our teens. Our most reliable moments of musical bonding involved screaming Mr Brightside into each other’s faces at weddings. We no longer used music as a means of self-discovery, but as a way to reconnect with the people we once were.

Meanwhile I’d always had a sense of false nostalgia for decades I wasn’t even alive to experience; now I was nostalgic for the time I used to be nostalgic for those times too. And gradually, even my tried-and-tested playlists grew dusty.

It wasn’t that I stopped loving music. More that it stopped occurring to me to listen to it. At some point, actively putting on music started to feel self-conscious in the way that it never had in my teens. Oooh, look at me, playing music! Trying to create a vibe, are we? Soundtracking my life like a film, are we?

It would be too easy to blame this entirely on podcasts, so I won’t. I’m going to blame it mostly on podcasts, partly on audiobooks and partly on devices that allowed you to carry TV round the house with you.

I always found it baffling when my parents would talk about listening to music as an activity complete in itself. The idea, that they would simply sit down and listen to a record? While… looking at nothing? Incredible. My generation had already relegated music to a supplementary role, the thing you had on while you did something else – but now, there were suddenly so many other things to have on while you did something else! And most of them promised a bigger dopamine hit than three minutes of singing and guitars could provide. Some had a richer pay-off; if you listened to that hot podcast or that must-read audiobook while cooking dinner or hanging the washing out, then you could add it to your pile of cultural chips to trade later.

And conversely, some content demanded less of you. An episode of something you’ve seen eleventy thousand times is a literal no-brainer. TV can be empty white noise, mood-neutral, in a way that music – at least, music you like – rarely is. And while podcasts and telly can feel like they’re keeping me company, I find music tends to do the opposite.

If you’re of a sentimental disposition, music often comes pre-loaded with emotion. Every familiar track reminds you of some other time, some other place or person. Every rousing intro or soaring chorus is an invitation to gaze moonily out of a window for a while. And that’s good! That’s the point of great music! But it can be a lot to deal with. Especially when you’re reaching for content to escape your own feelings for a while, not give them a little soundstage to dance on. I recently trialled a coworking space where the soundtrack included so much Belle and Sebastian that I could barely work for weeping.

I realise “I love music so much that I never listen to it,” are the words of a prick, or perhaps Lady Catherine de Bourgh. But here we are.

Or, here we were.

Because then I had a baby. And along with the kid herself, I also conceived a lot of different ideas about how I wanted her childhood to be. Which included: full of music.

Along with everything else I suddenly felt guilty about, I felt guilty about the lack of music in our house. I wanted us to be the kind of family who dance around the kitchen on a Saturday morning, damnit – and not to a podcast. I wanted her earliest memories to be of her parents, I dunno, singing along to the Beatles while the sun rises? Not mummy listening to her comedians talking about their perfect condiment while daddy completes his four-parter on the Crimean War.

Like most couples, my husband and I don’t have identical music taste but a healthy amount of overlap. We cross over at Britpop, Fleetwood Mac, Roxy Music and the Hairspray soundtrack. We have seen ABBA Voyage three times. But I’ve learned the hard way not to force beloved songs onto him for the sake of trying to turn our relationship into a scene from 500 Days of Summer. It never works.

Likewise I know (I know, ok) that trying to push music onto our daughter is a fool’s game, and that the harder I try to pass down my favourites the more likely she is to get really into EDM just to spite me. If pressuring your child to eat vegetables is the new problematic parenting thing, then pressuring them to enjoy Lou Reed as a lullaby can’t be far behind. But oh, I can’t help myself.

Besides, the nice thing is that having her – this future person – in my life is slowly reawakening my interest in the present. I’m not a Swiftie (nothing against them! some of my best friends are Swifties!) but this summer I was sad not to be, because the collective ecstasy of the Eras tour looked so delicious and so important, and collective ecstasy is perhaps the thing I miss most about being A Person Who Loves Music. After all, I once wrote a whole book about the power of pop fandom. The same week that the Eras tour rolled into London, my friend Hannah and I went to see Girls Aloud at the O2, and the pure, breathless catharsis of it was almost medicinal. I’d love to feel that way again about a current act, not a retro one.

And look, I’m trying. ‘New’ acts I have ‘got into’ in ‘recent’ times include Wet Leg, The Lemon Twigs (thanks to Liv at The Sentimental Wardrobe) and, of course, Chappell Roan, who I was proud to have ‘discovered’ a full three weeks before they started playing her on Radio 2. I listened to Brat almost all the way through. I’m taking tentative steps towards Spotify Radio. If I can swallow enough pride I might even ask my Gen Z cusper brother for recs.

And I’m discovering other ways to ease myself back in gently, such as podcasts about music. Rob Harvilla’s exquisite 60 Songs That Explain The 90s has just returned with a new colon: The 00s, which is satisfying my nostalgia RDA but also reminding me why new music was so important to me back then, and why it still could be now.

Because as a reader it would feel mad to say that I love books, but only read old ones. As a telly addict it would have been a tragedy to let Nobody Wants This pass me by while I launched into my eleventy billionth annual Gilmore Girls rewatch (Dave Rygalski walked so the hot rabbi could run). I might just have to sacrifice a few podcasts, a bit of reading time, or several hundred hours of the infernal scroll.

Meanwhile my dad is still sitting down to listen to new records as an activity in itself, in his sixties. Which proves that you can fight the tide and stay curious. And gives me hope that when I do find my way back to music – fully, earnestly, embarrassingly – it’ll be waiting for me.