Time to listen to the music

We Used to Sit With Music

The world has become extremely instant, noisy and distracting.

The way we consume music has changed, and I don’t like what we’ve lost in the process.

Once upon a time, music was something you owned. Records. Tapes. CDs lined up on shelves. Collections that told a story about who you were. You’d save up for an album, hold the artwork in your hands, read the lyrics, learn the running order by heart. Music wasn’t just something you listened to, it was something you lived with.

Now it all lives inside devices. Streaming platforms, endless choice, no weight, no ritual. Convenient, yes. But also strangely hollow.

Music used to be an experience, not just background noise.

Our attention spans have shortened under the constant pressure of fast content and endless stimulation. We skip songs halfway through. We jump between playlists. We rarely sit with a full album anymore. Even artists are shaped by this shift, releasing singles and short-form work to stay relevant in a system that rewards speed over depth.

But I still believe albums matter.

A full body of work is a story. A journey. A world the artist has built intentionally from beginning to end. When you listen to an album properly, you’re not just consuming songs, you’re entering someone’s emotional landscape. There’s intimacy in that. There’s trust.

Life now feels relentlessly busy. We listen while we’re driving, cleaning, scrolling, working. Music becomes something we consume alongside life instead of something we truly experience. It fills the silence rather than inviting us into presence.

And I think we need presence more than ever.

So I make time to listen differently.

Sometimes I’ll put a record on and let it play right through. No multitasking. No rushing. Just sitting, listening, feeling. Letting my nervous system settle. Letting my thoughts soften. Letting the music do what music is meant to do.

It feels like stepping off the hamster wheel.
It feels like choosing depth in a world addicted to speed.
It feels like remembering who I am underneath the noise.

Maybe that’s what I’m really longing for, not nostalgia, but reconnection. To art. To attention. To myself.

And maybe music, when we let it, still knows how to guide us back.