Spotify and surviving the first year of university

It’s hard to believe, but my son’s first year of university is almost over. He just has one more week of lectures, then four exams in three weeks of exams and then he’s done. Except he won’t be straight home, as he still has his athletics training. I don’t expect him to be home properly until mid to late July.

I still miss him every single day.

It doesn’t hurt like it did in the first couple of weeks, but his absence is always there. Life is OK without him at home, but it is much, much better when he’s here. We’re lucky that he’s not far away, so we tend to see him little and often. He pops back for the odd weekend and we pop up to see him for a few hours. He didn’t come home properly at Easter, because of the athletics, so it was good that we could still see him.

Then every time he goes back I’m hit with a fresh wave of sadness.

Probably the biggest thing which has helped get me through is Spotify.

I was very late to the party with Spotify, like I am with everything.

I was still listening to tapes when everyone else was listening to CDs. I was still listening to CDs when everyone else was listening to iTunes. And I was still listening to iTunes when everyone else was listening to Spotify.

I first heard of Spotify when my eldest was in year 6. To put that into context, he will be 22 in a few weeks.

I finally started listening to it in the autumn of 2020. I loved it straightaway, but it has been even more important to me since my son went away. Everything is better with music – whether walking Hetty or doing the housework, it just really lifts my mood.

Spotify has brought albums back into my life. I used to have the tapes, which got destroyed by my eldest in 2002. When iTunes came along, an iPod Mini or an early iPhone only had capacity for about 500 songs, so I could only download my favourite tracks, not entire albums. I’d forgotten the sheer joy of so many album tracks from the likes of The Wonder Stuff’s Never Loved Elvis, REM’s Out of Time and Automatic for the People and Pulp’s Different Class.

It brought New Model Army back into my life, who I loved in 6th form and university, but had completely forgotten about. Probably due to the Great Tape Destruction of 2002. It brought incredible forgotten tracks back into my life – House of Love’s Shine On, Therapy?’s Screamager and Ocean Colour Scene’s The Day We Caught the Train, to name but three.

And while I mainly listened to stuff from early adulthood (aka 90s indie), I also listened to newer artists, like Ed Sheeran and my absolute favourite, YungBlud.

YungBlud is very closely linked to my son’s departure. I liked a few of his tracks from the radio, but first listened to his album when my son went away. The songs are largely about depression and dying, which might seem the wrong thing to listen to when you’re down, but they really helped me. I listened to his third album almost incessantly for three months, before embracing his first two albums at the start of this year. My son even bought me the CD for Christmas (even though I’ve got nothing to play CDs on).

Sometimes I listen to the mixes Spotify provides – usually the ones based on my own tastes, like ‘Wonder Stuff mix’ or ‘Happy mix’. Wonder Stuff mix is about half Wonder Stuff songs and half songs by similar artists and nine times out of 10 they are spot-on for me. Happy mix is based on my tastes and includes Levellers, George Ezra, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and YungBlud (although technically I’m not sure YungBlud could ever be described as ‘happy’). It is so good that there are very few songs I need to skip through (I definitely need to skip through the Rembrandts’ Friends theme though). I’ve also run to the existing running mixes, especially the Pop Rock Run, which pretty much sums up my musical tastes.

For me, there are very few downsides to Spotify. The main one is when it plays albums out of order. Why?! Generally the tracks on albums are in the order they are in because they are logical. Plus, if it’s an album I’ve listened to hundreds of times before, I know what is coming next and ‘hear’ it in my head. It’s very annoying if it doesn’t come next. Plus, I want to listen to the original album, not the 2011 extended, remixed version of a 1995 album, because it doesn’t sound right and just isn’t as good.

And when will it ever learn that I don’t like Liam Payne’s music?! Nothing in my tastes suggests I would be remotely interested in Liam Payne’s music, but it loves to sneak a track into every mix I listen to. I always skip it every time, but Spotify isn’t taking the hint. With my son at university for another four years, and my daughter likely to go next year too, it might eventually get the message.

And I’m definitely going to need Spotify in my life for a lot longer yet.