© 2024
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
🎧 Spring Membership Drive Update: $3,700 to go to wrap up the Drive! ❤️

Question Of The Week: Do Your Music Tastes Change With The Seasons?

Well, another summer has come and gone, and I never had an official jam. While everyone else was apparently playing Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" or
Anna Kendrick's "Cups" to death, I stayed the course with my usual mix of guitar rock and lo-fi, mopey noise-pop-sadcore-whatever it is I listen to.

The truth is, I've never had a summer jam — unless listening to Rush's Exit... Stage Left in my beater VW bug over and over again during the summer of '83 counts. Really, though, that was a full album, not a hit single, and doesn't capture the sizzling free spirit most people think of when it comes to Songs Of The Summer.

The outside temperature or changing weather patterns seem to have zero effect on what I listen to. I don't need melancholy, rainy-day music when it's cold and grey outside, or dance pop when it hits 90 degrees without a cloud in the sky.

I have noticed, however, there are certain albums that will remind me of a season when they pop up on my playlists. But that's usually because they're forever tied to their release date, or to the first time I heard them. Emily Haines' Knives Don't Have Your Back came out in the spring of 2006, but I didn't start listening to it until that fall. Now, whenever I hear "Doctor Blind" or "Our Hell," I instantly think of changing leaves and damp, wind-swept city streets.

But what about you? Do your music tastes change with the season? If so, how? Is there an artist, song or album you reach for when the temperature starts to drop and the days get shorter? Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @allsongs / #questionoftheweek

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.