My Personal Consumption of Music

I listen to music almost every day when I'm on public transport and during my free time at home, usually in the background whilst doing other activities, such as surfing the web or tidying my room. However I can't listen to music while I study or read a book, otherwise it becomes too distracting.

It has become part of a daily routine to listen to music in the morning, on the way to school. Listening to music, for me, is an individual experience and I tend not to share my own music taste with others, however I do enjoy music being shared with me by my friends, family and the media, because I love finding and listening to new music.

When I'm out of the house I use my iPod, but at home I use my radio or my laptop and listen to either my own library of music that I have downloaded, on iTunes, or on internet radio stations like 8tracks.com, again to find new music to listen to.

Listening to music is an experience I usually do alone, yet music consumption overlaps with my social life, like when occasionally going to gigs or festivals for particular artists that I like with my friends.

I feel that listening to music helps me to fill silences when I'm by myself and sometimes with other people, but also it helps to create a mood, for example when I'm coming home from school, I prefer to listen to slower and quieter music to feel more relaxed. However if I was getting ready to go out, I would opt for more upbeat music. For this reason, my music taste varies from a few different genres to gratify my different needs.

Music that means something to me

A band I distinctly remember from my childhood is Abba. My parents, who were my sole influence for my music taste at the time, would play Abba's 'Gold: Greatest Hits' album on repeat when we went on journeys with the car, and my sister and I would sing along for sometimes hours, one of our favourites was Money, Money, Money.

When I started to develop my own tastes in music during my early teens, I enjoyed listening to pop music like Busted and Britney Spears, whose albums I would listen to religiously. Some of my favourites were Toxic and Year 3000. This was a time where my music taste was influenced largely by my friends at the time and a few media platforms, like the TV and sometimes the internet.

Nowadays, I am exposed to a much wider variety of new music and different genres through my friends, family, TV, the internet, radio stations and posters for artists. This means that my taste is more varied and more up-to-date. My current favourite band, that means something to me and that I've liked for years, are the Arctic Monkeys, my favourite song from their newest album 'AM' is 'Snap Out Of It'. They were one of the main gateway bands that I listened to going into alternative style music. I also like them because I can listen to them regardless of what mood I'm in, which meant that I listened to them all the time.