Why I Stopped Hitting the Skip Button

By Lily Doolin

While we might already be well into 2019, there's no better time than the present to make a New Year's Resolution.

No, I'm not looking to exercise more-I like tacos way too much. I'm also not pledging to get more sleep at night, because I've just committed myself to one more club, and sleep is for wimps and stable individuals anyways. Six hours of restless slumber is the new eight hours of rest.

No, my New Year's Resolution has been to stop hitting the skip button.

Seems like an odd Resolution, I know. But for a music lover like me, it's actually been something I've been meaning to do for a long time now. I've become what I like to call a "chronic skipper," which basically means that my thumb gets a workout every time I'm looking for the right song to play. I just skip and skip until I find the one song that I feel fits my mood.

And that song is usually the same song I listened to for the past twenty days in a row.

I wrote about my bad habits in my post "A Playlist a Day: Creating the Soundtrack of My Week," where I created a playlist for every day of the week to try and combat my desire for incessant consistency. While things have gotten a little better, I still find myself skipping through even these playlists, looking for one song in particular I like.

Well, I decided enough was enough. I pledged that, for one whole week, I would stop hitting the skip button. Here's what happened:

1. I fell back in love with songs I thought I was over

When I "breakup" with certain music, it's usually just because time has passed, and I've moved on to bigger and better things in my life. At least, that's what I tell myself when former favorite songs come up on my phone: I pass them by like you would when you're trying to avoid an ex while you're in your pajamas at the grocery store. However, during this little experiment, I found that I actually still do love those songs. They meant so much to me back then, and it was kind of cool to go back and reflect on those times. It felt like I was back in my childhood bedroom, waiting for some of my good ol' favorites to come on the radio. I was rocking out to everything from "Welcome to My Life" by Simple Plan, to the Hamilton soundtrack that guided me through my high school years. I also discovered that "What is Love" by Haddaway evidently made its way onto a whole lot of my playlists somehow.

2. I re-discovered new artists I forgot I wanted to like

I'm the type of person that accidentally clicks on a song while scrolling through my phone, happens to like the opening of the song, adds it to a playlist, and then skips by it every time it comes up on shuffle. I was at first genuinely confused as to how these songs got to my playlists. However, I stopped thinking and just focused on the music, letting the beat take me away. It was then when I realized "wow, I have good taste." My favorite song that I re-discovered was "Muted Colors" by Chain Wallet, while some honorable mentions include artists like Smallpools, J.S. Ondara, and MisterWives. I definitely recommend checking these guys out. There were a few times, however, that I questioned all of my life's decisions and had to do some fast deleting. For the most part, though, I was glad I re-discovered some cool music I had been meaning to check out. Plus, they were generally different to what I normally listen to.

3. I realized the skip button is one of the best inventions known to man

Sometimes, the skip button is vital to the health of your ears. There were some songs that came on that I couldn't believe I had to sit through. One time, I was doing some quiet studying with music in the background, and all of a sudden, "Night on Disco Mountain" from Saturday Night Fever came blasting through my speaker. I didn't hit the skip button, but I did turn the volume completely off until the song passed. Hey, what would you have done? The song is almost eight minutes of cowbell.

From now on, I pledge to stop hitting the skip button, and giving some other music a chance for once. Except, however, when I'm trying to study for my psych test and my phone tries to give me Boogie Fever.