The Music Addiction: The Influence Of Music

No human culture has ever been identified as not being associate to music, and for majority of the people, music is simply the source of the most powerful as well as the most significant experiences of their lives. In over 100 years or so since the first ever recorded music was widely available, our lives have become fully suffused by it; we are thus born and die to the music, we eat, sleep, shop, travel and simply make love to music, we also work, play and enjoy to music (Clarke, 2012). As most of our powerful memories are linked to music, or are usually accompanied by music – and maybe even as listeners, we almost become just like the music which we hear. As TS Eliot wrote; “Music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all, but you are the music while the music lasts.”

The song which I will be focusing on is “addiction” by Enrique Iglesias and it has also reached the top rankings since it came out. But the main question is why I like this song more than other. I will be discussing about the song “addiction” for why it is considered valuable and more specifically I will be evaluating its value with the help of three theoretical approaches proposed by DeNora, Sacks and Descartes.

DeNora introduced the concept of “aesthetic reflexivity” which explains why a person values the comfort as well as love (DeNora, 1999). The song I chose, according to my own opinion brings peace and harmony and on the basis of DeNora’s concept, music is simply a referentialist tool. People constantly utilize music as one of the major means of self-expression for representing who they actually are. According to DeNora, “One of the first things music does is to help actors to shift mood or energy level…‘care of self”. Here music simply becomes self-regula...

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...usic because it is “really good for something”. It apparently becomes good for entertainment and due to this; feelings and emotions have an immediate relevance. It greatly appeals to the commercial market and also the taste of many young and hip. “Addiction” in this sense becomes exclusively sociological art form.

Although music provides an aesthetic value according to DeNora, it still makes us feel in a specific way i.e. in terms of emotions. “Our response to music is in any case not always congruent with what we would objectively characterize as its emotional content” (Ball, 2010). This song for me acts as a gateway that leads me to a very special emotion by the time the song ends. In conclusion, I can say that I have made a very self-conscious choice of deep engagement and in addition, it is almost as if the music is trying to reach to me and to speak with me.