Music in Context

“The Music Sounds Better With You” is a one-hit wonder by the French house trio Stardust. It was released in 1998, but the track has gained a resurgence thanks to a 2017 cover by Neil Frances. At this point, the song is nothing new. But some lyrics of the song got me thinking about the experience of live music. Sometimes, “it sounds better with you.” Why is that? 

Music in context is so important to how we experience the art. The people around us, the temperature of the air, and the quality of the sound all play into the things we feel in a performance. If you went to The Black Keys concert, and you were hungry, cold, and your shoes hurt, you might find that you recoil when you hear the song, “Next Girl.” 

The complex conditioned cues all around us inform the music. So if the sound quality is off, or its too loud, or there is reverb on the walls–It will inform your experience. Is there a person near you who just won’t shut up and dance. Is there someone flailing about with no sense of personal space? Are people around you staring through their phones and not being present? This might affect your experience. 

Knowing this, we can begin to cultivate and choose venues, artists, and crowds that facilitate a better experience. 

Music is interesting, because it is one of the most powerful influences on memory that we can conceive of. A person with Alzheimer’s can achieve mental clarity with a simple song they knew when they were young. In this sense, when a song becomes a part of us, it acts as a kind of stamp for the context of that moment in time.

The person who introduces you to the music also matters. We might subtly imbue how we feel about a person into the artist they have shown us. In this sense, music becomes an associative tether, not just for the time in our lives, but for relationships we have with others, and emotions that we all share.

You could see the same artist, several times, under different circumstances and have a wildly different experience each time. What then is the musical experience? How much of what we see, feel, and hear is a projection of the state we are already in? 

I know, this article is raising more questions than it is answering… but that’s the point. Music can be a great mirror, it can point to the emotions we would otherwise struggle to feel. It can direct us towards people who have the same tastes that we have. It colors our moments, and also offers itself to be colored by our experience of it.

Maybe you remember the deep cut “Long Line of Cars” by Cake… where does it take you?

It’s all about the context. So please consider that when thinking about your favorite songs and artists. The music truly does sound better with you.