“Stick Season” by Noah Kahan. “Scott Street” by Phoebe Bridgers. “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls.
Nowadays, it seems that everybody listens to sad music. In the current music scene, many people are drawn to popular artists like Noah Kahan or Phoebe Bridgers — artists whose signature sounds are defined by sad melodies, lyrics and themes.
Even across genres, there is the same pattern of sadder songs becoming big hits. The popularity of sad songs is probably not because everyone is depressed or in a slump. Rather, people look to sad music as an outlet.
People may find comfort in sad music because they evoke emotions that are too vulnerable to share with the world. Every person deals with their own struggles — both external and internal conflicts that may feel too intimate to share with other people to alleviate the burden.
However, music provides a safe space for people to truly feel. Many artists write songs with themes of heartbreak, struggles within oneself or longing for a change. Even though these songs come from strangers living such different lives, their music may understand a person in a way nobody else could.
Listening to these songs can remind a person that they are not alone in the world stuck with their own feelings. It gives them space to wallow in their emotions and take time to process their feelings without the need to share them with anybody else.
Even if music cannot change a person’s situation, it provides comfort knowing that someone can put their feelings into a song. Music can help someone understand their own emotions when they cannot do it for themselves.
Sad music can also evoke a sense of nostalgia, giving people an outlet to reflect on old or current feelings. Sometimes, we just want to put on our headphones, listen to music and go for a walk while thinking about our lives. This may be about a person we once knew, a hard time in our lives or perhaps ongoing feelings that we cannot seem to settle.
As complex creatures, our past experiences influence our lives in complicated ways that even we don’t understand sometimes. But sad songs may reveal parts of ourselves that we previously didn’t know.
In my own life, I’ve turned to music in order to process my emotions. In my junior year of high school, I was experiencing issues involving my closest friends, leaving me conflicted, hurt and confused about my emotions all at once. During this time, I created a playlist consisting of songs that reminded me of both my current situation and the way things were when everything was normal in my life. Though a seemingly small thing, this playlist quickly became the soundtrack to all the times I reflected on my situation and the events that led me to that point. It provided me comfort knowing this little collection of songs perfectly encapsulated the amalgamation of emotions and thoughts in my mind.
Why do so many songwriters write about heartbreak or other sad themes? Perhaps it is only human nature to do so. When we experience our happiest moments, we tend to live through them fully in the present.
On the other hand, those sadder times in our lives often lead us to reflect on our experiences. We sometimes can’t help but let those sadder emotions occupy our minds. This is reflected in many songs that artists release – songs based on their personal lives and real emotions at that time.
In an interview with NME Magazine, artist Lizzy McAlpine said, “The music video that I made for ‘Ugly things’ I made by myself in my house with my camcorder. I really wanted to capture the feeling of loneliness, and it felt like the only way that I could do that was to actually be alone.”
She continued, “I hope people feel a catharsis when they listen to ‘Ugly things.’ That’s what I feel when I listen to it.” In McAlpine’s song, she writes about the heartache of watching your ex move on after a breakup and “having to reconcile the person that you thought they were and the person they are now.”
Through her lyricism and sound, she hopes to connect with her audience by capturing the feeling of a pure love that sours emotionally over time, turning into an ugly picture. Especially in her music video, she resonates with her audience through scenes out of an ordinary, unfiltered life of a person experiencing the emotional and physical desolation of a breakup.
Sad music gives people an outlet to fully express their emotions with no expectations or pretending for somebody else. It provides a sense of comfort and understanding that happier tunes perhaps cannot. Sometimes, people long just to feel something.