I was not like this before. I used to enjoy music. Something happened recently and music doesn’t sound the same anymore. I don’t like voices in music. I don’t like the sound of the guitar. It is like I remember painful memories whenever I listen to music.
It is like the whole world has changed. It is like I am living in a new timeline. Everything feels different, everything sounds different, and the music I once loved feels like a distant memory.
The last time I truly felt great while listening to music was when I listened to Pink Floyd’s The Endless River. What I personally believe is that every era of music becomes attached to the memories of what was happening in your life and in the world around you. Maybe once a person reaches their forties, everything begins to feel ordinary.
The lingering feeling of music, the drive toward pleasure through repetition, does not exist for me anymore. Everything feels like a remembrance of the past. Maybe I was simply living in the moment back then. What happened? What changed? Do we really end up living in a new timeline where music feels different? Mandela effect?
Anhedonia, to me, is a detachment from everything I once knew, even the things that once brought me pleasure.
Sometimes it feels like the experience of listening to something beautiful has not reached its full potential, so the song stays on repeat for days, weeks, or even months. Have you ever listened to something for months, only to hear it one day as if it were the first time?
Before Music Changed
Music was the soul of me. Music was everything. It all started with heavy metal. Back then there was emotion even in the noise. Iron Maiden’s Aces High sounded incredible. Every song felt alive. There was excitement in discovering a new band and buying albums with every penny you had saved. Then came Napster. I downloaded every version, every live performance, and every cover I could find. I could spend hours searching for just one song. The world felt alive back then. I still remember how Sting’s Desert Rose made me feel. The live music, the bars, the sound of songs from the streets. They were heavenly.
When Everything Started to Feel Different
Now that I think about it, it started during Covid. The inner soul of the earth changed. I know it is difficult for most people to understand. The whole experience of music changed. I slowly shifted from heavy metal to instrumentals like Jay Aliyev’s songs. But maybe the change had already begun long before that. Maybe it started when Pink Floyd released their last album. Maybe it started when YouTube kept recommending a different kind of music. Those changes were already taking place. After Covid, the old songs no longer sounded the same. Maybe it was just the passing of time. Maybe I simply grew older.
The Hurt of Listening to Music When It Feels Empty
It is hard to believe how someone who once shared the same memories, the same songs, and the same moments with you can become distant. Yet every time that music plays, it brings them back to mind.
This is personal. This is loneliness. This is love. Love for memories. Memories attached to a song, soon to be forgotten.
Living Without Everything
Now there is only a glimpse. A faded memory. Maybe because of modernization, maybe because of too much screen time, we are no longer making memories the way we once did. We keep living through the old ones. In nostalgia. In dreams. In the quiet moments when the past feels more alive than the present.
Every new word, every new phrase, everything I hear on TV becomes a doorway to my memories. I stop for a moment, search for the song or the place that comes to mind, and quietly say to myself, “Oh, this is it.” It feels as though my mind is collecting fragments of a life that is slowly slipping away.
