Written by Nia Georgieva
This is surely a sentence you’ve heard flying around social media the day of the release of a new body of work by almost every renowned pop star. It is nothing new; people on the internet have been dismissive of popular artists for quite some time now. However, it feels like recently it has been different. It is as if people are not even giving the albums a proper chance anymore. They immediately brush them off after listening to the songs just once and do not give them the opportunity to grow on them.
You’re probably rolling your eyes right now. How many times have you heard this exact phrase shoved down your throat by self-proclaimed music critics online? And I get it, but still, I have a quick question for you: how many times do the songs you like most on initial listen remain your favorite album tracks? For me, personally, there are always at least one or two songs I completely ignore when I first listen to an album that end up being some of my absolute favorites. But why does this happen?
A lot of theories suggest that the more we listen to a certain song, the more likely we are to end up loving it. This is known as “the mere exposure effect”. Repeatedly hearing the same lyrics or melodies reduces unpredictability, and the brain associates this familiarity with safety and pleasure. After all, music is all about patterns. So, the more accustomed you get to a piece of music, the easier it is to recognize the exact moment when the beat is going to drop, or the background vocals could be heard a tad bit louder. That, in itself, gives a small dopamine reward. This explains the satisfaction that comes with listening to a catchy song from our childhood or hearing our current favorite song in the mall.
Most often, in my opinion at least, one’s opinion of a song can completely change depending on the emotional weight attached to it. For instance, I could completely ignore a song from an album on the first listen, but if a lyric from it struck me upon relistening to it months later, then it quickly moves up my ranking. To a certain extent, exposure from social media can also be a factor when it comes to the likability of a song. If I associate a song with a TV show or a movie I like because I’ve seen posts about it online (e.g., fan-made edits), I am more likely to go back and give this song another listen.
Moreover, the production on certain tracks can be particularly “dense”. By that I mean, it takes a few listens to completely immerse oneself in the experience of the song, and the appreciation for it may deepen with time as you discover new melodies or some hidden production tricks. This often happens to me even with tracks with more laid-back production, simply because I am always so focused on the lyrics when first listening to a song that I am not able to enjoy it completely sonically.
All in all, it is nearly impossible for a song not to grow on you the more you listen to it. Even if it is love at first sight with a certain track, you always end up growing to love it even more when you replay it (until eventually you get bored of it, of course). So, that’s why I get particularly agitated with the current trend of writing hundreds of think pieces online about an album only a day after its release. One should always let a piece of music marinate before rushing to their phones to express their hatred for it.