In the latter years of elementary school, I gained this dependency on music to help me fall asleep every night. And as I entered middle school I was allowed to take my first smartphone to school, which I mainly used for music and texting my few friends and family members.

When I had the chance I began listening to music with my crappy pink earbuds that only worked if I pinched the base of the cord hard enough. I ran through a variety of music but I mostly stuck with the typical middle school emo music. A couple of my favorites included My Chemical Romance (which had broken up just months before I started listening to them), Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco and Twenty One Pilots (pre-Blurry Face).

These bands actually helped me make friends and connect through song lyrics I thought I understood at the mere age of 12. Little did I know that music would become one of the most influential parts of my life. Music can switch my mood from being bubbly and wanting to hug everyone to being emotionally wrecked and contemplative.

I have multiple different moods of music I frequent the most and go-to artists for each.

When I’m feeling melancholy or distraught I like to stay in those moods through music and sleep it off at night as I’ve found trying to immediately change those emotions is a fruitless endeavor. But listening to this music helps me feel so much better and helps heal wounds cheap Neosporin can’t.

My melancholy artists; Dermot Kennedy, SYML, Lewis Capaldi, and Rhys Lewis. Now, that being said, not all of these artists have exclusively sad music, in fact, some of it can be loving and inspiring. I found each of these artists on my “Discover Weekly” which is a weekly playlist Spotify curates based on my listening patterns.

As for my happy music I like to stick to musicals, indie pop, and 2000’s alternative rock. Nothing makes me jam out like a mix of Hairspray and Taking Back Sunday, which seems like a pretty odd combination but it’s very effective. Between the bops about love and the undeniability of its powers to the loud and moderately aggressive lyrics of “MakeDamnSure” I’m almost guaranteed a new pep in my step.

And of course, I have my angry “screw the world” music that I frequent mostly on Mondays and some Thursdays. Surprisingly rock music doesn’t quite cut it for me when I need this kind of music, in fact, I mostly look towards artists like Fiona Apple, Alanis Morissette, and Harvey Danger. I grew up listening to Fiona Apple with my mom all of the time and I’ve had the lyrics to “Limp” and “Fast as You Can” embedded in my brain since I was little. Every time those artists come on I gain this huge boost of confidence and find myself feeling 10xs better while also not giving a crap about anyone else.

Music is so powerful and can change people’s days while dictating their emotions. To me, music is one of the most influential parts of my life and I don’t think I would be the same person without it. Rachel, a freshman at Marist University says “Music affects my mood greatly” and “it gives me a beat to run at, it makes me happy when I’m sad.”