Experiences – Life – Inspiration 🇨🇭🇯🇵

I have been wondering about that lately because music has always been a steady presence in my life. I listen to it often, and I listen to it intentionally. I never played random radio channels in the background. I have always been an album listener. In Switzerland it was cassette tapes and LPs. Later it was CDs. Today it is full albums on Spotify. I always chose what I wanted to hear, which makes this whole reflection even more interesting.

Growing up in Switzerland in the 80s, my world was filled with 80s pop. That was the sound of my childhood. When I moved to the Netherlands in the 90s, everything changed. Hip Hop, Rap and Electronic Dance Music became the soundtrack of my teenage years and early adulthood. I chose those albums myself, so it was not a case of absorbing whatever the radio played. It was a genuine shift in what resonated with me at that time.

From the 2000s until around 2022, still living in the Netherlands, my taste stayed within familiar territory. It was a mix of the music I loved in the past and the music of the moment. It felt stable, almost like my taste had settled into something permanent.

Then I moved to Japan, and something unexpected happened. My music taste began to change again. Or maybe it evolved. I found myself drawn to folk, acoustic folk, ambient folk, experimental folk, and even modern classical music. None of this was part of my listening habits before. Yet here I am, choosing these albums intentionally, just like I always have.

One thing I appreciate about Spotify is the yearly summary. It shows me which artists and genres shaped my listening that year. It feels like a small time capsule, a musical diary of my inner landscape.

So I return to my question. Is there truly a link between the environment we live in and the music we end up loving?