and I love music videos. As I wrote this article I kept getting distracted, going back to all the music videos I watched as a kid. There’s a lot of nostalgia in this, but something else too. In a way, they taught me what music is. It’s not something you need to curate or be snobby about; it doesn’t all have to fit the same genre or aesthetic. Listening to music is about a feeling. A feeling you can get hearing a song for the first time or the 100th time, when the first notes play and something lights up inside. Art exists to make us feel something, anything. Understanding the difference in what I felt watching “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter compared with “4 Minutes” by Madonna taught me this. Every day since I started college this August, my dad never fails to send me a music video. Sometimes it’s one we discovered together, other times just ones he wants to share with me. This is his own way of telling me he misses me. It offers a meaning that a “good morning” text can never get across. I can’t help but think music videos have already hit their peak, that they will fade from our lives with the rise of streaming. It makes me sad to think that this could be the future, but I also believe that there will still be artists out there making new and exciting music videos — videos that continue to teach other kids the power art has.
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