#24 🎧 Why was 2003 such a special year for music?
The soundtrack to adulting
Loneliness sucks, but spending time alone can be wonderful. Why do we still conflate the two?
A couple of articles came out last week elevating concern about the so-called epidemic of American loneliness. The first was an op-ed in the Washington Post that looked at the 2021 results from the annual American Time Use Survey and found that Americans now spend 9 more hours alone and 4 fewer hours with friends compared to 2013. COVID accelerated a trend that was already well underway.
Just a couple of days later, the Sunday New York Times featured a front-page story about the increasing number of older adults who are choosing to live alone. “While many people in their 50s and 60s thrive living solo, research is unequivocal that people aging alone experience worse physical and mental health outcomes and shorter life spans.”
The chart above shows how the trend of aloneness has been unfolding over decades. In 1995, before the New York Times even had a website, they published an article with the headline "More and More Are Living Alone.” In 2009, sociologist Keith Hampton and colleagues published Social Isolation and New Technology to explore the worry that cell phones and the internet were causing us to become more socially isolated. And by 2012, Eric Klinenberg published Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, observing that Americans are hardly unique in our increasing preference to live alone:
In Paris, the city of lovers, more than half of all households contain single people, and in socialist Stockholm, the rate tops 60 percent. Although Americans pride themselves on their self-reliance and culture of individualism, Germany, France and Britain have a greater proportion of one-person households than the United States, as does Japan. Three of the nations with the fastest-growing populations of single people — China, India and Brazil — are also among those with the fastest growing economies.
Last week’s viral articles from the Washington Post and New York Times conflate loneliness with spending time alone. And so I was grateful to Vivek Murthy for his articulation of the difference in a recent podcast:
Loneliness is a subjective state of feeling disconnected, even when surrounded by others. Solitude is the welcome state of feeling connected, even when physically alone.
I love those definitions. I am alone right now, seated at my favorite table at one of my favorite cafes and feeling immensely connected. I am enjoying what Proust called “that fruitful miracle of communication in the midst of solitude” and what Oliver Sacks called “the special intercourse of writers and readers.”
We thrive on undistracted connection whether in solitude or with others. We suffer from distraction and disconnection … whether in solitude or with others.
🚕 Keep the meter running
Some of my most connected conversations during the pandemic were with Uber drivers. There was the Nepalese musician who came to New York City after becoming involved with the daughter of Richie Havens. The Afghan interpreter for the CIA who beamed a proud smile while describing how his wife learned to drive a car in the California suburbs. The Brazilian superfan of Bolsonaro who promised he would become the next Steve Jobs.
I love the concept behind Kareem Rahma’s Instagram series where he asks New York Cabbies to “keep the meter running” and take him to their favorite place in New York City. I kinda wanna try it out while Iris and I are in Oaxaca for the holiday break.
👏 Kudos
Happy birthday to Revaz. Over dinner, we talked about how 2003 was a watershed year — for music and for us. It even inspired me to make a playlist, below. And if you’ve got nostalgia for the great music of 2003, come join us on October 10, 2023, at the Greek Theater in Berkeley for the 20th-anniversary tour of the Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism. Tickets go on sale Friday, December 16th.
🎵 What was 2003?
The soundtrack of 23 years old. Full of confidence and dreams and naïveté. For me, it was 2003. That summer I learned how to design websites and started a blog. That fall I graduated from college and bought my first iPod. I spent countless nights meticulously transferring my CD collection to my iTunes library and iPod. In December, I quit my barista job at the best coffeehouse ever, packed up my car, and drove from San Diego across Arizona and Texas to my new home in Monterrey, Mexico.
My entire music collection was on a shiny white device that fit into my pocket. Just the thought of It made me giddy. What else did I need in life?
2003 was the year that electronica married indie rock: The Postal Service, Yo La Tengo, Erlend Oye, The Flaming Lips, American Analog Set, Cafe Tacuba, Broken Social Scene, M83, Four Tet, Stars, Caribou, The Books.
It was the year that country, americana, bluegrass, and indie rock merged into a new genre, Alt-Country: Wilco, Iron & Wine, Sun Kil Moon, Okkervil River, the Be Good Tanyas, Camera Obscura, Songs: Ohia.
Yes, 2003 was the year that music moved from stereo speakers to iPod headphones. But it was also the year of some epic rock albums that sounded like nothing that had come before: Elefant’s self-titled debut, Dear Catastrophe Waitress by Belle & Sebastian, Fever to Tell by the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs; Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers by The National, Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie, You Are Free by Cat Power. Each of those albums laid the first paving stone for at least a decade of imitation.
And then the hip-hop: three of the most transformational rap albums of all time came out in 2003: OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, Phrenology by The Roots & JayZ’s The Black Album.
In 2003, the music was too good to be true. We all read Pitchfork every week, hungry for reviews about the latest releases in order to search them out on Napster and Limewire. Maybe everyone’s 23rd year is their greatest year of music. Maybe it’s simply the soundtrack of freedom, the first step of true adulthood. You tell me. For now, I leave you with two hours and twenty minutes of music from two decades ago.
A note about the structure: I left out the hip-hop for its own future playlist. Instead, it starts with some of 2003’s greatest indie anthems, then gets into more experimental indie-electronica, and ends with some softer, lyrical hits of alt-country. And while it might not transport you back to your first year of adulting, I hope you still enjoy the tunes.
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, we’re one week from the shortest day of the year, and then a couple more minutes of daylight to look forward to with every passing day. Have a lovely week,
David
Is this your way of calling me out? All these statistics are compelling, and as someone who is 51 and living alone, I wonder what we can learn from this in terms of sociology. I definitely have more days where I love living alone than days that I don't. Let me listen to this playlist and let ruminate.