Retired From Sad, New Career in Music.

Evan Vicchy
Aug 27, 2017 · 5 min read

Every morning, I wake up to the gentle humming of my big fan. The white noise of the blades cutting the air helps lull me to sleep instead of falling asleep in silence. There is something depressingly gut wrenching about sitting in the quiet, which is why the next thing I do in the morning is reach for my headphones and begin playing the first song that pops in my head.

As an avid, obsessive music lover, there is no way I could go the whole day without listening to music. It is my passion of passions above anything else in this life. My love of music starts off in a relatively dark place. A place of loneliness, a place of self hatred and a place that was the definition of hopeless. Without music, I likely would be in that same place or not even here at all.

When I was 12 years old, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. At such a young age, I was so depressed that I wanted to kill myself in 6th grade. It wasn’t situational and it wasn’t caused by a single event, but it was an inherited disease from my mother’s side of the family that just happened to develop earlier in me than most people. What made these feelings of ending my life so much worse was the fact that for the longest time, I didn’t tell anyone how I was feeling. As the suicidal thoughts built up, I eventually could not feel any other emotions. I was a zombie trapped in my own mind of wishing for death and longing to escape the situation. While trying to find that escape, I discovered that music had the power to transcend such a dark world.

The first album I ever purchased with my own money was “Good Girl Gone Bad” by Rihanna in 2007. After hearing the song “Umbrella” and watching the music video on the early days of YouTube, I fell in love with her voice, her approach to pop music, her persona and the lyrical content. This album made me realize that music doesn’t always have to be about falling in love and being happy. Music can also express sadness, anger, unfairness and quite frankly, pure honesty. Songs like “Distrubia” from Rihanna’s album really resonated with me because she was singing about being trapped in a world of people who don’t see the dark side of reality. To this day, Rihanna is one of the most influential people to ever enter my life. The influence in her music didn’t just touch me emotionally, but I also credit her for tossing me into the world of the music charts, facts and music history.

In 2007, I kept hearing that “Umbrella” had reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Out of sheer curiosity, I Googled the Billboard charts and discovered a new obsession the would further distance and distract myself from the feelings of hopelessness I was experiencing at the time. It was fascinating to me to track these charts because there was so much to know, so many songs and albums to root for to rise in rank and to watch history unfold every Tuesday when the charts were published. “Umbrella” was number one for seven weeks on the Hot 100 and “Good Girl Gone Bad” missed the top slot on the albums chart, peaking at number two. The album was on the chart for 99 weeks and is still Rihanna’s most commercially successful album to date (but, based on the commercial performance of Rihanna’s “Anti” (2016), I believe her new album will easily become her most successful).

On the charts, there is so much to know. In my quest for escapism from my crippling depression, the interest in knowing little facts like a song or album’s peak, weeks on chart, critical reception and sales gave me a sense of purpose. Pretty soon, a weekly obsession turned into an every day addiction. By heart, I can tell you that Mariah Carey holds the record for the most number one songs by a female artist with 18 number ones. Her song “One Sweet Day” holds the record as the longest running number one song ever, topping the chart for 16 consecutive weeks. Two of her albums, Music Box (1993) and Daydream (1995) are two of the best selling albums in the world selling 32 and 25 million copies. In total, Carey has sold over 200 million records worldwide.

As I grew up, I realized in school that my number one academic talent was writing. And what did I like to write about most? Music. This eventually spurred a new interest in a niche in the music industry, writing reviews. I know a lot of people cast off critics as being too judgmental, but I think that music critics have some valuable insight into the music itself because it requires the critic to listen more deeply and to craft a personal opinion based on the quality of a record. On websites like Metacritic, it’s fun to see the scores of albums rise and fall as more reviews come in. Critics are also accused of trying to sway the opinions of the readers to agree with their opinions, but what makes reading reviews fun is not agreeing with them at all. For example, ambient artist GAS released his new album “Narko Pop” to critical acclaim with many critics calling it one of the year’s best releases and his finest work to date. However, after listening to this mammoth hour and a half long album, I was so disappointed. Not only was this album boring as hell, but it was literally static layered upon static with excruciatingly repetitive drum loops. In defiance, I wrote a scathing review about this album’s redundant nature. Ironically, my criticism drew criticism from other users on Metacritic. I now regularly write reviews for albums and I would love to make a career out of it.

As you can see, out of such emptiness and such a dark view of the world bloomed a new sense of belonging. A new place where all the troubles of my world seemed to be so insignificant because there was so much to know, so much to hear and so much to say about music. Even though I still struggle with my depression, things have gotten so much better because I know in my heart of hearts that I must work in the music industry in any way, shape or form. With my eyes set on this goal of being part of the music world, I can finally see myself moving forward to a place where I can be free. A place where I will never work a day in my life. A place where all my troubles melt like lemon drops.

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Evan Vicchy

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