‘And it’s you and me in the summertime’

First: nostalgia. Since birth, my living room has moonlighted as a concert venue. From enrolling in piano lessons at age 5, and my mother practicing vocal performances for recitals, to my younger sister’s forays into songwriting and singing (and, quite briefly, my dad’s attempt at learning banjo), I’ve grown up surrounded by music in every capacity — and therefore, have borne witness to nearly every song my mom and dad have ever loved. The first show I attended was at age 3, when I was probably the only toddler ever to attend a Soundgarden concert. Every Sunday morning, my dad would blast Alanis Morissette and The Sundays as he cooked breakfast. And my mom instilled in me the importance of being well-versed in Fleetwood Mac’s catalogue, often finding more reasons to splurge on Stevie Nicks tickets than on nice dinners or shopping trips. 

Whenever I heard songs by these artists growing up, I was quick to relegate them to the title of “my parents’ music.” I couldn’t hear them without being transported to elementary school and middle school. 

However, on Monday, I found myself listening to a playlist mostly of ‘90s music while I was driving to visit some friends at UC Berkeley, and was hit with a sudden wave of emotion and deja vu. I grew up crossing the Bay Bridge often to visit my parents’ friends from their time at Berkeley. In my memories, I don’t retain the faces of all the adults I met. I recall soundscapes much more vividly. 

It was quite strange to hear songs my parents had played on repeat when I was younger as I drove alone through the streets of their alma mater. I could almost hear my mom’s voice singing along with songs like Shawn Colvin’s “Sunny Came Home” and “Summertime” by The Sundays as I parked on Telegraph Avenue and walked around downtown Berkeley. 

After meeting up with my friend on campus to bask in the Glade’s spring sun, I remarked on this phenomenon of remembrance. Surprisingly, she responded with a similar story. Her mother had also attended UC Berkeley, and she shared that she often felt as though she were living in a mirror image of her mother 30 years ago whenever she walked around campus and listened to music from the 1990s. 

It seems that the music favored by Gen Z’s Gen X parents resurfaced as pivotal in our lives shortly before entering college and the early 20s, when our parents were starting to develop identities shaped by the cultural landscape of the time. Perhaps, on a psychological level, I listen to this kind of music now as a way to comfort myself in the uncertainty that lies beyond my high school graduation, when I won’t have my parents to come home to every single day.

Second: technology. Though record stores and vinyl have experienced surges alongside the broader nostalgia craze, the primary way people listen to music has remained streaming. Any song you could ever want to listen to is at your fingertips. So if nostalgia is what is fueling Gen Z’s connection to music from their parents’ time, streaming libraries and search engines are enabling this desire by making it more accessible.

Yet there’s another aspect of technology that I think is also enabling a desire for older music. In an effort to streamline success, Top 40 hits of 2026 generally lack real instrumentation. I’m a huge fan of house and EDM genres, but DJs and producers are dominating music right now, making it rare to hear a real guitar or bass in a song nowadays. And while these may make it easier to produce generally pleasing-sounding music, I think that, because older music with real instrumentation is so readily available, teens are becoming more susceptible to the differences between electronically produced and even AI-generated tracks and actual bands, and to how this gap may reflect a lack of authenticity. 

I definitely don’t think there’s anything wrong with nerding out over whatever music’s popular right now, but I also find it very cool how “dad rock” and “mom’s music” have actually been what’s shaped my music taste as a young adult. Should the pattern continue, and one day my own kids will be adding Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift songs to their playlists, popular music of each decade will serve as a looping thread that weaves old and young generations together.

Ayana Ganjoo is a senior at Carlmont High School in Belmont. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.