Spotify and sisterhood
Charlotte Oleson / V Mag at UVA
I have always been fairly decent at formulating thoughtful or witty responses in conversation, but one question would always leave me wordless. Most people would happily expand upon their response for hours, but I avoided it at all costs. Regardless, it always came from new friends, teachers, all of the people I tried most to impress — “What do you listen to?”
For my entire high school experience, I shared a Spotify account with my younger sister. I was granted my first individual Spotify account about a year ago, during my first year at U.Va. At first, it was a grateful sigh of relief, but then I became nervous about the consequences of having my personal music exposed for the world to see. I’d always used “my family shares a profile” as an excuse for not revealing my username on the app, fearful of judgment — not for my music taste but rather the lack of it.
My sister and I couldn’t play different music at the same time, and our Spotify-curated playlists were based on whoever listened most. Emma, being a musical theater enthusiast and avid Broadway connoisseur, easily racked up the most hours. She was the lead of every show at school, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise that her soundtracks were dense with songs like “Defying Gravity.”
Emma and I have always intentionally differentiated ourselves, tending to share clothes but not interests. We’re only eighteen months apart, but even though we look like twins, we’re drastically different. Emma is center stage in the spotlight, a beaming presence who never goes unnoticed, a magnet for energy, drama and joy. I am in the audience crying as my sister sings, a tree-hugger, book lover, well versed in ecofeminism and biological processes but musically illiterate.
Most of the time, we are two totally different people, Katharine and Emma. But sometimes, we are the Hart sisters — cherishers of music, romantics, late-night conversationalists, lovers of rain.
When Emma discovered the soul-pop band Lawrence two years ago, she played them non-stop. I immediately hated the belting music, reminiscent of the Broadway hits Emma usually puts on the speaker. But when I realized that the songs hailed from an actual band rather than a musical, I let my guard down. To my surprise, I began to enjoy Lawrence’s belty singing in combination with jazzy instrumentals. My tolerance grew into deep appreciation, and as I learned about the band’s origins, I discovered that the boy-girl duo who started Lawrence were brother and sister — a sibling relationship parallel that seemed almost fated for my and Emma’s shared love of their music.
Two winter breaks ago, my mum gifted us with tickets to see Lawrence play live at the 930 Club in D.C. for the tour of their latest album, “Hotel TV.” Packed into a tiny venue, probably the only underage guests in attendance — we’re a bit younger than their typical audience — Emma and I stuck together, simultaneously avoiding creepy drunk men while swaying our hips, refusing to sacrifice our inherent desire to dance to fear.
The floor shook beneath us, trembling with bass. Saxophones jazzed up the stage, and the sibling pair who led the band together broke out into their raw talent, their voices a combination of raspiness and power. As I held my sister’s hand during the song “Figure It Out (A Song Between Siblings),” I felt tears fall from my eyes. The lyrics reflected the sadness I felt for our arguments of the past, along with the deep gratitude I felt for my built-in best friend — “I hate to make you insecure / I swear I'm so proud of you / And I've never sung these words before / But you deserve, ‘I love you.’”
The great separation of my sister and I’s Spotify accounts took place at the same time that we, too, were distanced from one another. As Emma entered her final year of high school in our hometown, Falls Church City, I embarked on a new journey to Charlottesville. What started off as nervous excitement for adventures, newness and independence for my first year of college later introduced me to deep longing for the people whose presences I had taken for granted. I was desperate to leave my small town and branch out into a self-realized adult, but perhaps I didn’t completely need to let go of the place I grew up in.
When my dad picked me up for the first time since arriving at college, he played U2’s “Beautiful Day — a song he never skipped when the sun was out — and I realized it was my favorite. I had grown so used to hearing it at home that I had forgotten how much I missed it. Adding the song to my playlist of favorites was a reminder that the music I classify as “my taste” doesn’t have to be completely self-discovered — it can be introduced by others or resurfaced from the past. As U2 sang, “You love this town / Even if that doesn't ring true / You've been all over / And it's been all over you,” the lyrics rang true. I had been so focused on becoming a new version of myself that I had forgotten the template I started with.
As I began finding my distinct music personality, I gravitated towards artists such as Lizzy McApline and Noah Kahan, defining Alternative/Indie as my genre of choice. I adopted the mountain-y singer-songwriter ambience as my own, reflective of my calling toward nature and soft, calming sounds. Emma, too, ventured into new styles, frequently playing Billie Eilish and sharing a love for Lizzy. Together, we found Renée Rapp, Gracie Abrahms and Daniel Caesar. We didn’t forget our mother’s influence, though, and as we danced in the kitchen and drove around on the nights of school breaks, we found ourselves playing Abba and Coldplay in addition to our new accumulations. Emma was always the one who “got me singing every second, dancing every hour,” who “felt like “city life, apple pie baked just right.”
I can now see that this overlap grew stronger as our distance grew farther. Our separate accounts now look more similar than different. Perhaps we have become more similar in an attempt to hold onto the pieces of our shared identity. For so long, we worked to prove ourselves different, but our perspectives have shifted now that our worlds are so far apart. What once differentiated us the most now draws us together.
Song has always seeped its way into our relationship, and I’ve come to understand what a beautiful gift that is. When I visited Emma at University of North Carolina School of the Arts this fall break, Faye Webster played in the background of our evening chats, an addition to our repertoire that she picked up from new friends. In the morning though, she still played her usual Broadway tunes to get us moving.
The music Emma and I listen to has become more of a venn diagram than a singular circle, but our relationship remains just as strong. That, I think, is evidence of sisterhood. Our tastes have changed, but our love for music — and one another — hasn’t.