There are certain things and forms of expression that restore your faith in humanity. Things that not only make you feel more hopeful and genuinely better about people, but about yourself. Some things always remain constant, unchanged, or uninterrupted by the opposites of the world, the evil, the hate, the fear, and sadness. Throughout our lives we find ways to combat this darkness, we’ve found places and people and things that serve as an escape for us. The most beautiful moment occurs when people find one another in their common escapes. I found this, standing in an intimate crowd watching Travis Barker destroy a drumset in the most melodic way of all, the vibrations from his wooden sticks resonating through the crisp air and bouncing off the trees. I found this, sitting next to my best friend in her first car, blaring the mixed CD I had burned especially for us. And I feel as if I have met a thousand people in the songs I love, a thousand different people in a thousand different ways. Music remains the common denominator, the unchangable factor in an everchanging world and life. But music has not, and will not ever disappoint. It encourages us to remain hopeful.

They say the kind of music you listen to says a lot about you, but I think it’s all saying the same thing. Music is the way we express that one part, that sort of uncomfortable part or itch in our soul. It satisfies something entirely above us and our understandings. This is why we praise our artists, we go to their shows and scream their names and tattoo their shit on our bodies so hopefully they remain with us forever. Music, like art in its many forms, evokes a part of us we cannot reach on our own. It opens new worlds through our senses. I have found music as medicinal, ever since a little girl. From the ten year old who bumped to Eminem through her brother’s mini iPod on the school bus, to the girl jumping and shaking and screaming at her first Fall Out Boy concert. To the girl I met this summer, flowing on what felt like clouds from concert to concert in usual festival fashion. I knew this girl all along, because she was always me. And music helps us, helped me, to remain intact and constant conversation (s/o Passion pit) with this untouchable, fragile and beautiful parts of ourselves.

So here’s my tribute and thank you to those artists who have changed my life. Those who have taught me the ways of punk rock, and what it means, refusing to grow up and to give up. To stay young and hostile, but not stupid. A thank you to Slim, Patrick Stump, Mark Hoppus and Travis, a thank you to Vance Joy and women like Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir and Florence Welch. My younger self thanks the timelessness of Motion City Soundtrack, of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I am thankful for Wiz and Kudi while at the same time I pay my dues to Oasis, Death Cab, Weezer, Incubus. Sublime speaks to a different part of me. I am a lister. I have an itch to write and list thing sometimes. The other day I found myself listing those groups and singers who have touched my life so greatly, and I suggest those of you who made it to the end of this article to do the same. Physically acknowledging somebody’s worth and contributions to your life make them taste all that sweeter. And if you find music as medicinal the way I do, you’re lucky, because music has the most endless and limitless supply of all the pills and pot in the world. Pay those who have put their lives, hearts and souls on a recording you can cherish through your earbuds. Nothing is more gratifying to an artist than knowing they moved somebody in a certain way. Thank you to those who have taught me how to forgive, myself and others, and how to forget. My biggest dream and wish is that I inspire people a fraction of the way these people have inspired me. And maybe I will. For now, I will continue to take their inspiration and use it as a paintbrush to color in the lines of my daily life, the way I always have.