So there I was, late Saturday night, staring at the streaming void trying to figure out what to watch. I landed on a documentary about the history of reggaetón on Peacock. Why not? It sounded like the perfect background noise for folding laundry. Except it wasn’t background noise at all. It pulled me in. Suddenly, I was immersed in a quick brief (set to rhythm) of Puerto Rican history, politics, underground music, cultural rebellion, and the glorious back-and-forth between New York and San Juan. Globalism wrapped in bass and beats. The take home message being that a genre often dismissed as “just party music” was actually born out of resistance and reinvention.

Of course, as with all things reggaetón, it wasn’t long before “Gasolina” by Daddy Yankee made an appearance. And just like that, it was stuck in my head. Again. After years of dormancy, my brain’s DJ dusted it off and hit repeat.

The problem was, my mental jukebox was already overloaded. Earlier that weekend, Eric Carmen’s “Make Me Lose Control” had elbowed its way in (don’t ask me why, I don’t control the playlist in my brain). And then there was that song from childhood. The one we were all forced to sing in school assemblies. Something about “high hopes.” You know it: cheesy, repetitive, a little too upbeat for 8:30 in the morning. The exact kind of song that made you question whether school was really about education or low-level brainwashing.

And that’s when I wondered: do kids today still have to learn these corny motivational ditties in school? Or has the curriculum caught up with reality? Are they now being taught to clap in rhythm to “Gasolina” instead? Imagine a generation of 3rd graders earnestly singing about pumping gasolina into their hopes and dreams.

Okay, maybe not. But the thought amused me.

The truth is, every generation has its soundtrack, and it’s a blend of the aspirational and the absurd. We learned “high hopes” because adults thought it would instill optimism. Today, kids have TikTok soundtracks that make optimism optional but rhythm mandatory. And somewhere between those two extremes, we’re all just trying to find our groove, our resistance, our joy.

As for me? My soundtrack right now is equal parts resistance (reggaetón), nostalgia (Eric Carmen), and forced optimism (high hopes). And maybe that’s just about right.