Music is something that all people connect with to some extent. It’s able to touch us deeply, it’s able to make us think or even inspire us in many ways. Music is always there for people, no matter what the occasion – whether you’re raising your child, recovering from heartbreak, or enjoying a night out with friends, there’s always a song to suit your mood. Given that it can play an important part in our lives, it’s no wonder that many people want to find out everything they can about their favourite artists and their backgrounds. A lot of mums want to do this as well – and if you’re a mum that wants to know more about her favourite artist, but feel like you don’t have enough time to dedicate to this, don’t worry – there are a few easy ways that you can learn everything you want to know.

1. Ethnology

Ethnicity often plays a big part in how artists perceive the world – which means it influences their music as well. Whether you want to learn about Kurt Cobain, and how his Irish roots influenced his music, or about Beethoven’s Austrian roots, searching for online articles that focus on this aspect of their personality can provide you with some interesting insights into the way they experienced things. It’s important to remember that ethnicity isn’t simply about where we come from historically and culturally, but also about how others perceive us. For example, for certain Irish artists, the fact that they weren’t always allowed to vote in the US, and were generally treated very poorly both by the English and the Americans, helped influence their music and provide some depth. For others, perhaps it was a question of internalised bias against their ethnicity that can be found in their music.

2. Time Period

You might already know everything there is to know about your favourite artist’s life – but can you put it in the right context? Learning about a specific time period can help you understand how your favourite artist or bands’ life and music were influenced by it. The 1960s, for example, are famous as the time of freedom and hedonism – which makes it an important period to look into if you want to learn more about artists like Jimi Hendrix. On the other hand, if you want to know about other artists, like David Bowie, learning about the 1970s is crucial. This can provide valuable insight into their background since you’ll be able to understand which other artists influenced them, what the political climate was like when they were coming up, and what other events in history helped to shape them. This can be as simple as going to a Wikipedia page and focusing on the most important cultural and historical events that occurred during your favourite artists’ lives.

3. Music Genre

While most people think of genres as being limiting, they actually help to provide a context for your research. You can choose a genre that you know is important to your musician, and start from there. For example, if you want to learn more about a hip-hop artist like Tupac, knowing more about West Coast rap can provide valuable insights into his personal vision and interpretation of life in America’s ghettos. This, in turn, can lead your research to other artists and genres that influenced Tupac – which can help you better understand how he expressed his interpretation of life in a violent environment in his music.

4. (Auto)Biographies

If you want to learn in-depth about certain artists, then reading their (auto)biographies is probably the best place to start. While reading an entire book isn’t the fastest way to learn, these types of biographies are usually very easy to read, and they don’t require you to sit down for hours on end. You can pick them up whenever you have 10 extra minutes to spare – before you go to bed after your kid’s gone to school, or even during your lunch break. They are a great source of information since they’ll not only discuss various facts about the artist’s life, but they will usually include statements other people made about the artist, who knew them personally and the significance of various events in his/her life.

While music is an art form that can speak for itself, learning about artists – their lives and their backgrounds – can give you a better understanding of their work. It can help you understand what influenced them to perform in a certain way, and even provide you with new perspectives on how their music can help you grow. As an added benefit, by putting in the effort to understand them in such a way, and see how various things influenced them, you can develop a better sense of understanding others, which is incredibly important for any person, especially mothers.

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