Music

If my friends had to describe my taste in music, I imagine they'd unanimously use the word "crap".  I spent a lot of my younger years trying to convince them that a1 were the best thing EVER (they weren't having any of it), and attempting to get them to share my love for Garth Brooks (more on him later).  I no longer try to force my favourite artists on everyone around me, but that doesn't mean that my taste in music has got any better.  I like a wide range of genres, most of which are deeply uncool, and this fact is only made worse when you find out that I have a degree in Music Production.  To say that I was the black sheep on my uni course is an understatement, although my remix of Love Machine by Girls Aloud went down surprisingly well.

Here's a taster of some of my favourite music...

Songs that I currently really like:

Waiting All Night - Rudimental

I Need Your Love - Calvin Harris ft. Ellie Goulding

Get Lucky - Daft Punk ft. Pharrell

Unfortunately whenever I hear it, I can't help but think of this video though:

(I really love that video, but it does change the way you enjoy the song!)

Don't You Worry Child - Swedish House Mafia 

Songs that always give me goosebumps:

Titanium - David Guetta ft. Sia

 

I absolutely loved this song from the moment I first heard it, and it always cheers me up.  When I was stressed about buying a house, I listened to this a LOT and it helped me to feel motivated to keep on pushing.  It got stuck on repeat at the gym once and it was my best visit to the gym EVER. I've never worked out so hard in my life.  Sadly, the gym staff realised there was a "problem" and managed to fix it just as it was about to play for the fourth time.  Shame.


Enchanted - Taylor Swift

I'm a huge fan of Taylor Swift's music, and I could happily listen to her albums on repeat for hours on end.  I love how her songs tell a story and the lyrics drag you into the moment, and that's especially true with this song.  This song is about meeting someone for the first time and the rush of emotions that comes with it, and for some reason it makes me feel both sad and happy at the same time.  Bittersweet, there's a good word for it.  Anyway, it gives me goosebumps and I love it.


A song that I HAVE to dance to:

Hot Right Now - DJ Fresh ft. Rita Ora

Now, I don't dance.  I can't dance.  But when I hear this song, something comes over me and I HAVE to.  And by dance, I mean jump up and down for the entire duration, then collapse in a wheezy heap at the end.  I once heard this song on a night out and I'm very, very glad that I was cordoned off in the VIP section as I went MENTAL and incorporated pumping arms and headbanging into the routine.  Whilst wearing heels.  My feet were completely mashed by the end, but it was worth it.

Just to clarify, I really mean it when I say I HAVE to dance to it.  It's almost as if it's out of my control, and I have found myself dancing to it in the car (both as a passenger and a driver - the dance while driving was a rather more subdued, hand tapping exercise), and at work (the battle between professionalism and a need to dance resulted in a light bounce).  In fact, only last weekend while writing my previous blog entry, I had to abandon my typing to stand up and dance in the middle of the living room because the song suddenly came on and took me by surprise.


A song that I like to wail along to:

Shameless - Garth Brooks

I said we'd come back to Garth.  Garth Brooks is a country singer who was huge in America in the 90's , and somehow this filtered through to me.  Car journeys with my parents used to be spent listening to his albums (on cassette of course; this was the 90's after all), and I'd memorised the lyrics to all of his song by the age of 9.  This particular song has rather a lot of emotion in it, and is perfect to wail along to in the car, as loudly as possible.  It really kicks in near the end.

Please note that I only do this when in the car alone; I wouldn't subject another human to that.


An unintentionally funny song:

Pussycat - Missy Elliott

About a year ago I spotted a Missy Elliott album in Poundland, and decided that it was something I NEEDED in my life.  Missy has some brilliant songs...and this is one of them, but for all the wrong reasons.  I first paid attention to the lyrics on a summer evening when I had my car windows down, and the CD blaring out on the radio.  It suddenly became apparent to me while driving through a residential area that the song had "sexual themes", but by that point I'd already treated the neighbourhood to a chorus of "pussy don't fail me now".

The best bit of the song, however, is the line "is the pussy good?  It's alright".  What does that mean; it's mediocre at best?  Bearable but could do better?


An intentionally funny song:

Like A Boss - The Lonely Island

I love comedy songs, and The Lonely Island have some fantastic ones!  I've decided that Like A Boss is my favourite right now, although this is likely to change as soon as I hear I Just Had Sex or Jizz In My Pants again (I just ate a grape and I...JIZZED. IN. MY. PANTS).  I also used to be a big fan of Tim Minchin and Flight of the Conchords, and plan to dig out their DVDs soon to relive the awesomeness.


A song that creeps me the hell out:

Santa Claus On A Helicopter - Wing

I think it speaks for itself.


A song that makes Fridays bearable:

The Candyman - Sammy Davis Jr

I first heard this on the radio one Friday morning at a time when work was incredibly stressful and I was facing potential redundancy.  Since then, I've made sure that I'm always near a radio at 8am on a Friday when it's played on Radio 2, as it never fails to make me smile, and gives me the extra push I need to get me to the end of the week.

N.B. Never set this song as your alarm.  I made the mistake of thinking it'd be an incredible way to wake up; in reality, being brought back to consciousness by the sound of children singing is alarming in a very different way.


A song that reminds me of the past:

All or Nothing - O Town

As well as a poor taste in music, I'm also known for having a ridiculously good memory of past events involving me and my friends.  Whereas someone else might say "hey, remember that time we opened the haribo while you were asleep?" (hi Jo!), I'm more inclined to say "oh yes, the time that we opened the haribo while you were asleep was at Jo's house in year 7, we were laying on the floor watching a film and Jo had fallen asleep, I remember the exact layout of your house and what sofas you had, and I remember the next day when we had a fight with sweets and your mum kept finding them under the sofa in the days that followed.  Oh hey, do you also remember another sleepover at Jo's when more of us were there and we all put on green face masks and then spent ages trying to let them set without making them crack, and the other Jo was painstakingly plucking Helen's eyebrows?" I think I prove my point.

What WAS my point? Oh yes, memories.  Music is often a trigger for these intricately detailed memories; I can hear a song, and it takes me back to where I was, what I was doing, how I felt, and what I could smell when I heard it.  I'm starting to sound rather odd (starting?!...); I'm sure I'd be a fascinating case study for research into bizarre brains at some stage.

Anyway, All or Nothing is one of those songs that, when I hear it, I remember EVERYTHING about when I used to listen to it.  I remember listening to it in my friend's mum's car on the way back from Bluewater on a sunny day; I believe we'd bought some cookies that we ate on the way home, and I'd also bought a blue strappy top that I never actually wore because I later realised that it looked dreadful on me.  On that same car journey, I also heard You Remind Me by Usher, and these two songs are now eternally linked in my memory based purely on that fact.  I remember the video for All or Nothing despite not having seen it in about 12 years, and I remember listening to it on repeat on more than one occasion, believing that it exactly related to how I felt at the time and that it would bring me comfort.  It didn't, it just made me cry (teenage angst, eh?)


A song that I only listen to if it's a sunny day and I'm driving:

Aggro - The Enemy

Well now, that's a very specific category; let me explain.  I first became aware of The Enemy at Radio 1's Big Weekend in 2008 when it was in Maidstone and my mum managed to win me tickets.  I absolutely loved their set, and rushed out the next day (my birthday) to buy their album.  The first time I listened to the album, I was driving back to Reading  and it was a gloriously sunny day.  Referring back to my strange memory, I now always associate that album with driving in the sunshine, and refuse to listen to it unless it's under those conditions.  The album sits in my glovebox during the winter months, and on the first truly sunny day of the year, I whip it out in a fit of excitement, and the combination of the opening bars of Aggro and the sunshine lifts my spirits and puts me in a ridiculously good mood.

Unfortunately, due to the bad weather this year, I've only managed to listen to the album once so far, and even then I had a false start when I believed summer had arrived but it had disappeared again by the time I got the CD out of the case.


A song that I can't stop listening to:

Stop The Clock - Ray Gibson

Ray Gibson is a Canadian singer who I somehow discovered through Twitter, and I've since fallen in love with her music.  Stop The Clock was the first song that got my attention, and now that I have her EP, it's one of the most heavily played CDs in my car.  This song is the first track on the CD, which is a dangerous thing; because I love it so much, I look forward to hearing it again when the CD finishes, and this has lead to me listening to the CD on repeat many more times that I care to calculate.  But that's fine by me, as I love the whole EP and don't anticipate getting bored of it any time soon!



Well!  That was quite a journey through some of my favourite music!  I've really enjoyed taking the time to think about the songs I love and imagine I'll come back to this at a later date!  Now I just have to hope that I don't wake up in the night singing Santa Claus on a Helicopter...