Thursday 11 July 2019

nostalgia, news associates and new beginnings: musing + lyrics' new direction

it's safe to say i have a love-hate relationship with co-star, the astrology app that's slowly taken over the lives of pretty much everyone i follow on twitter. 

some days it likes to drag me, while other days it actually gives me useful advice. 

today it told me that "you're feeling sentimental and nostalgic" (my perpetual state tbh) and to "channel the energy into creative pursuits", which is exactly what i plan to do on my blog in the next few weeks.

but before we get to that, some background. 

it's no secret that i've been trying and failing to become a Proper Writer, having undergone a series of unpaid internships over the last three years along with a disastrous stint at news associates which began last september and ended this march. it mostly resulted in me having a breakdown in the toilets every day because i found shorthand so impossible and after resitting countless exams - which i later found out was totally unnecessary - i came away with no diploma and an impending sense of doom. 

such was the extent of my Life Crisis that i actually contemplated packing it all in and trying to find a Normal Job that would pay me, allow me to move out and have the independence i so desperately crave since i moved home after uni. but once i start something i'm determined to finish it, so i carried on searching for more work experience. 

then came vibbidi, which was my first ever paid job as A Writer, but a series of somewhat unfortunate events means that i'm now working for free again, writing daily posts for conversations about her.

it sounds like such a cliché, but for the last few months i've been stuck at a crossroads of sorts, unwilling to give up on what i truly want to do (and know i'm good at) but desperately wanting the aforementioned independence that only comes with a paying full time job. 

then a few weeks ago i watched underestimate the girl, a BBC documentary which follows one of my favourite people kate nash as she navigates life after being dropped from a major label and trying to survive as an independent artist. 

i'm amazed that it's taken me so long to write about her because it was at one of her gigs in october 2013 that my Pop Awakening took place. 

i'd booked the tickets for my girlfriend and i a few months prior, but by the time the gig rolled around the relationship was over, so i dragged my best friend along because obviously going with her wasn't an option. 

it was while we were waiting for the show to start that party in the USA blasted out of the speakers. i'm still not sure what prompted this, but with a complete disregard for all the ~iNdIe~ boys around me, i began to belt out the words to the iconic track, earning me a series of disgruntled looks that just a few months prior would have sent me into a spiral of shame and anxiety. 

but this time it was different, and i remained completely unbothered about their reaction to me genuinely enjoying it. maybe it was the sudden freedom i felt at my relationship ending, but from that moment on i made a conscious decision not to care whether people judged me for enjoying pop music, and the rest, as they say is history. 

so when i heard kate talking about how much she loved the music industry despite feeling like it had almost killed her on many occasions, i couldn't help but tear up because it's this exact feeling that's kept me going for so many years. the ups and downs she experiences throughout the documentary were alarmingly relatable, but i came away feeling reassured that despite all the obstacles i've faced, i know deep down that i'm doing the right thing. 

then two days ago one of my favourite youtube people lucy wood made a video about her most recent Existential Crisis, and i found myself crying with laughter just a few minutes in, while feeling incredibly relieved that i'm not the only one wondering what the hell i'm doing with my life. 

this brings me to last night, when i decided to charge up my old ipod and was overwhelmed with the ~nostalgia~ i felt listening to some of the songs i'd neglected over the last few years since spotify and a love of pop music took over my life. 

by now it was around 4am and i was deep in the archives of my blog, and it struck me how much more ~carefree~ my writing was back in 2015/16, when my dream of being a Music Writer hadn't yet been realised, and it's something i desperately want to get back to. 

make no mistake, i love listening to pop music and uncovering new artists, but somewhere along the line, in all my attempts to get as many views as possible and turn this blog into my full time job, it feels like i've lost sight of why i started it in the first place. 

when i first heard run away with me nearly four (!) years ago and hastily typed out my first ever post on a note on my phone, i wasn't thinking about making money, and i certainly never expected that actual lily allen would retweet my post about her, nor that the artists i obsess over would actually read my writing and follow me on twitter. 

so going forward, i'm planning to work through a stupidly long list of albums that my teenage self loved and give them the attention they deserve. seeing as it's been ten years since most of them were released, it only makes sense that i'd be thinking about how much has changed and what i'll be listening to in another ten years time. i'm also hoping to Chill The Fuck Out and stop stressing quite as much about what's going on with my career, because i've found that once i let go of any preconceived ideas about what "should" be happening, good things tend to follow. 

just a heads up: i might veer ever so slightly away from the pop music i've come to write about on a regular basis and more towards the ~indie~ and ~alternative~ music my teenage self loved, so expect reviews of the vaccines, kids in glass houses, you me at six, palma violets and more, alongside my new music friday posts.

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