Desert Island Discs

Hi everyone! How you doing? I've been well thanks, eating a bit better than usual, learnt how to make at least one full meal and properly moved house which is nice, we painted! Some got on my nails and I'm still chipping it off. I bought a plant! Though I'm worried he's not getting enough sun or water. Usual stuff.
Today I wanted to go back to the music thing a bit, not a pop playlist, but a collection of albums I think are incredible, and maybe a couple of singles thrown in for good measure. This isn't in any particular order, and I'm certain some of you will disagree, but share your top album picks too! The more the merrier!

The English Riviera
Metronomy, 2011

I first heard Metronomy at Leeds Festival 2011, they played Radio Ladio and The Bay and I danced with my friends in mud. I have since seen Metronomy three more times, making them the band I have seen live the most amount of times. I love them. The English Riviera is in my opinion, flawless. I can listen to the entire album start to finish, and not skip one track. I love Nights Out and Summer 08 too, but for me, this is peak Metronomy. The songs are beautifully put together, the lyrics are that perfect blend of pop and dirt and the music videos are some of the best I've seen. The Bay is my favourite. That 60's sleazy James Bond riviera sun bleached trope works so well, it's pure electro pop filthiness.

Best tracks - The Bay, The Look, Corinne, Loving Arm

The Kick Inside
Kate Bush, 1978

Is it any surprise there's a Kate Bush album on this list? Anyone unfamiliar with me might not know about the deep love I have for Kate Bush, but I truly do. Her voice is unlike any other, and she is up there for me with Stevie Nicks, Adele and Aretha Franklin as some of the most incredible voices I've ever heard. Of course, The Kick Inside is the album that features Wuthering Heights - my go to dance number every time I'm at Pop Confessional at The Bodega. When I say I know the entire dance routine, I do not miss a step. Phenomenal.

Best tracks - Wuthering Heights, The Man With the Child in His Eyes, L'amour Looks Like You

Born To Run

Bruce Springsteen, 1975

I'm gonna start by saying this is my favourite album of all time, by my favourite musician. Bruce Springsteen is, for me, beyond all words. That is how much I love Bruce Springsteen. He has shaped who I am entirely and when I can't sum up how I feel about something, there's a Bruce song that can. Born To Run also features my favourite song of all time, Thunder Road. I heard it when I was 15 and have never been so sure of anything. It's an album that makes me smile, cry, heal, hurt and feel a part of something. I saw Bruce Springsteen once and touched him. I am still not over it. This album is a must listen.

Best tracks (apart from all of them) - Thunder Road, Jungleland, Backstreets

Whitney
Whitney Houston, 1987

With no apology, dear reader, I must tell you this. I Wanna Dance With Somebody is the best pop song of all time. It has everything. Synth, a great and recognisable opener (that "doo de doo doo") and most importantly, Whitney Houston. A special, happy, universal album isn't easy to achieve but a duet with Cissy Houston and the way Whitney woo's in lots of songs makes this a stellar album. Plus, that cover! Look at her. Fun, slightly unrelated fact, my mum went to see Whitney Houston in the 90's and was seated so far away she bought Whitney Houston branded binoculars. Also Sasha Velour won Drag Race to a lipsync of So Emotional so there's that.

Best Tracks - I Wanna Dance With Somebody, I Know Him So Well, So Emotional

Purple Rain

Prince, 1984

How could I not include this? It's an item on my bucket list to front a band named Darling Nikki! My dad bought me Purple Rain on vinyl one birthday accidentally because my mum had sent him to Urban Outfitters to buy Beyoncé's self titled album and instead he came out with this. My mum rolled her eyes but to his credit, Adrian, this was a great shout.

Best tracks - Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, Darling Nikki

The Very Best of Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton, 2008

Judge me all you wish for choosing a compilation album, but I did it. Because it's Dolly Parton and she has released thousands of albums and I cannot keep up. She's incredible. I love Dolly Parton. My boyfriend even got me a framed illustration of her that sits on my dressing table. One of the first examples of strong, talented, intelligent females I think of. Who else is that unapologetically themselves? It takes a lot of money to look that cheap and to me, she's worth every penny.

Best tracks - Joshua, Islands in the Stream, Here You Come Again

From Under The Cork Tree
Fall Out Boy, 2005

Typing out that this album is now twelve years old makes me feel so old. I had to include it. The first mp3 download purchase I ever made, and the first song I listened to through my crackly Toshiba headphones was Of All The Gin Joints in All the World. Is it a critically acclaimed masterpiece? No. Is it Number 1 in a list of albums to hear before you die? Probably not. But it is for me. I have no memory more vivid than being twelve, tying the laces on my Converse trainers, purposefully chipping my Claire's Accessories nail polish, wearing the tightest All Saints t-shirt I could source on eBay and listening to From Under the Cork Tree. I didn't think anyone understood how displaced I felt until I heard this album. Also Pete Wentz remains my forever crush.

Best tracks - Dance Dance, A Little Less Sixteen Candles a Little More Touch Me, Of All the Gin Joints in All the World

Other notable mentions for great albums, Beyoncé by Beyoncé, Broke With Expensive Taste by Azealia Banks, Help! by The Beatles, I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty, Days Are Gone by Haim, The Queen is Dead by The Smiths, Several albums by The Cure

Brave New Girl

I'm six deep into a bag of mini Daim's. I've not long ordered a twelve pack of Tony Moly facemasks on Amazon. A van driver made a comment about my legs as I walked home today and I flipped him the bird.
Any normal day, I'd be alright with this. Yet as I got back from work, dumped my lunchbox on the kitchen counter and got a glass of Ribena, I felt uneasy. Sad, even. I call myself strategic online. Twitter is where I release my inner monologue, though an edited version. It's full of feminism, Drag Race references, pictures of Jeremy Corbyn and questions about what Kanye West song is the best. Answer - Devil in a New Dress. My Instagram is pictures of my boyfriend, gigs I went to and nice views from a riverside bar in Berlin. My social media presence is me, but a carefully constructed version. Even in my blog, where I've spoken about mental health, I've been careful to not give the game away. So when - after about three minutes after finishing my glass of Ribena - I cried this afternoon, I felt good. I had released something pent up inside me, something I couldn't put my finger on. Ask anyone who's seen me do it, I am an ugly crier. That Kim Kardashian crying meme has nothing on the red faced, puffy eyed, messy haired animal/beast hybrid I become when I cry. And not just when I'm sad. I finished a book and enjoyed it so much I cried. I listened to a podcast with a nice, moral ending, and welled up at my desk. I am a crier.
But today it struck me that, whilst I can admit to myself that the reason I'm always so dehydrated is that I sob so much, that I carefully skirt around the issue when online - somewhere, arguably, I am at my most Hope-like. So why do I do it? I know I'm not the only person. We all have habits of putting forward idealistic versions of ourselves so people who are equally enveloped in their own lives think we're cool or happy. I could skim back to December on my Instagram, and still see the same Louis Theroux screenshots and punny coffee shop A boards I still post now, and I was in a bad place then! But you wouldn't have known that.
What's especially funny to me is my emo days, the period between ages 12 and 15 where I thought I was edgy and cool because I had all the My Chemical Romance albums, watched Kerrang and had seen Fall Out Boy (I wasn't cool, I saw Fall Out Boy with my dad). Back then when everyone had Bebo, Piczo, or if you were especially trendy and your mum let you dye your hair, MySpace. Then, everyone would gladly say how sad they were. It was the DONE thing. I am sad, I am gonna tell you about it and you're gonna say "same". Or maybe "rawr". Where did that go? The days of sharing your teenage angst and emotional complexities on social media via images of Emily the Strange or Pon and Zi illustrations.
This isn't some massive announcement to let you know I'll be tweeting whenever I've had a bad day at work or that I'll live stream with mascara stained cheeks when my favourite jeans don't fit me anymore. This is, as always, a rambling mess of at least one pun (idk search for it) and pop culture references that I hope make some kind of sense somewhere down the line.
But I feel braver now, because having an emotional range that causes me to bray like a donkey regardless of if I'm in a good or bad mood doesn't make me weak. It doesn't make me silly, or childish to be myself, wholly. It makes me myself, and that's something that I'm going to think about later and probably cry about. I'm a brave girl and I cry and that's okay. 

Pop Playlist Vol. 1

Hello friends, how you doing? I hope everything is good with you. Blessing you with a brief life update today, just letting you know the 411 before we jump on in to today's post. So it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago! I'm officially 24 years of age, though I was still ID'ed in Asda whilst buying paracetamol, so not everything changes. I finally saw my queen of queens, Katya last week too, trust me, if you get a chance to go to a drag show, TAKE IT. I'm pleasant news, it's been nice and warm which is fun. I have also still got the world's largest ankle too, if you're not aware of what I'm calling a sports injury (read, pratting about in the garden), I've torn a ligament in my ankle - I'm Ronaldo and I'm out for the season, I'm a drag queen who can't wear heels, or walk further than fifty feet before complaining. I never thought I'd say it, but OH MY GOD I'm sick of trainers. It's not that I want to wander around in Louboutins either, I just want to be able to wear a pair of bloody sandals. 
Anyway! 
Last week or so, I wrote a post about the special relationship between pop music and teenage girls. I wrote it after the attack in Manchester, because that monstrosity specifically targeted that bond, and tried to break it. I spent a lot of time this week actually listening to pop music and found it soothing to know that there are some relationships that never go out of style. Without any more waffling, I present...the Pop Playlist, Vol. 1

Pop is the best, listen, dance, smile and most importantly, download Destiny's Child Lose My Breath, because I have a dance routine and could do with the back up.

Pop Music and Teenage Girls - An Ode

I was 13 when I went to my first "grown up" concert. It was Fall Out Boy, in Leeds, with my dad. I wore an entire stick of Claire's Accessories eyeliner, my skinniest Topshop jeans, and bought a t-shirt that I still have. Dozens of gigs followed, one memorable being Lady Gaga with my best friend. We were sixteen and got the train to Nottingham after school, painted Ziggy Stardust lightning bolts on our cheeks and made friends with other teenage Gaga fans in the queue. When the music started, we grabbed each others hand and shouted "IT'S HAPPENING! IT'S HAPPENING!" - we joke about how excited we were even today.
I love pop music, and it shaped a huge chunk of my life, and still does. If we're being honest, my first gig was Pop Idol on tour with Will Young and Gareth Gates. But beyond that gig (after which I bought a commemorative scarf), pop music was everything. There's an argument that pop music is lowbrow, reductive, with silly lyrics that don't make much sense, or that popstars are too sexy, self absorbed, or even worse, stupid. But teenage girls, throughout history do not care about how stupid you think their idols are, how little grammatical sense the latest Fifth Harmony track makes. Music, in whatever shape or sound, will play a part in their formative years. Today's thirteen year olds will giggle with their friends to Katy Perry, cry over teenage heartbreak to Little Mix and practise doing their eyeliner to a soundtrack of Rihanna, just like we did with the Spice Girls, Destiny's Child and Avril Lavigne, and Madonna, Duran Duran and Wham! Teenage girls make pop music what it is, and pop music makes teenage girls what they are. There's nothing lowbrow, reductive or stupid about that. 
Ask any twenty something to finish the line of Reach by S Club 7, and watch their face light up as they do. Maybe it's the nostalgia, but the reaction we all have to pop is infectious and pure. The feeling that pop music brings with it is uninhibited, carefree and special. When teenage girls first move on from their bubblegum worlds, replacing fluffy Justin Bieber tracks with concrete Joy Division, it might seem like the end of an era of innocence and silly dance routines in the playground with friends, but put What Do You Mean? on for a teenage girl, and you'll be hard pressed to find one who doesn't at least tap her toes. 
Music is a safe place, one dedicated to camaraderie, self expression and the navigation of emotions. When I went to see Drake with my brother, the Birmingham NIA was lit up with the unmistakable flash of an iPhone camera as hordes of fifteen year old girls took selfies with the new friends they'd made in the crowd. Before he even came on stage, all I could hear was the giggly rendition of Hotline Bling that murmured its way around the room. Music is an emotion we all have in common, subjective and personal. I'll forever defend Kylie Minogue as a groundbreaking artist, and tell you how good Call the Shots by Girls Aloud is. Disagree? Fine, just don't take it away from me. I see pop music as more than just a genre. It's a rite of passage for a time in your life that seems messy, confused, covered in questionable fashion choices and even more questionable crushes. The opening bars of a specific song can transport a woman back to being fifteen and drinking Smirnoff Ice on the park before buying gum on the way home so mum didn't smell it on her breath. It's an important, special and personal part of growing up as a girl. Pop music is a diary.
People are trying to take that away from us. Horror at a concert devastates and makes us angry - and rightly so. And sometimes the call is coming from inside the house, the PWR BTTM scandal - manipulating and abusing young fans disappoints and scares. But there's power in girls, power in pop music. Live music is a joy, a moment of exhilaration and fun. Go to gigs. See your heroes, meet them, take photos, sing until you've got no voice left, please. 
They can't take the joy of music away. 

I Don't Know About You, But I'm A While Off 22...

Last year, I wrote a post of 22 things I'd learnt in my 22 years on this planet. I'm about to turn 24 (May 19th, sports fans, mark your calendars!) and I think since I last wrote that post, things have changed. So I think it's time for an update. Insert Neil Young reference here.

1. It doesn't matter if you haven't found your tribe yet. You will, and when you do, you'll feel sixteen all over again.
2. Invest in skincare, makeup can be good and cheap, Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum foundation will save your life, alongside Kiehl's Calendula Face Wash.
3. Tories are not good people.
4. If you can't afford a therapist, cry instead. It saves hundreds in the long run.
5. JOIN A PENSION SCHEME FFS
6. Music, TV, film, literature, art, it all shapes you. Allow it to, allow yourself to inhale good influences, make a Frida Kahlo painting your phone background and smile each time you check your texts, carry a JD Salinger novel with you and reread your favourite chapter when you're sat at the bus stop. Download the Best of Prince album and sing it in the shower.
7. Your parents are not out to get you.
8. You'll be a lot happier when you realise nobody in the room is judging and laughing at you. I'm still learning this. It's a work in progress.
9. Be a sarcastic little bat if you want. 
10. Watch Eurovision and fully enjoy it as it is meant to be - life is too short to try being cool, nobody really is.
11. HELP OTHER PEOPLE. 
12. Laugh at stupid jokes, tweet your ridiculous thoughts, be a weirdo and own it. It's the biggest middle finger to the girls who teased you at school
    
    
    Here she is, demonstrating just that.
    
13. Nothing will put you in a better mood than I'm Your Man by Wham!
14. The best question to ask on a first date is "What would be your Mastermind specialist subject?"
15. Hoop earrings are great in all shapes and sizes. I am a hoop advocate, they look great on everyone.
16. If you end up without a real job and without a house of your own and it's Christmas and you feel like there's no real point any more, trust me there is. Somehow, it's not the end of the world, and it will be okay again. And it's the sweetest feeling when it is.
17. I'm a firm believer that all email subject lines should be funny.
18. Trainers are the best shoes.
19. If you cannot dance, that's even better.
20. Feminists who reject trans women, women of colour, women of different religions or disabled women are not feminists.
21. Half an hour at the seaside can knock the life back into you.
22. The best healthy living regime is to eat what the hell you want and maybe go to a Clubbercise class once in a while if you fancy it.
23. At least one claim to fame - no matter how small or Z list - is a fantastic ice breaker. 

I'm wary this sounds schmaltzy, I promise I tried not to be too bad! Just wanted to let you know it's okay to not be all #livelaughlove all the time cause it's a bit boring really. Also side note - I like beret hats and think they also suit literally anyone, if there's one thing to take from this list, it's BUY A BERET.

Girls World

I finished the last season of Girls this week. Six seasons of ups, downs, controversies - some very well deserved - and endless quotes, the voice of my generation had fallen silent.
It's potentially an unpopular opinion, but I love the TV show, Girls. I like Lena Dunham. Granted, she's a bit tone deaf with her feminism, she can be polarising to say the least. But the TV show she created with Jenni Konner and Judd Apatow - who forever holds a place in my heart as the creator of Freaks & Geeks - is magnificent.
Girls started whilst I was in my first year of university, a year I look back on as a learning curve. A year of fantastic, stitch inducing, laugh out loud memories and terrible, blocked off, shut away in a cupboard...events. I thought I knew who I'd grow up to be. Then I watched Girls.
The problem most critics have with Girls is its main characters. These four, white, upper middle class New York women who's biggest complaint was that nobody was paying them any attention. I loved it. They're flawed, narcissistic, self obsessed and moany. They have wobbly bits on their bodies, spots, terrible choices in boyfriends (yes I'm looking at you Jessa and Thomas-John). I loved it, because they were me. It shook me to see distorted versions of myself, who were so bloody impossible to like, but who I so desperately wanted to be. Jessa's hair, Shoshanna's clothes, Hannah's razor sharp wit, and well, Marnie dated Ray and he's the best. Watching Girls shaped me. It introduced me to Curb Your Enthusiasm, Louis CK, The Mindy Project, and maybe I started watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition in between, so I guess I kind of have Lena Dunham to thank for my now lifelong passion for the phrase "MOVE THAT BUS!"
Girls felt like the big sister I never had. Like the gentle whispered warning of someone who has been there. It's those episodes I like the best. Those jarring, standstill moments of television that put your heart in your mouth and your hand to your pearls. Episodes like this last season's American Bitch, that left me feeling speechless and dirty all in one, episodes that remind you that Girls isn't fizzy, happy, lols-a-minute, feelgood friendship. It's clunky, sad, heartbreaking and cringey, and it puts Elijah Krantz in a happy place for like three episodes, then rips him away, stomping on him and telling him to try again.
It's not a perfect show, it's thorny and problematic, but the final series surprised me with its grace. It felt rooted in indulging itself as a final farewell, and I couldn't have asked for more, until I could. The last episode of Girls, in a similar vein to Seinfeld and Breaking Bad, fell short. It went full force, guns blazing with the promise of a curtain call that it deserved, but it never got. Like a surf lesson with Paul Louis (played by the incredible Riz Ahmed), the set up was there, but then it never happened. Dammit, Dunham! I believed in you to pull this off! One great review of the finale ended with the summation "you think you know me, but you really don't," - a fantastic symbol for the breakdown of female friendship in season six, and the Brooklyn Mr Big, Adam's hopeless and at times hideous flip flopping between Hannah and Jessa.
I will always love Girls. I will always love Lena Dunham. I will forever wish Elijah was my best friend and that Ray made me coffee everyday. I will daydream about what would've happened if that Marnie episode in the final season ended the way I wish it had. And I will watch it again and again, knowing in the pit of my stomach that it won't end well. But then maybe that's the point. Girls is the best worst relationship I've ever had. Bittersweet and painful, and maybe sometimes worth the perverse peel back of the plaster that's been holding you together, in order to assess how far you've come.

The Rambling Wilbury's

"I'm a goddamn brand," I say when my boyfriend asks me what I'm writing about. 
"Anxiety and vinyl" I continue. When they say to write about what you know, I do my best to give the people what they want. 
I haven't blogged in a long time, but my Blogger dashboard remains littered with the half finished literary carcasses of someone who once spent so long in 200 Degrees, she got high on caffeine and went into The Works afterwards and bought a CD of The Archers. I sometimes think my memory is going and I think it started on a steep downward slope around the same sort of time. Thanks, Radio 4. 
I can't say this post has much rhyme or reason to it either, but since I've been feeling better recently, less anxiety, less depression and some more money (hell yeah) I guess it's time to say hi and reintroduce myself to my blog.

I call that rubbish time the "sepia days" because it was so bloody boring and monotonous that I picture it in sepia. I watched an entire season of The Bachelorette in the middle of the afternoon for crying out loud! A Miss-Havisham-wedding-dress beige slump. It was like spending all day in the sun, slathered in factor 50, getting all sticky, so you get in the shower at the end of the day to wash it off. But the water isn't comfortably cool or nice and warm, it's a groaning, grey lukewarm. But you can't change the dial, you just let the lukewarm feeling of crappiness wash over you, along with the sunscreen. Then you get out the shower and you realise you forgot to wash your hair and UGH you've already let it slide for two days and now people are starting to notice so you have to get back in the shower and do the whole thing all over again. That's the sepia days. I know this whole ramble of a post is leading nowhere but I guess if the Royals can talk about mental health then this qween can too. Long story long, mental health is something I've spent time thinking about recently. I've come to acknowledge how common mental health issues are and how I'm not exempt. I get nervous, my panic attacks go through hideous waves and storms. I cry, hot, wet tears of joy, sadness, fear, loneliness, giddiness and when I feel a tumultuous mixture of all of those things and I cry a lot. I still don't know who I am exactly, but I know I like Korean face masks and weak Ribena. How to overcome those struggles and start taking care of myself has been fairly new to me, but I'm learning. Not in a "oh I clean my teeth now" way, but in a way that makes me happier to say "Hope, you could do with eating some fruit now, maybe do a face mask too," without feeling selfish. And to stop Googling my symptoms. I may as well rename this blog "YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY DYING".
It's a cliché to say music is my life, but it probably is. Nothing makes me feel more than music. I enjoy films more if they're musicals, and I still now, years after selling my kit - feel a surge of electricity run from the stage, through the floor and into my heart when I hear the THUD THUD THUD of a bass drum. It wakes me up in the morning, and it does laps in my head throughout the day. I love it. I'm even in my own imaginary band where we do ironic covers of cheesy musical numbers and I wear red lipstick and have a tambourine tattooed on my arm. Music is what changed the temperature in the shower, my boyfriend introducing me to Jeff Buckley and Father John Misty and the flame I hold in my heart for Patti Smith being reignited are what made the sepia turn back into beautiful technicolour and helped me find my feet again (after several failed attempts at death drops, Laganja Estranja, I salute you). 
So I guess the actual meatiness of this post is the following. My shower playlist. Twenty songs I listen to on shuffle in the shower, sing along to and sometimes perform with Darling Nikki, my imaginary band. 

• Hold On, We're Going Home - Drake
• Because the Night - Patti Smith
• Buffalo Stance - Neneh Cherry
• Kiss - Prince
• Purse First - Bob the Drag Queen
• Step it Up - RuPaul
• Raspberry Beret - Prince
• Bored in the USA - Father John Misty
• Thinkin Bout You - Frank Ocean
• Lady, You Shot Me - Har Mar Superstar
• Put Yourself in My Place - Kylie Minogue
• Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
• Thinking Bout You - Flo Morrissey and Matthew E White
• Hotline Bling - Drake
• Venus Fly - Grimes and Janelle Monae
• 212 - Azealia Banks
• Grease - Flow Morrissey and Matthew E White
• Supermodel - RuPaul
• Control Myself - LL Cool J and Jennifer Lopez

I'd be silly to say these are my favourite songs of all time - there's no Dolly Parton there for starters. But if I've learnt anything in my lifetime - which can sometimes resemble a badly written, slow paced Netflix coming of age dramedy, it's that music is a cure, it's a self care tool, it's like a look into someone's diary and it's something not even the pure shitiness (sorry mum) of the world can take away from me. It's like the fruit of the soul, the mindful equivalent to two litres of water a day. Music genuinely took me out of a slump I couldn't see the end of. It kicked my ass twice and then had the nerve to tell me to get up. Henry keeps saying there's power in a union, like the Billy Bragg song, and a lot of the time I think he's right.

Also listen to the Stormzy album, I can't dance to it in the shower but it's on my other playlist. I might share that when I'm feeling a little braver. 

Sorry for rambling, the next one will be funnier and less about my terrible anxiety. xoxox