2018 In Music

Here it is my favourite blog of each year! An excuse for me to bask in my music snobbery and waffle on about the music I've loved this year whilst you all roll your eyes and nod 💀👅.

2017's blog mostly consisted of songs I'd liked that year as there weren't too many albums that grabbed me or captured my imagination. This year has been far better for albums but there have been far fewer 'stand-alone' songs that I've loved.


Obviously the biggest music event for me this year was, after a 5 year wait, the final release of 30 Seconds To Mars' 5th album America. Safe to say it was very different from their previous albums, the natural musical progression from 2013's Love, Lust, Faith & Dreams with far more of an electro vibe. The heavier element of their music was still there for us old-school types; there's an epic drum break on Dangerous Night and Stevie's guitar solo on One Track Mind (if you are going to check that one out then listen to the album version rather than the A$AP Rocky ft single version). In my blog I posted on the album's release date (America - my Thoughts) I pointed out that I actually really didn't like One Track Mind but it's actually the song that's grown on me most on the album.

Lyrically the album seems more personal than previous albums, in his lyrics Jared has always used the idea of 'madness' but on Rescue Me and it's accompanying explanation (read the text under the video) he talks about both his and his brother Shannon's personal struggles with mental illness (see also Shannon's song Remedy towards the end of the album). I haven't actually heard much of the album live aside from Walk On Water,  Dangerous Night and Rider as the album wasn't actually released until a week after I saw them back in March in London & Birmingham so another visit would be much appreciated lads!

Whether this is the last full 30STM album or whether we can now just expect 'single drops' remains to be seen but I'm interested to see where their musical path leads us Echelon.

Coming a very close second to America is of course The Greatest Showman soundtrack.

There's not much I can say about the film or soundtrack that hasn't already been said, I utterly love it. The soundtrack has lived in the car since March when Mum and I finally got around to seeing it and I now know all the songs off by heart. I'm an absolute sucker for musicals and (no pun intended) Showman just hit every note I could ever ask for. Whilst I know the story takes huge liberties with the true story of PT Barnum and the horrific way he treated his acts (locking his 'freaks' in cages and worse) and we should always be mindful of that, I still love it. It's uplifting, colourful and fun. My favourite song on the soundtrack is A Million Dreams and who can ignore the juggernaut that is This Is Me a rallying cry to everyone who's ever felt rejected or that they don't fit in. The soundtrack has been so successful that a Greatest Showman Reimagined album has also been released, featuring P!nk doing the most beautiful cover of A Million Dreams.

There's been some great albums this year from bands I've liked for a long time.

Nine Inch Nails - Bad Witch

Another great album from NIN. It's a combination of a raw, punky vibe and an out and out Drum N Bass sound with added claustrophobia, an unlikely soundtrack to my summer but a good one nonetheless.

Panic! At The Disco - Pray For The Wicked

There's no re-invention of the wheel with Panic's 6th album nor should there be! It's theatrical, powerful and, most importantly, fun;  from the bombastic High Hopes to the beautiful stillness of Dying In LA. They truely deserve their place as one of the biggest bands around.

And finally a couple of honorable mentions -
Smashing Pumpkins - Shiny & Oh So Bright
George Ezra -  Staying At Tamara's
The Prodigy - No Tourists

Hopefully 2019 will bring some more great music, Bring Me The Horizon have their new album Amo out in the next few weeks and if the rest of it is as good as Mantra then I'll be happy! I'm hoping some more bands will tour next year and I'm curious to see what Reading & Download Festivals may still have up their sleeves line-up wise as there's nothing in the world like being pressed against the barrier surrounded by the music you love.

Love Jen
XxxX

RIP HMV

When I saw the news yesterday that HMV had gone into administration I can honestly say I'm absolutely gutted. Not just because I have a fiver's worth of points on my loyalty card but at the loss of a 'music hub'.

HMV and music shops like it have  always been a haven to me. Here in Eastbourne we didn't actually get HMV until around winter-time 2005. I was so excited as prior to that it was an exotic breed that I only say on trips to London or Brighton. The only music shop that we had in Eastbourne once MVC and Ourprice (ask your parents) closed down was Powerplay, an independent store that was my Mecca when I was at college but rather lost it's appeal when I got a job working in a call centre for its sister company (no amount of CD discount is worth that!).

What I loved about HMV was the ability to have a good old fashioned rummage through the CD racks, the small smile of recognition when you realise someone else is looking at the same section/artist as you (or the opportunity to hide the X-factor flavour of the week albums behind something I considered musically superior in the knowledge that the kids will thank me one day).

I loved the delight of catching sight of CDs that I'd had to get on import from the states a few months previously, glad that the bands must be catching on over here. I always felt a state of calm in-store, around fellow people just like me. I could have spent hours in there if Helen or Mum hadn't hoicked me out, in fact they began referring to it as 'the five minute shop' which I felt was most unfair.

There is a burgeoning set of Vinyl shops popping up here and in the surrounding area, we have The Vinyl Frontier https://en-gb.facebook.com/vinylfrontierrecordshop/, Pebble Records https://pebblerecords.co.uk/ and my favourite Resident in Brighton http://www.resident-music.com which is absolutely fantastic news for independent music and for old people like me who love vinyl. However truth be told, I always feel a little uncool and awkward in the stores, years of being told that I was weird for liking different music to everyone else I imagine or the time a classmate tried to take my Blink 182 album off of me "I need to take this away as you're not cool enough to like them". So I do spend a lot of time looking more at my feet rather than the records 😂.

I think HMV's appeal to me was as a everyman kind of store, however awful your taste in music was (sorry, apparently I'm a music snob) you could find it there or they could order it in for you. If you were lucky enough to get a knowledgeable staff member on the till they'd recommend other albums/artists you may like based on your purchase.

Obviously the rise of downloads and streaming has done for HMV and the other high street music retailers, my friends are incredulous that I still mainly buy CDs (I will download a single song that I like on occasion) and laugh at my inability to work Spotify. Perhaps it's a boat I've missed because of my age or perhaps it's the impersonality of streaming and download services, I like to physically 'hold' my music. Of course I love being able to carry my entire music library around with me on my MP3 player (although don't get me started on the teeny, tiny storage space on the only ones on the market now) but I love the satisfaction of having a huge CD collection that I can lovingly flick through.

I'll be genuinely sad to see HMV go it's like the loss of an old, faithful friend and who doesn't love a company with a cute dog in their logo!!!

RIP HMV you will be missed.

Love Jen
XxxX

Anxiety Stream

Apologies that this blog isn't going to be one of my more structured and meaningful offerings. At the moment I've got so much on my mind this is going to be more of a babbling stream of consciousness and anxiety.

So to begin, and probably the least important of my current issues has been my bloody MP3 player. The last few years I've used a 160gb iPod Classic which clapped out at the start of last month. Since all the young 'uns seem to stream everything nowadays it results in no' large' MP3 players being on the market anymore (curse you youngsters with your ability to work Spotify!).

This lead to me trying two different MP3 players with the same result that they didn't want to play my amount of music despite having large memory cards in them. Thankfully a work colleague, Sami, has come to the rescue and is selling me her old iPod Classic. I hate still being part of the Apple sheep 🐑 flock but beggers really can't be choosers!

Esme has just turned 10 which is absolutely amazing, in that she hasn't killed me/run off to live with Helen. She's started to become incontinent unfortunately which means she has to be dried each morning. Part of the problem is that it's raining all the time, making it harder to nab her to dry her butt whilst simultaneously getting her soaked!

Speaking of the weather. What in the actually fuckety fuck is going on at the moment? IT HASN'T STOPPED FUCKING RAINING. I'm sick of it. People laugh at me when I say how much I hate winter but at the moment I'm feeling pretty vindicated. I'm not getting hardly excercise as it's raining too much to walk home so I'm just waiting for the weight to pile back on. It's dark and raining when I get up and dark and raining when I get home, I'm getting no time to hang out with or check on Esme and make sure she's dry and comfortable.

I guess my biggest worry at the moment is work. As you all know I work 'on the bank' which is kind of like temping within the hospital. Lately to save money all bank shifts across the hospital, be it admin like me or nursing etc, have to go before a panel to be approved. The result of this is that bank staff can be dropped from one week to the next. This has of course always been the risk and one that every person signing up to the bank is clearly made aware of. At the moment we're still getting admin shifts, I have work up until Christmas. Post-Christmas I've arranged to try my hand at Ward Clerking for the month of January (yes this will involve getting over my ickiness around hospital wards 🤣).

The thing that's stressing me most, and this is going to seem utterly ridiculous to all you sane people which I appreciate, is a conversation I had with my manager last week. She's told me that there is potentially funding for a part time (3 days a week) job on a year's contract in my favourite department and she wants to know if I'm interested. Obviously this is all speaking in potentials at the moment, if the advert did go up there's no guarantee I'd get an interview, let alone the job.

So why then have my panic barriers shot up, alarm bells started ringing and my gut instinct telling me "no, no, no"? On the face of it it seems ideal, guaranteed days, a consistent wage, paid holiday and better contributions towards my NHS pension. On the flip side it'll mean less opportunity to step up to the Band 3 work (secretarial level - I'm an admin band 2) as I'm able to do that on the bank. It's one less day that I'll work (I currently do 4) so I'll lose out on a day's wage. I'll also need to fit in holiday-wise with other people in the office, so that could mean I may not be able to go to gigs, holidays, airshows etc. Things that I rely on to keep my emotional wellbeing above water.

I have a real fear of being trapped and that's how I feel. I was trapped in school for 5 years going through hell, been stuck in other horrible jobs that made me ill and of course been forced to the brink of a genuine breakdown. At the back of my mind at the moment is the knowledge I could just walk away, to what I have no idea but I just know I can.

I really hope that this Ward Clerking I'm doing in January will go really well and I'll be able to do that. Whilst that is of course still on the bank it does mean that I'm working for myself so to speak. The other concern is how the hell I'm going to 'fess up to my manager that I won't be available in January since I'll be working on the ward, will I just be dropped like a stone?

I really wish I knew what to do. My gut really isn't feeling it. I've been told different things by different people, some tell me I'm foolish and to bite the hand off for the job, others have told me to go with my gut instinct. It's messing with my head and keeping me up at night (along with the stupid cold that I have 🤧).

And bloody Christmas is coming, I feel the warm glow of humbug-ing already.

Love Jen
XxxxX