2024 In Music

 

Happy New Year one and all! I hope everyone's had a good one. Today's blog is to celebrate the music that made my 2024 a lot more bearable and gave me some fantastic memories that I'll cherish forever. 

2024 has been one of the best years I can remember in recent times for music. I keep a list on my phone throughout the year of songs and artists I'm enjoying to make sure they get a mention on the end of year blog and 2024's was more of a scroll 😅 no complaints there! 

In last year's blog I enthused about how excited I was for Green Day's 'Saviors' album due out at the start of the year (I also enthused about how excited I was to be seeing them live too but sadly I couldn't go which was utterly heartbreaking as the tour was also celebrating the 20th anniversary of American Idiot one of my favourite ever albums 😭😭😭😭💔💔💔) so it only seems right to kick off with them.

Green Day - Saviors

I was absolutely right to be excited for Saviors as I love it. In my opinion it's a real return to form as I was a bit lukewarm about 2020's Father of all ... Although there are 16 tracks on it the songs are short, sharp and to the point meaning that the album never feels overlong. Thematically it does remind me a lot of American Idiot (hardly surprising in these times!) especially in songs such as Living In The 20s and The American Dream Is Killing Me (also my favourite song on the album). The album is absolutely fantastic and it was so close to being my album of the year but (through no fault of it's own) I'm still too heartbroken about not being able to see the songs played live this summer so listening to it has been a bit difficult. I'm keeping positive that they'll tour again soon. Some of my other favourite songs on the album are -

One Eyed Bastard

Dilemma

Bobby Sox

Goodnight Adeline

 

One live music experience that I did manage this year was seeing my favourite band 30 Seconds To Mars for the 20th time! As I said in last year's blog, I didn't love last year's album It's The End Of The World But It's A Beautiful Day and they did only play a couple of songs from it in the show, however Stuck and Seasons do work really well live. 

The show was absolutely amazing! I was at the side of the stage (hey it's not every day that a girl sees her favourite band for the 20th time) so I got a great view -

The highlight of the whole evening for me was GETTING ONSTAGE! The band always invite fans up onstage for the final song of the show and I couldn't believe it as I was ushered up too 😀. I can't describe the feeling of being onstage at the bloomin O2 Arena with my a band who's music has seen me through the lowest lows but also the highest highs. I did however manage to hide from the camera as no-one deserved my mug on the massive screens 😂

I have a blog about the show with loads more photos and videos of what was an amazing night. In the last couple of days Jared has posted photos on his Instagram of being back in the studio recording and hinted that new music will be coming this year so 🤞they'll be appearing in 2025's music blog.

Whilst I only went to 1 actual concert it wasn't the only musical 'event' I attended. Last year my friend Helen got me into Ghost and in the summer their Rite Here Rite Now show streamed in our local cinema. 

Describing Ghost is quite hard, they're kind of symphonic metal mixed with hard rock and quite a lot of tomfoolery on the part of Papa IV actually one of the best descriptions I heard of them was 'Satanic ABBA' referencing their Swedish roots 😂 Joking aside they seem to be amazing live and Helen and I are seeing them in April and in the meantime are 'practicing' by watching their live videos on YouTube. There's the promise of new music to go along with the tour and we got an inkling of what it might sound like with the track The Future Is A Foreign Land which gave me Doors-esque 60s vibes. 

Lady GaGa

Little Monsters had a lot to be excited about in 2024 as Mother Monster dropped some new music for the first time since 2020. First off we had 'LG 6.5' with the release of Harlequin a concept album tied into GaGa's role of the same name in the Joker movie. It was made up of show tune covers such as Smile, Get Happy and The Joker that all showed off her amazing voice. 

It was followed up by the release of a duet with Bruno Mars Die With A Smile a country vibed song. Then just before Halloween the first single from LG7 (and my favourite song of 2024) dropped ...

Lady GaGa - Disease

I immediately adored it and in fact 'may' have listened to it 10 times in a row .... It's GaGa back to her dark pop best (apparently she's described her upcoming album as 'dungeon pop') with lyrics about fighting with your demons (hi there). If the rest of her album is as good as this then 2025's album of the year is already awarded!

I'm bending the rules for the next entry on the list as whilst the single technically came out in 2024 the album is a couple of years older. And in a shocking instance of not living under a cultural rock I got into this artist at the same time as everyone else. I am of course talking about ...

Chappell Roan - The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess

I first heard about Chappell Roan from her single Good Luck Babe at the start of 2024 and really liked it but didn't 'follow up' on listening to any of her other music until the end of the year. The album actually came out a couple of years ago (Good Luck Babe was added as a bonus track when she started to 'break' at the start of 2024 apparently) but my blog my rules! Other songs I really like on the album are Pink Pony Club , My Kink Is Karma and Guilty Pleasure.

Some other albums I've enjoyed this year -

Taylor Swift - Tortured Poets Department (obviously) with standout songs - Fortnight, Who's Afraid Of Little Old Me? and I Can Do It With A Broken Heart

Bring Me The Horizon - POST HUMAN: NeX GEn . My favourite song on the album is Kool Aid (one day I'll manage to see them live again!)

Next up are a couple of soundtracks I've loved. First up we have a series I watched on Amazon this year.

Hazbin Hotel follows the story of Charlie the princess of hell (daughter of Lucifer and Lilith) and her attempts to set up and run a hotel in hell where souls can be redeemed. There's so many fantastic characters and the soundtrack is broadway-worthy. Some of my favourite songs on it are - Poison and Happy Day In Hell.

Wicked OST

There's absolutely no way that Wicked wasn't making it's way onto the list after I saw the movie. I've wanted to see Wicked onstage for years and after seeing the film it's made me even more determined! I knew Defying Gravity but now knowing how it fits into the story, it felt like a battle cry to break out, be yourself and live in the way that you know is right. As a practicing witch it fit right into the way I try to conduct myself and use the power the universe gives us all. Other songs I loved from the film were Popular and Dancing Through Life. I can't believe that I have to wait all the way until November for part 2!

Before I get to my album of the year here are some songs I've enjoyed -

Allie X - Off With Her Tits

The Warning - S!ck  (I'm really looking forward to hearing more from them)

St Vincent - Broken Man

Harper - I Hope You Choke

Yungblud - Abyss (From Kaiju No 8)

Black Country Communion - Red Sun

NXCRE & The Villains - Twisted

Nite - All Your Pain

And now for my album of the year ......

Delilah Bon - Evil Hate Filled Female

In a year of so much amazing music it was this album released in the autumn that has *just* pipped the others to #1. The album felt like a breath of fresh air with it's themes of female and LGBTQIA empowerment and, more interestingly, society's reactions to this request. Songs such as The Internet and the title track Evil Hate Filled Female reflect this perfectly. The 'revenge on bullies' anthem Finally See Me is the music I wished I'd had at school (along with artists like Delilah, Yungblud, Gaga et al) is balanced by more 'fun' tracks I Am The Best (Just Ask Your Momma). There are more delicate songs such as the stripped back Volatile and the heartbreaking stand alone single Not The President. 

It's hard to describe her sound and best to let her YouTube bio of 'BRAT PUNK SCREAMIN RAPPER' cover it. In my humble opinion in this world as women and the LGBTQIA  community we need voices like Delilah's rallying cry to bring us together to fight for our rights. I'm excited to see her in a couple of months time to scream along ...

That's it for my 2024 music wrap up! If you made it all the way through then wow 😱. Thank you as always to those lovely people who do read my blogs and comment your support. 

Love Jen

XxxX

Ps if you're interested in previous year's music blogs they can be found here -

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2021 In Music

Hi guys first of all MERRY CHRISTMAS! I hope you've all had a lovely time and that Santa has been good to you 💓.

I'm excited to publish one of my favourite blogs of the year where I get to waffle and give my entirely uneducated and uncalled for opinions of music I've loved during 2021 😂 (for those of you interested you can check out my review of 2020's music here, I've also been posting occasional blogs about a music challenge that you can see here). As always I'd really like to know what you guys have enjoyed this year and any recommendations you have for me. As always click on the blue writing for links to the albums and songs. 

As a disclaimer some of these songs might have been released prior to 2021 and I've only discovered them this year but loved them so much I had to include them. So without further ado (and in no particular order)  let's jump in .......

Royal Blood - Typhoons

I'd been looking forward to the release of this album ever since Trouble's Coming was released last year and it was worth the wait. I'd describe it as 'rock you can dance to', it has the heaviness of their previous albums but with an added groove. My favourite songs on it are Typhoons (not just because there's a plane the same name honest!) and Boilermaker (Co-written by Queens Of The Stoneage's Josh Homme). Royal Blood are actually still the last band I saw live back in 2019 as although gigs I have tickets for have gone ahead unfortunately my mental health has not played ball at all and I've missed gigs by Royal Blood, Yungblud and Amyl & The Sniffers 😓

Machine Gun Kelly - Tickets To My Downfall

I love this album, it takes me back to the pop punk of my teenage years. However don't be fooled by the upbeat tunes, it's not all sunshine and unicorns and does cover some darker elements. I first heard about MGK when a music commentary channel I follow on YouTube The Punk Rock MBA mentioned that MGK had worked with Blink 182's Travis Barker on his latest album. Not only had he released a new album but he'd actually released a short film to accompany it Downfalls High, whilst the acting is so wooden it could be considered a fire hazard I still enjoyed it. Releasing a film to accompany an album harks back to the creativity of bands like The Who, Pink Floyd etc and in the age of streaming (no I still can't work Spotify) having a visual reference for the songs really appeals to me. My favourite songs on the album are Jawbreaker and Bodybag. I also need to mention the single MGK released a couple of months ago Papercuts - hopefully some more new music will follow. 

Olivia Rodrigo - Sour

Speaking of a pop punk revival leads me to another album I've enjoyed this year by Olivia Rodrigo. When I heard the first single from the album Driver's Licence I wasn't that into it, I thought she had a good voice but it was all a bit overwrought and teenage for me. I kept seeing people raving over her so I decided to listen to some of the other songs on the album and I'm so glad I did, I really like Brutal, Hope U R Ok and of course the Paramore-esque Good For You. The best thing is that Olivia is only 18 and hopefully has many more years in the industry ahead of her, I can't wait to see what she produces!

The Pretty Reckless - Death By Rock & Roll

My final favourite album of the year is The Pretty Reckless' Death By Rock & Roll. I've been a fan of them for 10 years now and the latest album hasn't disappointed. It's the perfect example of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' and stays perfectly on brand for them. Taylor Momsen has a fantastic voice perfectly framed by the heavy band behind her. My favourite songs on the album are Death By Rock & Roll, Only Love Can Save Me Now, Rock & Roll Heaven and the collaboration with Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello And So It Went.

And now for some songs I've enjoyed this year -

30 Seconds To Mars & Illenium - Wouldn't Change A Thing

Amyl & The Sniffers - Gacked On Anger

Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under

Green Day - Pollyanna

Foo Fighters - No Son Of Mine

Mod Sun - Karma

Ghostemane - Lazaretto

Scarlxrd - Mxrbid

Yungblud - Fleabag

Nova Twins - Vortex

Inhaler - It Won't Always Be Like This

That's all for me for this year. Hopefully my mental health will allow me to actually attend some gigs next year. Let me know which artists you're looking foward to seeing or hearing new music from in 2022!

Love Jen

XxxX

Painting A Picture - Fun with hair and make-up

The best way to celebrate finally getting the hair you want is with a cuppa on the beach!

If the Covid pandemic has taught me anything over the last year, it's the power of "Fuck It", prior to the lockdown putting make-up on to go out felt like a chore and something my brain just couldn't cope with on top of leaving the house. I started to really miss popping lip stick and eyeliner on to go to town and taking Eos to the local field didn't really justify a full face of make-up with my scruffy dog-walking clothes. 

I also got fed up with looking at the beautiful goth influencers I follow (check out Toxic Tears , Emily Boo and Black Friday) and wishing I had the guts to do their crazy, gorgeous make-up and cool alternative clothes on a daily basis. So I did. As soon as we were let out last summer to meet up with friends and family outside I wore black lipstick to the park (hayfever scuppered my eyeliner each time but hey I tried 😆) 

Eyeliner in place for all of 5 minutes despite hayfever tablet and nose spray. 

Some more black lippie pics -

Pretending to be an OOTD blogger - I was dressed for a walk in the woods .......

The best goth accessory is always a cocktail

Or a large gobful of cakeshake .............

A punky OOTD 

I've hair my undercut dyed for a few years now and really like putting fun colours on it

I couldn't decide what colour to do it .........

More of that later ....

Once I got to the stage that wearing dark or black lippie was the same as putting on clear lipgloss I started experimenting with my eyeshadow too (not just as an excuse to buy the Revolution Nightmare Before Christmas range honest!). 

I called this look 'Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge' as it had a My Chemical Romance vibe to it

Admittedly I probably do have a slight problem with the amount of make-up I own now but the best thing about make-up is that it fits no matter how fat I get! The same goes for piercings and I finally got the septum piercing (along with an additional nostril piercing to keep things matching) that I'd promised myself after I had to give up work.

Ta Dah!

Earlier this spring my lovely friend and hairdresser Ian suggested that we split dyed my hair and kept it it's normal black on one side and bleach the other so that I could eventually dye the other side a bright, fun colour. Which is great in theory apart from the living with blonde hair for 2 months.... I have a complicated history with blonde hair, when I was in Year 8 (second year of secondary school so I was about 13ish) I had highlights and bright streaks at the front to try and look more like the 'cool' in-crowd *epic fail* For some unknown reason I also tried it again, with added red streaks (those were cool though in my humble opinion) when I was 16.

Definitely not the Prom Queen!

Mum and me at my 16th with 'the hair'

You'dve thought I would have learned my lesson but no, I tried lightning it again a few years back and it went rather, er, ginger .......

Yesssssssss

I found that when my hair is a light colour I just don't feel like 'me', I used to try dressing rockabilly/vintage but it was the same, it just didn't feel right. So after that I went back to the comforting arms of the 'dark side' and reembraced my gothy self and we've been very happy together ever since. 

So going temporarily blonde was a really big deal for me, but I'm glad I took the plunge as the eventual result is worth the identity crisis and gritting my teeth whenever people complimented my 'change of look' or telling me how much it suited me. 

A studded hairband, Border Collie, fun lipstick and pretty background helps.  

I was blonde for my Halloween birthday party but I made sure I did some black and orange to make up for it. As an aside I think Halloween should be celebrated in the summer from now on - it's far more fun drinking vast amounts of Ophir in a decorated garden bar rather than shivering in the Autumn. 

Black and Orange! 

Halloween came early to the bar

Earlier this week I had my final blonding -

The next day ....on went the colour ....

There are 3 colours - a blue undercut, purple main section and pink in my fringe. 

Hooray! (Spot the Border Collie)

I'm glad that I've pushed myself into experimenting more with hair and make-up, it's helping me sculpt myself into the aesthetic I've always wanted to have (aside from the fat obvs) - a don't give a fuck alternative dresser (plus people leave you alone when you look like me - win!). Next up my Red Arrows tattoo!

Love Jen

XxxX

PS For those of you who made it to the end here are some of my favourite make-up products!

The Revolution  'Jack' Nightmare Before Christmas palette - https://www.revolutionbeauty.com/uk/en/makeup/eyeshadow-palettes/makeup-revolution-disney-nightmare-before-christmas-eyeshadow-palette-jack/1399425.html

The VE Cosmetics Grimoire palette - https://ve-cosmetics.com/products/grimoire-15-pan-palette

(Plus any brand with this as it's logo gets my vote)

My favourite black  Kat Von D lipstick https://www.kvdveganbeauty.com/lip/liquid-lipstick/everlasting-liquid-lipstick/40001.html?dwvar_40001_color=4029

Kat Von D Mascara https://www.kvdveganbeauty.com/eye/mascara/kvd-go-big-or-go-home-mascara/10058.html?dwvar_10058_color=1025

My Suavecita Bride Of Frankenstein Lip Duo https://www.suavecito.com/products/bride-of-frankenstein-bundle

And last up my go to eyeliner NYX Epic Wear (in black obvs) https://www.nyxcosmetics.co.uk/eyes/eyeliner/epic-wear-liquid-liner/NYX_806.html

Oh and all my choices are bunny friendly!

Yes, I approve!

2020 In Music

Well, it might have been a god awful year for pretty much everyone around the world but my goodness has it been a fantastic one for music! 

Hi everyone how are you all doing? It's time for my favourite blog of the year the music review and this year it's a corker (in my humble opinion). I always love writing about music (as you may have noticed) and the music reviews are a great way to round off every year no matter how good or bad it's been, you can read previous year's blogs for 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 . 

This is a really tricky blog as there has been so much music that I've loved this year. In fact for the first time I'm having to award 'Album Of The Year' to multiple recipients as I simply can't chose between them, possibly the best problem I've ever had! 

Album(s) of the year (click on the song titles to check out the videos on YouTube) -

Lady GaGa - Chromatica

What a return to form! 2016's Joanne was by no means a bad album but it was a real departure from anything GaGa had done before but I feel it was the the album that GaGa needed to make to move onto Chromatica so to speak. Chromatica is GaGa back to her traditional dance pop best but it's by no means a happy,clappy vapid pop record. There are some really raw lyrics about GaGa's experiences with mental illness that particularly hit home to me, however it's not a depressing album. When promoting the album GaGa expressed her desire for us to "dance through our pain" and the album helps us do just that, there is positivity to be found such as Rain On Me's "I'll never be dry but at least I'm alive". I cannot wait to hear the songs live when the Chromatica Ball lands in London. 

Best songs on the album - 

Rain On Me ft Ariana Grande my favourite song on the album!

Stupid Love

Alice

Enigma

Bring Me The Horizon - Post Survival Horror

This is BMTH's second consecutive year as album of the year *round of applause* and I love it even more than last year's Amo. I think what I particularly love about Post Survival are the collaborations with Yungblud, Amy Lee, Babymetal and Nova Twins. In my opinion really good collaborations are hard to come by, you can put artists together but the results aren't always great (for example as much as I love 30 Seconds To Mars the addition of Kanye West on Hurricane or A$AP Rocky on Rescue Me add absolutely nothing to two songs that are perfect on their own) but on here they are awesome. The album is nice and heavy with just the right amount of 'scream'. I got into BMTH way back in 2011 after seeing them at Reading and I'm finally going to be seeing them again at the O2 in September. 

Best songs on the album -

Obey ft Yungblud I can't stress how much I adore this song!

Ludens

1x1

Yungblud - Weird!

I've spent a large amount of 2020 getting into Yungblud and his back catalogue (more of that down below) and feeling pretty down with the cool kids if I saw so myself. Yungblud's music is a real melting pot of different musical influences - you can hear elements of Emo, Rap and Brit Pop but importantly he still sounds completely original. Weird! is a great album with really smart, witty lyrics but with an undercurrent of darker reflections of mental illness and isolation. Those lyrics rather than just being depressing also help his fans feel less alone which is something that Yungblud is keen to express in interviews along with his campaigning for the LGBTQ+ community. Another gig I can't wait for next year!

Best songs on the album -

Cotton Candy

God Save Me, But Don’t Drown Me Out

Strawberry Lipstick

It's Quiet In Beverley Hills

Honourable Mentions -

The Killers - Imploding The Mirage - The most Killers sounding Killers album in years. Best song My Own Soul's Warning

Green Day - Father Of All Motherfuckers - Short, sharp and great. Best song Oh Yeah

Songs of the year -

We've also had some absolute tunes this year-

Billie Eilish - Therefore I Am

Deftones - Error

Royal Blood - Trouble's Coming

The Pretty Reckless - 25

I also want to mention some older music I've only heard for the first time time this year that I've really enjoyed -

Motionless In White - Another Life

Motionless In White - Voices

Yungblud ft Dan Reynolds - Original Me

Yungblud - Hope For The Underrated Youth

I'd really love to know what's soundtracked your guy's 2020 and helped you through the year, comment below or drop me a tweet @jenraefrances  on Twitter. 

Take care and stay safe.

Love Jen

XxxX