2005 was a good year for me when it came to music, with Confessions On A Dance Floor released late in the year, earlier that same year Kelly Osbourne released 'Sleeping In The Nothing' another album that is a rarity in that I love every single track on the album and can listen to the entire album uninterrupted from start to end. Where Confessions served as an uplifting EDM dream, Kelly dabbles in darkness much like her father Ozzy, and Sleeping In The Nothing does that perfectly. The synth-pop vibes are something of a staple for me that are common in a lot of the music in my library most of which won't feature here as that is in the realm of EDM featured on compilations which I decided not to add to this list.
This album however has a recurring theme of toxic relationships and the impact they have on you, I am sure you can see why this album fits me like a glove. As a general point I love Kelly Osbourne and think she's fabulous, I own both of her albums and I would love it if she returned to music but I understand if she has no interest, she has a successful career that she doesn't need to pursue it, I also realise that despite my adoration the album itself wasn't a commercial success which I think is a shame, I consider it a masterpiece and I still turn to it when I have emotions I want to process.
'One Word' holds a particular significance for me in my experience hooking up with closeted guys the lyrics are quite poignant "One word breaks the code of silence, Silence tells me all I need to know" and "It's not the way that I want it, It's just the way that I need it" fitting the situation perfectly, that one word in this instance being "gay" the word you can't speak when you see them in public and you're around people that don't know, where you have to keep their secret and the reasoning they give being the understanding that for whatever reason they either can't or aren't ready to come out.
'Uh Oh' likewise speaks to the frustration when you're around those people in public, when they deny how close they are to you, how toxic that becomes to the underlying friendship, that lyrics "Uh-oh, I think I better go, Before I turn this love into a crime" epitomise the mentality of the tight rope you walk and how easy it is to fall off, worse yet are those closet cases that don't even acknowledge your existence in public, the lyrics "The social strain, Is watching you out with all your friends, With the disgust that you pretend when I walk on by, You wear it well, Treating me like someone you don't know, But then you call me on the phone To tell me goodnight" - I really don't know if Linda Perry who wrote the songs for Kelly had the analogues to LGBT life in mind when she wrote those lyrics but to me they fit so well it has to be intentional.
Side note, Linda Perry has also written for Pink and Gwen Stefani two artists that have featured on this list already and will both feature again before it ends, so I do find an affinity with her writing style, I think she is an amazing songwriter, often forgotten, overshadowed by the artists she writes for, I just wanted to take a moment to show some appreciation.
The idea that Sleeping In The Nothing is actually about LGBT relationships though for me is only reinforced by some of the other track titles, 'Secret Lover' in particular is putting it right out there in no uncertain terms it's about hidden relationships, but also 'Suburbia' a title which I take as a nod to the Pet Shop Boys, but the lyrics "In your dreams you're fabulous, But in your life, ridiculous, See Alice had to go to Wonderland, To sip upon the tea that left her in a trance, yeah" these lyrics to me epitomise the mentality of a closeted gay guy who struggles with the duality of maintaining an internal and external persona that diverges so significantly, but the lyrics go on "Life for you is just a great big game, You have no control and all you feel is shame, Don't try to numb the pain, Tomorrow comes and you will be OK" I don't know how much more obvious I can make this analogy but that word "shame" to me is the key to the meaning of the song, the idea that you have to conform and fit in and accept the uniformity, with "suburban life" being a metaphor for society's expectations.
My favourite track on the album however is 'Save Me' which has the most meaning for me personally. It speaks to the feeling that your internal struggle is blatantly obvious to other people, but nobody cares. That you can feel anger against the people around you for not acknowledging the misery that the environment they created is destroying your soul and they don't offer you any help. If you needed any further speculation that this album was about LGBT life, in 'Save Me' the lyrics read "All of my life I've locked away my feelings, And all of this time I've been living a lie, I was so afraid, Pathetically misleading, It was my empty space, a need to fill my void" you can't get much more explicit in spelling out the idea that this whole album is about oppression and repression and how toxic it can be.
The lyric that always stayed with me was "When you looked in my eyes You knew I needed saving, And when you saw me getting high Why didn't you come save me?" because that above anything else encapsulated the feeling of despair and abandonment and rejection by society, the downward self destructive spiral and the path to unending darkness that it leads to, and how when you are so vulnerable and can't reach out to people out of paralysing fear you move ever closer to that eternal darkness and feel like not only do people see it, but that they watch it expecting you to die for their amusement.
I did say Kelly dabbled in darkness and that Sleeping In The Nothing manages to do that perfectly, there is no screaming rage on this album, the closest thing you get to an explicit expression of anger comes in 'Don't Touch Me When I'm Sleeping' perhaps the darkest track on the album, yet the album still manages to capture the emotion and the feeling of emptiness that it creates. Sleeping In The Nothing is more about self expression and discontent than anything else. This album is another one of those albums that will remain in my library that I can't see myself ever getting rid of, that I still use as a go-to when I need to process the emotions that I associate with it.
Music Monday #16: Confessions On A Dance Floor by Madonna
When I wrote about Cher and her greatest hits I mentioned that Madonna was another gay icon that would be part of a hypothetical gay syllabus. Despite owning almost every album she released I've chosen to include just 2 in this list, the first is 'Confessions On A Dance Floor' which I regard as the best album she ever made, I know that many won't agree with that assertion but when you know my love of dance music, the influence of EDM, and even my dabbling with religion and spirituality, this statement from me makes a lot of sense.
I love every single track on this album from start to finish and there are very few albums by any artist that I can say that about. This is an album I can listen to from start to finish without skipping and without touching the controls at all, it is to me perfection and I wouldn't change a thing about it. Confessions was released in late 2005 when I had just started into my second year of college. That was a good time in my life, that year however is bitter-sweet for me, despite it eventually ending in a happy place it was also the year I lost my Grandmother and that served as a low point for me. When the shock finally gave way to grief I eventually emerged on the other side feeling clouds part, with rays of light shining down on me [shhhh spoilers] I could once again feel hope and it was potent.
College in general was quite a positive time for me overall, as I have mentioned in my regular posts on this blog, compulsory education in the UK ends at age 16 from then everything is considered further, and higher education, referring to college and university respectively. As this stage of education is entirely optional, the atmosphere is completely different, you are surrounded by people who are there because they want to be and you study specific subjects that you picked that you have an interest in, that creates a certain level of investment and focus that students tend to share. I got along with the people in my class, I had friends that I shared music with, and I had experiences that I still look back on with fond memories. The fact that every track on the album is positive and upbeat reflects the mentality I had at the time, and even now when I listen to any track from the album it still inspires the same thoughts and feelings I had at the time.
'Hung Up' spoke to me with the idea of unrequited love and how your life can grind to a halt when you forget to live in the moment constantly focused on something you're waiting for, 'Get Together' spoke to me for thoughts I had in college because of my latest crush, which again led nowhere as I was still in the closet at the time, although not for long as I came out near the end of my second year of college mostly because of the atmosphere I was in and the belief that no-one around me would have an issue with it and I was right for the most part. 'Sorry' in particular was one of my favourite tracks on the album, the lyrics "I don't wanna hear, I don't wanna know, Please don't say you're sorry, I've heard it all before, And I can take care of myself" are Universal, I don't think there's a single person who hasn't reached that moment at some time in their life where no amount of apologising will make up for what someone did, you just want them to fuck off and give you space.
My absolute favourite track on the album however is 'Forbidden Love' because of how seductive the lyrics are "Just one kiss on my lips, Was all it took to seal the future, Just one look from your eyes, Was like a certain kind of torture" just because I have felt the emotion pure and raw behind those lyrics where all it took was one taste and you were completely gone, I am not sure I believe in love at first sight but I sure as Hell believe in lust at first sight because that I know I have felt so many times, the guys that I have been infatuated with because of it I care not to admit but that feeling where all he has to do is look at you and smile and your heart stops oh fuck that feeling.
Confessions was and still remains my favourite Madonna album and for me nothing she produces will top it, there is another album that I appears on this list of hers that I have chosen to include but we will discuss that when we get there, and I'll pay reverence to Madonna herself in that post. For now suffice to say I have followed her career for most of my life, and I will continue to follow it, even when she produces music that I don't have an interest in, I still listen to it to form an opinion, I do give it a chance. Madonna is an entertainer who has experimented over the years and I am grateful for that experimentation because it has create a diverse collection of music that spans multiple genres, and Confessions served as her foray into EDM that I embraced with open arms, not only the official album but the singles, the remixes, and the bootlegs that went with it of which there is a plenitude - and yes I know Madonna's history, I know this wasn't her first venture and exploration of dance music and the EDM scene but this was the first time she did it when I was present and witness to it and at 17 it came at the perfect time for me so it has stayed with me, even now almost 15 years later I love this album just as much as I did when it was first released, there aren't many albums I can say haven't aged a day for me.
I love every single track on this album from start to finish and there are very few albums by any artist that I can say that about. This is an album I can listen to from start to finish without skipping and without touching the controls at all, it is to me perfection and I wouldn't change a thing about it. Confessions was released in late 2005 when I had just started into my second year of college. That was a good time in my life, that year however is bitter-sweet for me, despite it eventually ending in a happy place it was also the year I lost my Grandmother and that served as a low point for me. When the shock finally gave way to grief I eventually emerged on the other side feeling clouds part, with rays of light shining down on me [shhhh spoilers] I could once again feel hope and it was potent.
College in general was quite a positive time for me overall, as I have mentioned in my regular posts on this blog, compulsory education in the UK ends at age 16 from then everything is considered further, and higher education, referring to college and university respectively. As this stage of education is entirely optional, the atmosphere is completely different, you are surrounded by people who are there because they want to be and you study specific subjects that you picked that you have an interest in, that creates a certain level of investment and focus that students tend to share. I got along with the people in my class, I had friends that I shared music with, and I had experiences that I still look back on with fond memories. The fact that every track on the album is positive and upbeat reflects the mentality I had at the time, and even now when I listen to any track from the album it still inspires the same thoughts and feelings I had at the time.
'Hung Up' spoke to me with the idea of unrequited love and how your life can grind to a halt when you forget to live in the moment constantly focused on something you're waiting for, 'Get Together' spoke to me for thoughts I had in college because of my latest crush, which again led nowhere as I was still in the closet at the time, although not for long as I came out near the end of my second year of college mostly because of the atmosphere I was in and the belief that no-one around me would have an issue with it and I was right for the most part. 'Sorry' in particular was one of my favourite tracks on the album, the lyrics "I don't wanna hear, I don't wanna know, Please don't say you're sorry, I've heard it all before, And I can take care of myself" are Universal, I don't think there's a single person who hasn't reached that moment at some time in their life where no amount of apologising will make up for what someone did, you just want them to fuck off and give you space.
My absolute favourite track on the album however is 'Forbidden Love' because of how seductive the lyrics are "Just one kiss on my lips, Was all it took to seal the future, Just one look from your eyes, Was like a certain kind of torture" just because I have felt the emotion pure and raw behind those lyrics where all it took was one taste and you were completely gone, I am not sure I believe in love at first sight but I sure as Hell believe in lust at first sight because that I know I have felt so many times, the guys that I have been infatuated with because of it I care not to admit but that feeling where all he has to do is look at you and smile and your heart stops oh fuck that feeling.
Confessions was and still remains my favourite Madonna album and for me nothing she produces will top it, there is another album that I appears on this list of hers that I have chosen to include but we will discuss that when we get there, and I'll pay reverence to Madonna herself in that post. For now suffice to say I have followed her career for most of my life, and I will continue to follow it, even when she produces music that I don't have an interest in, I still listen to it to form an opinion, I do give it a chance. Madonna is an entertainer who has experimented over the years and I am grateful for that experimentation because it has create a diverse collection of music that spans multiple genres, and Confessions served as her foray into EDM that I embraced with open arms, not only the official album but the singles, the remixes, and the bootlegs that went with it of which there is a plenitude - and yes I know Madonna's history, I know this wasn't her first venture and exploration of dance music and the EDM scene but this was the first time she did it when I was present and witness to it and at 17 it came at the perfect time for me so it has stayed with me, even now almost 15 years later I love this album just as much as I did when it was first released, there aren't many albums I can say haven't aged a day for me.
Music Monday #15: Riot! by Paramore
"I got a lot to say to you, Yeah I got a lot to say, I noticed your eyes are always glued to me, Keeping them here and it makes no sense at all"
- 'Crushcrushcrush' - Paramore
'Riot!' by Paramore was released in 2007 but it wasn't until 2008 that I was introduced to this album. This album was a gift to me from a guy I met in London who was obsessed with the band. We had been bonding over our music tastes and he was convinced I would love this album and bought it for me in HMV back when record stores still existed, do they still exist? The three years I spent in London at University expanded my horizons in many different ways, my music library was influenced during that time by many different people and this little gem is yet another reminder for me that curators can introduce you to much more than you would find on your own.
Crushcrushcrush was a track that hit home for me at the time, I was at the tail end of my second year of University emerging from the mind-fuck of the love chain in which I had been entangled. Paramore tapped into an anger I felt and a frustration with the concept of dating and trying to find someone in general. This ultimately gave way to a period of time I affectionately refer to as my "slut phase" where my literal reaction was to say "Fuck this, relationships are too complicated" and pursued nothing more than pleasure accepting that emotional needs could be satisfied by friends and family and guys would be reduced to nothing more than fuck buddies - spoiler alert this didn't end well for me as I have probably mentioned previously.
'Misery Business' epitomised the feeling of getting fucked over by making commitments that you keep but others don't and the anger in revelation that you feel when you learn the truth. This song in particular drew parallels with the head-space I occupied emerging from that love chain.
No track more than any other on this album however touched me more than 'That's What You Get' with the lyric "That's what you get when you let your heart win" which completely summed up how I felt exhausted by the unreciprocated emotional attachments I had formed for guys. Unrequited love had become a cliché in my life and I was tired of it. To top it all off however, despite spending years chasing guys, wanting a relationship when none of them wanted one with me, the second I give up on that idea and went out to explore my sexuality without limits, without wanting any commitment, that of all times was when guys started wanting something more with me, but I had been jaded and had become a pessimist and refused.
Who knows where any of those potential relationships could have went but that's what happens when the world fucks you over, you change your perception of the world and you move on, you become the person those experiences transformed you into. I longed for guys who weren't emotionally available and when I became one of those guys it was only then that other guys took an interest in me, the whole idea was fucked up to me and I didn't have the time, energy, or the patience to be able to process any of it, so as ever I turned to music and buried myself in the sound to drowned out the world and Hayley Williams has a voice that can drowned out the world with ease.
To round off the album 'Born For This' summed up my anger with the lyric "Everybody sing, Like it's the last song you will ever sing, Tell me, tell me do you feel the pressure now?" this was the mindset I adopted, to live for the moment like it was the last moment in every moment, and for a time I lived by that belief and pursued pleasure above all else.
- 'Crushcrushcrush' - Paramore
'Riot!' by Paramore was released in 2007 but it wasn't until 2008 that I was introduced to this album. This album was a gift to me from a guy I met in London who was obsessed with the band. We had been bonding over our music tastes and he was convinced I would love this album and bought it for me in HMV back when record stores still existed, do they still exist? The three years I spent in London at University expanded my horizons in many different ways, my music library was influenced during that time by many different people and this little gem is yet another reminder for me that curators can introduce you to much more than you would find on your own.
Crushcrushcrush was a track that hit home for me at the time, I was at the tail end of my second year of University emerging from the mind-fuck of the love chain in which I had been entangled. Paramore tapped into an anger I felt and a frustration with the concept of dating and trying to find someone in general. This ultimately gave way to a period of time I affectionately refer to as my "slut phase" where my literal reaction was to say "Fuck this, relationships are too complicated" and pursued nothing more than pleasure accepting that emotional needs could be satisfied by friends and family and guys would be reduced to nothing more than fuck buddies - spoiler alert this didn't end well for me as I have probably mentioned previously.
'Misery Business' epitomised the feeling of getting fucked over by making commitments that you keep but others don't and the anger in revelation that you feel when you learn the truth. This song in particular drew parallels with the head-space I occupied emerging from that love chain.
No track more than any other on this album however touched me more than 'That's What You Get' with the lyric "That's what you get when you let your heart win" which completely summed up how I felt exhausted by the unreciprocated emotional attachments I had formed for guys. Unrequited love had become a cliché in my life and I was tired of it. To top it all off however, despite spending years chasing guys, wanting a relationship when none of them wanted one with me, the second I give up on that idea and went out to explore my sexuality without limits, without wanting any commitment, that of all times was when guys started wanting something more with me, but I had been jaded and had become a pessimist and refused.
Who knows where any of those potential relationships could have went but that's what happens when the world fucks you over, you change your perception of the world and you move on, you become the person those experiences transformed you into. I longed for guys who weren't emotionally available and when I became one of those guys it was only then that other guys took an interest in me, the whole idea was fucked up to me and I didn't have the time, energy, or the patience to be able to process any of it, so as ever I turned to music and buried myself in the sound to drowned out the world and Hayley Williams has a voice that can drowned out the world with ease.
To round off the album 'Born For This' summed up my anger with the lyric "Everybody sing, Like it's the last song you will ever sing, Tell me, tell me do you feel the pressure now?" this was the mindset I adopted, to live for the moment like it was the last moment in every moment, and for a time I lived by that belief and pursued pleasure above all else.
Music Monday #14: Busted by Busted
Sticking with the theme of albums that were reissued, 'Busted' the self titled album by the Brit pop punk band was released in 2002, and then again in 2004. I've gone with the 2004 version here because that's the one I own, but I was aware of Busted before I got this album. In 2002 when the first issue was released I had just entered into my 4th year of High School. For those that don't know much about the school system in the UK and Northern Ireland in particular the first 3 years of High School are spent pursuing foundation subjects that everyone takes, and in the final 2 years you study electives these are subjects that you get to pick from a list what you want to study in particular. I chose Geographical Science, Art and Design, and Information Computer Technology, the only one of those that probably comes as a surprise is the first one but you should know I was an A* student when it came to science based subjects, I even won awards for my performance.
Art and Design in particular was a subject I loved not just because of the artistic expression and creativity that it let me tap into but also because the subject incorporated a lot of freedom, you got to decide what you wanted to focus on and what direction you wanted to take all you had to do was create art that referenced the themes you chose. The other reason that I loved art class was because the class itself was a little bit constructive chaos, the teach always had music playing, and classes could listen to whatever they agreed as a collective to listen to. This was fascinating to me because it was the first time I got to see the music taste of people I never really engaged with socially. EDM featured heavily in particularly over those two years the first 4 Clubland albums were played quite a bit, but in addition to EDM almost anything and everything that was in the charts at that time featured at some point including Busted.
'You Said No' and 'Year 3000' in particular were played quite a bit, by the time the album was reissued in 2004 I had finally made it through High School and felt relief and optimistic once more about my future as mentioned in another post 2004 saw a lot of changes in a short space of time and there was a sense of renewal that went with those changes. I don't listen to Busted that much now, as for their rivals McFly I never really got into their music, and the super-group they eventually formed McBusted when they put their rivalry aside completely passed me by. When the original trio finally reunited in 2015 and reformed the band I didn't pick up where I left off as I felt my music taste had diverged.
This touches on something I have alluded to in other posts however, that is the idea that art is static, that it incorporates a final product that encompasses the journey the artist made up until that point, whereas the artist themselves are dynamic and their journey continues. The journey that artists take is one that can go in many different directions and it isn't that you don't give any value or substance to what they created before or what they created after, but rather a reflection of who you are and the journey you are on in tandem. Art is about alignment, about paths crossing, and the connection or disconnection that occurs at that moment where those paths cross. Reissuing an album can let you connect with an artist that passed you by as it did for me with Katy Perry, but the journey and the new directions artists go in can also determine whether you connect with them. When I talked about Pink I mentioned that Missundaztood was not her debut album, likewise with Katy Perry they both had albums that existed prior but that incorporated musical styling that didn't appeal to me, there is another artist that will feature later in this list that also didn't appeal to me until their changed direction.
Busted with their reunion chose a different direction to pursue with their music, one that didn't appeal to me. That's not meant to undermine their work, just an admission that styles evolve and as with Jesse McCartney who I parted ways with, Busted serves as another one of those bands I dip into every now and then to see what they are doing but keep moving crossing paths only for a time then moving on. I understand the frustration that some fans feel when artists take new directions they don't like, and I can understand why some refuse to ever give them another chance after they give up on them but to me personally I recognise that everyone has a path to walk and their own sense of self expression that they want to exhibit, this is one of the few areas of my life where I have the maturity to look and say "This isn't for me" and move on, you still have the memories and the music is preserved to tap into that time in your life when it meant that much to you, you're not losing anything in the process other than potential, and potential by its nature is intangible.
Art and Design in particular was a subject I loved not just because of the artistic expression and creativity that it let me tap into but also because the subject incorporated a lot of freedom, you got to decide what you wanted to focus on and what direction you wanted to take all you had to do was create art that referenced the themes you chose. The other reason that I loved art class was because the class itself was a little bit constructive chaos, the teach always had music playing, and classes could listen to whatever they agreed as a collective to listen to. This was fascinating to me because it was the first time I got to see the music taste of people I never really engaged with socially. EDM featured heavily in particularly over those two years the first 4 Clubland albums were played quite a bit, but in addition to EDM almost anything and everything that was in the charts at that time featured at some point including Busted.
'You Said No' and 'Year 3000' in particular were played quite a bit, by the time the album was reissued in 2004 I had finally made it through High School and felt relief and optimistic once more about my future as mentioned in another post 2004 saw a lot of changes in a short space of time and there was a sense of renewal that went with those changes. I don't listen to Busted that much now, as for their rivals McFly I never really got into their music, and the super-group they eventually formed McBusted when they put their rivalry aside completely passed me by. When the original trio finally reunited in 2015 and reformed the band I didn't pick up where I left off as I felt my music taste had diverged.
This touches on something I have alluded to in other posts however, that is the idea that art is static, that it incorporates a final product that encompasses the journey the artist made up until that point, whereas the artist themselves are dynamic and their journey continues. The journey that artists take is one that can go in many different directions and it isn't that you don't give any value or substance to what they created before or what they created after, but rather a reflection of who you are and the journey you are on in tandem. Art is about alignment, about paths crossing, and the connection or disconnection that occurs at that moment where those paths cross. Reissuing an album can let you connect with an artist that passed you by as it did for me with Katy Perry, but the journey and the new directions artists go in can also determine whether you connect with them. When I talked about Pink I mentioned that Missundaztood was not her debut album, likewise with Katy Perry they both had albums that existed prior but that incorporated musical styling that didn't appeal to me, there is another artist that will feature later in this list that also didn't appeal to me until their changed direction.
Busted with their reunion chose a different direction to pursue with their music, one that didn't appeal to me. That's not meant to undermine their work, just an admission that styles evolve and as with Jesse McCartney who I parted ways with, Busted serves as another one of those bands I dip into every now and then to see what they are doing but keep moving crossing paths only for a time then moving on. I understand the frustration that some fans feel when artists take new directions they don't like, and I can understand why some refuse to ever give them another chance after they give up on them but to me personally I recognise that everyone has a path to walk and their own sense of self expression that they want to exhibit, this is one of the few areas of my life where I have the maturity to look and say "This isn't for me" and move on, you still have the memories and the music is preserved to tap into that time in your life when it meant that much to you, you're not losing anything in the process other than potential, and potential by its nature is intangible.
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