Hello and happy January to my lovely newsletter subscribers! I don’t know about you guys, but I haven’t showered since last year ;) He he.
Since my last newsletter I have moved back home, celebrated Christmas/2021, and cried roughly once a day. But the main thing is that I’m still utterly gorgeous so it doesn’t really matter.
I’m finding being at home for lockdown 3.0 a bit weird - it’s where I was for lockdown 1.0, and also loads of my life before that. It’s like #ThrowbackThursday but every day, and the throwback is to my hormone-fuelled anxiety-filled teenage years with no well fitting bras and loads of back acne (or, as we call it in the biz, ‘bacne’).
I’ve found myself regressing to that stage a little, instinctively. It’s a really lovely aspect of my personality that I can return to a house where I am warm, fed, and loved, and somehow still manage to be a bit of a brat. I think this is a classic Christmas #mood, so I put an end to the bratty behaviour in Jan, and went back to just my normal levels of bitchiness, which are still incredibly high. :)
This LOCKDOWN 3.0 X CHILDHOOD HOME collab (dropped Jan 1st on Pretty Little Thing) has significantly impacted one particular part of my life: my music taste.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a ‘good’ taste in music - I chose to have a personality instead. My music taste is anything I can dance to, or if it is sung by a hot person. This is most music.
As of 2021 however, I have reached a glorious new nostalgic peak and/or trough, depending on how seriously you take yourself. I am listening almost entirely to songs from my teenage years and haven’t made a single effort to hear anything new. I checked in briefly to try and understand ‘drivers license’ but it’s just a song that everyone likes because it’s a girl who is sad about a man.
I’ve decided to take you through what I like to call The Regression Sessions. This is a list of my chosen tracks, and some gorgeous (read: questionable) lyrics from them. I appreciate this is entirely for me, so I have included some jokes for your entertainment (@NobelPrize I’m waiting).
ARCTIC MONKEYS - SNAP OUT OF IT
Oh boy. There was a stunning phase in my life where I thought if I looked at enough pictures of Alexa Chung, I would absorb her bone structure via osmosis. Her relationship with Alex Turner was the bedrock of a certain corner of Tumblr in the early 2010s, one which I used to form my dream aesthetic for my mid teens (being thin). Now I prefer crisps to the patriarchy, but remain partial to a spot of Turner growling that he wants to give both my shoulders a shake.
THE WOMBATS - GIVE ME A TRY
Similar vibe to the above. ‘I just need you in that fur coat / With only my necklace on underneath.’ What a life! A girl can dream (of liking someone so much you’d risk cold vagina for them). The Wombats contributed to the idealistic image I have of London as somewhere filled with indulgent parties in basements and glitter and undercuts that don’t look bad. Currently, the only accessible part of this song to me is the line ‘Vicodin on Sunday nights’ because I’m currently on some pretty strong painkillers for the muscle I pulled in my lower back on my State Mandated Walk. I’m 22 for fuck’s sake.
TIMBALAND FT. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE - CARRY OUT
NOW WE’RE TALKING. Timbaland feat Timberlake? That’s a whole lotta timber and I am ready to build a home with it (I’m allowed to say shit like this because this newsletter is fundamentally free). I don’t think I could say anything funnier about this song that what Timbaland says in this interview:
We tried to give another slang for women. Instead of 'Your phat butt' or 'Your big breasts,' we say, 'Oh, I need you. Can I be your carry out? Be my carry out. I want you to be my dinner, my leftovers, my everything.' It's a different slang. We're grown men, I wanna be subliminal to females. Like, 'Oooh, carry out? That's kinda sexy.'
MIKA - LIFE IN CARTOON MOTION AND ALSO HIS OTHER SONGS
I actually just realised I know nothing about MIKA and whiled away a good half an hour deep in his Wikipedia page. Strong recommend. He practices transcendental meditation which, to me, is one of the chic-est things a man can do. Anyway, all of his songs make me want to shake my limbs around (dance). I also like the fact that every single note is SO high that it would be literally insane for me to try and sing along. But I still do.
MIKE POSNER - COOLER THAN ME
This song was written about me :)
Also I found this playlist which I have no recollection of making but speaks volumes:
LORDE - TENNIS COURT
I was recently reminded of this song/album by a gorgeous colleague of mine and it still slaps. And of course, I must give an absolutely massive shoutout to Lorde for making introspection and curly hair (my current brand) cool. In fact, when I was 16 I purposefully did my hair, clothes and make up like her in the hopes of encouraging comparison. I have, of course, stopped copying her now - but only because she’s not really only social media so I don’t know how she’s doing her eyeliner.
So those are some of the big hitters. I’ve popped them and some others in this playlist in case you’re an absolute freak and also want to listen to them. If a picture says 1000 words, I reckon a playlist says about 10,000 and most of them are cries for help. But this one simply harks back to a golden age of truly any time before 2020. Enjoy.
I imagine this will be my last time writing before I am snapped up by NME/Radio 1’s Prime Time DJing spot. See you all there!
xxxxxxx