It all started with Britney Bitch. My very first album's cover featured Britney Spears with her top casually falling off. In retrospect maybe an odd choice of present for your 7 year old grandchild, but I can’t say I felt anything but love for Brit.
The best track was undoubtedly I’m a slave 4 u (unsurprisingly track 1, I had the attention span of 7 year old after all). I’m sure my parents and teachers were faintly horrified by the cat inspired dance routine I self-choreographed. It was certainly a rapid departure from Jock Rock (or the Scottish alternative BBQ music) that I had grown up with. But perfect timing for our imminent move to the most cliched of all American cities, Houston Texas Baby.
Unfortunately Queen Bey was far from my radar. It was onto a new genre…movie soundtracks. I have no idea why I owned such a large collection of teen movie albums, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact I had no knowledge of musicians apart from Enya and S Club 7. There were definite highs (Shrek 1 and 2 still 100% bangers) and crushing lows (the Princess Diaries 2 soundtrack I am still mortified).
I grew older, Beth aged 9 would have said wiser, Beth now says she watched far too much VH1. I discovered a band whose lead singer I would inexplicably fall for. He was 22 years older, looked like he needed a wash and really overdid it in the eyeliner department. It was Billie Joe Armstrong, teen heart throb (arguably) and lead singer of Green day.
I kid you not I would sit with compact disk player in hand, staring out the window tears rolling down my face, thinking there was no song more powerful than Time of Your life. In my more upbeat moments Hitchin’ A Ride served as the background for many a road trip and yes more terrible dance routines (although with reduced animal impressions). Boulevard of Broken dreams, and When September Ends were ballads I particularly liked to scream along to in the car #angst.
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| My Love. |
At some point (i’m thinking around 10) I finally ditched the compact disc player. I was gifted with the first music player I could take running without the disc freezing, the song rewinding and the CD being irreparably scratched. It was the OG i-pod Nano.
After downloading all the essentials: Sean Paul -Temperature, Shakira -Hips Don’t lie, Crazy Frog etc. I was at a loss. Aside from the Top 40 I had no idea what music I liked. It was then I found the first album that would change my life. An album that to this day remains one of my very favorites.
It all happened before one of our middle school discos (dances for you Americans). For some reason I was getting ready at the house of a boy I had a massive crush on. I’d like to say here that we were not friends and it was definitely love from afar (far far far away). We all piled into his Mum’s mini-van and sped off to school. The boy in question was renowned for his musical taste (at least in my mind) and started going off about some band he’d seen in Brighton. Apart from thinking he was the epitome of cool and sophistication I was desperate to casually name drop artists i’d just “randomly watched at a festival”. He preceded to play the album Inside i=In/Inside out. And that’s when I fell out of love with 11 year old ‘I go to festivals alone with my older English mates’ and in love with Luke Pritchard lead singer of the Kooks.
