Musically Speaking

I knew this was going to happen. I have been struggling to finish a post, for hmm about seven months now, and only when I am stressed, overworked and exhausted, do I find inspiration to finish writing something, well anything other than the essay I need to get done by 9am tomorrow morning.

I think I am the strangest person I have ever met. I wonder if that is a valid statement, because surely you don't ever meet yourself. If it were physically possible, then I would actually be the strangest person I have ever met. I tell myself I work best under pressure. However, the past few weeks have disputed that. I started off this year well, being very conscientious with the tutorial prep, and things have been running rather smoothly, overlooking the daily panic attacks. Then our lovely tutors decided to surprise us with a 2500 word essay, and I am sitting here two days before the deadline, still on my first skeleton plan. Bugger. I can see myself falling into that vicious last-minute, panic-attack inducing, fattening (I do consume far more wotsits per hour during all nighters), and just generally unhealthy cycle. I'm consoling myself with the fact that this is merely a practice essay. The real coursework kicks in first week of December, and then I plan to be far more organised. Well I plan to be. Now that I have written it down, I am going to hold myself to it.

This post isn't really about anything specific, and I doubt anyone is even going to bother reading it. If you did, then I appreciate it. Really, I do.

There are however, two things that I did want to mention. Actually, make that three.

Firstly, I have an obsessive, compulsive disorder of iTunes shopping. I think I must have dished out about thirty quid on random stuff. Although, the new John Legend album is stellar, and I would recommend it very strongly. It has a lovely, motown'esque feel to it. Slow Dance is particularly old school. He brings together a strong jazz influence to it, which complements his soul genre. I've noticed how a lot of artists are reworking jazz and motown, which I think, reiterates that the Jazz andMotown years were the best years for music.

I've stumbled across some of the works of Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen. The latter is more commercial, and not as talented as the former. Although I only noticed Allen's lack of vocal talent when it was pointed out to me by a friend. She's quite tongue in cheek though, and brings together a rather eclectic mix of jazz, and ska. I particularly like her reworking of 50 cent's Window Shopper, with Nan, You're a Window Shopper. Urban music is so standard, it's hilarious. Don't get me wrong, I'm an urban music junkie, but it does bemuse me. Lily Allen captures that precise perspective. I doubt she is going to be one of those artists who produce consistently good music, but hey I could be wrong.

Amy Winehouse on the other hand, is a right laugh. I listened to some of her music last year, and really enjoyed it. She has a stronger jazz influence than Allen, and a lot of her tracks have the 'big band' feature, which I think compliments her masculine, almost Nina Simone'esque, voice rather well. I have taken a fancy to Me and Mr Jones, which is a spin on the Marvin Gaye classic, in a more feminist take. It is marvellous, and I would call it one of my favourite tracks of the year. It has got this brazen cheekiness to it, similar to Allen, yet in a grander fashion. Thikshana had seen Amy Winehouse on the Charlotte Church Show, where she and Charlotte Church performed a rendition of Beat It, and apparently Winehouse had been sloshed off her face. I found that quite hilarious, and like her even more.

The next thing I was going to mention was the new Borat movie, which I was dragged along to. Yes, dragged. Honestly, Borat doesn't amuse me as much as everyone said it would. However, I'm going to leave that for my next post, as I really do need to get back to my essay.

PS - Apologies for the rather unimaginative title, but I couldn't think of anything random enough to stick on there.