Monthly Wrapped: What I’m Listening to in…April

This month I’m turning back the clock…

Throughout April I’ve been revisiting the music that started my love for listening to music. I’ve always been interested in performing, in being a part of dynamic shows and collaborating with others, but listening to music only became an important part of my life - as I suppose is often the case - during my early teenage years.

During my earlier years, my listening habits were defined by the use of portable CD, and later USB MP3 players (what a novelty!), primarily using my parent’s considerable collection of ‘Now, That’s What I Call Music’ albums. This sort of passive consumption doesn’t really lend itself to a discerning listening experience - the songs were mostly popular stuff I was hearing on the radio anyway: the likes of Coldplay, Razorlight (still holds up), and of course all time greats like Cascada and Basshunter (firmly condemned to the time capsule that is 2000s electronica).

Those early years listening to indie-rock, pop, and alternative artists did provide a strong musical base that has stayed with me until today. Indeed, many of the songs most popular with audiences remain 90s and 2000s favourites from Amy MacDonald, Shania Twain, Stereophonics and the like.

But it wasn’t until I began using my first streaming platform, Deezer, likely around mid-2013, that I finally discovered the breadth of great music available.

I started with an offering as good as any - the compilation album ‘Best of British’, which featured a variety of artists spanning 60s-present. ‘Valerie’, 'Maggie May’, and ‘Rocket Man’ were some early favourites, but it was the older songs that I remember really catching my ‘ear’.

As I started exploring the artists within the album, it emerged that my favourite song - as remains to this day - was The Who’s ‘Baba O Reilly’. I remember being absolutely awestruck at the sound: the wall of drums, the colour of the guitar, and lest we forget the positively cosmic synth intro. It was, in my estimation, the first ‘complete’ song I had listened to. It felt like I had been smashed by a veritable freight train of musical possibility, waiting to emerge from the void. It felt like possibility.

It wasn’t, of course, anywhere near to being apparent just how much possibility there was with regards to my relationship with music and performing. Not in my wildest dreams would I have for a moment considered that one day I might make a living singing the songs that I had grown up falling in love with.

All this is not to say that April’s playlist is exclusively a trip down memory lane - far from it.

While I think this month has perhaps been more contemplative - musically speaking - than the norm, I’ve also been exploring some newer favourites. Chappell Roan, for instance, has been a recent obsession of mine such that I now call myself a firm devotee of hers. I find her music to be some of the best to come out of the pop spheres for decades: both on a technical as well as a ‘vibes’ level. Sure, there’s ‘Pink Pony Club’ and ‘Good Luck Babe’, but for every all-time pop banger of hers there is an equally good ‘Casual’ or ‘The Subway’.

Hers must be one of the best debut albums ever by a pop artist. I will not be taking any questions on that matter.

If you only listen to one song in April…

Equally this month, I have found myself discovering some new (to me) music within my more familiar genres. Songs so good that I feel like kicking myself for not having discovered them sooner.

One such track has been ‘Starry Eyes’ by ‘The Records’, an obscure pop group that apparently seemed to disappear faster than they emerged on the scene in the late 80s. Their prowess launched them rapidly into the charts with this hit, before they promptly deflated, seemingly never to reach such heights again. Tragically, ‘Starry Eyes’ appeared to be one of the many one-hit wonders assigned to the histories of pop music.

The song though, in my opinion, has enough going for it to earn the band a place among the headlines of some more obscure of said histories. Between the electric (linguistic and literal) opening riff, and the absolutely unforgettable ear-worm-jingle-jangle melodies typical of the power-pop era; the song blasts itself straight into the centre of your brain, more or less refusing any invitation to leave. It is an equally surprising, as well as joyous, listen.

This month’s playlist serves as a reminder - to myself more than anything - to be wary of straying too far from your roots. Like the apple and the proverbial tree, we are more often than not destined to repeat the sins, and indeed the virtues of our forebears. I have come to realise that this is true, not only in a social, but also in a musical sense. No matter how far we come, we’ll always find our way back to our beginnings.

And after all, that’s not so bad.

Finlay