This Generation of Music

Okay so when Nicki Minaj first became popular with "Moment for Life" and "Super Bass" I was totally into her music. I loved both of the music videos because they both of the videos contained a lot of fantasy and imagination- plus a TON of pink. (My favorite color.) But when Anaconda came out, basically all of the respect that I had for her turned into disappointment. She wasn't a total bad role model before this song and it's video were released. Sure she swore and talked about sex a little in her songs, but she didn't over-do it. In Anaconda, she really made a statement. In case you want to refer back to the video, I'll post it below so you don't have to open another tab. 

This video has made my faith in humanity go down a smidge. I get that this is the 21st century, but I'm still a conservative person and I don't want to see a well-known potential role model for young girls in a thong with her whole butt hanging out. What is this teaching the young girls? I'll show you what this video is teaching them. 

I hate how the "Anaconda" video as well as our 21st century pop culture is shaping our young people. Girls are twerking at ages in the single digits, and boys are turning girls into sex objects at a younger age. I doubt that the younger generations of girls even know that they have self-worth. I hate to think that young girls these days think that they just have to jiggle their butt to find the right guy to fall in love with. Jiggling your butt isn't going to do much for you in life besides get you pregnant by some loser guy. 

A WAY better role model for girls in this generation would be Sara Bareilles. She is always fully clothed and doesn't sing about butts. Young ladies should look up to her because she sings about relateable, usually happy things that will keep their minds and their priorities straight. One particular song titled "Brave" fits this blog  because it's about how people don't need to conform or listen to every little thing that society does or says. The video is very cute; it depicts people dancing by themselves in public places. I hope you watch it and it makes you happy.

P.S.- Please stop any young girls that you see twerking. Thanks!

Keywest/The UK and Scotland

So the summer of 2012 I went on an adventure to Ireland, Scotland, and England with a few people from my community. It was purely a luxury trip, with no big intentions. We did the usual touristy things such as: visit the Blarney castle & kiss the Blarney stone (which locals have been known to pee on), walk the streets of Edinburgh, take pictures of Big Ben, and ride the London Eye (a huge-ass ferris wheel). 

^ That is the Blarney Stone which I kissed. It was so freaking scary because I was so high up and the only thing between my head and the ground below was three iron bars. Anyhow, on to how this post has to do with music. While we were walking and visiting shops down the main streets of Dublin, we noticed many street performers. There was one performer on stilts and breathing fire, many dressed up like characters such as Scooby-Doo and a Leprechaun, but there was one that stood out the  most to me. It was the band Keywest. They played two songs for a huge crowd gathered around, and even though I've bought all of their songs on iTunes, I still cannot identify the ones they played that day.

After they were done with their set they encouraged the crowd to come up and talk to them and buy their album, or buy it on iTunes. I did the latter. I was in a yucky purple jacket. I was not looking well enough to talk to four handsome men! Anyhow, throughout the whole rest of the trip I would listen to their album on repeat. It would help me get to sleep while I was on the tour bus, the lyrics they write are so relateable and specific. A big part of my trip was listening to their album on repeat while looking out the window at the gorgeous British scenery which often looked like this:

I encourage you to look up Keywest, follow them on Instagram and Twitter because they are pretty handsome lads, and be sure to listen to their songs while paying attention to the lyrics.

Ed Seeran's Concert Part 2 of 2

Okay so I left off with my friend Kaitlin and I just getting down to the scene of the concert where we were going to be standing directly in front of the stage! People did get there before us so we were about five rows of people back from the stage. We took pictures of how close we were and put them on Facebook and Instagram with the captions "Look how fucking close we are!" Kaitlin and I had never even dreamed of being this close to our favorite singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran. The opening act Rudimental started at 7:30. They were an instrument-oriented band with many singers that took turns singing lead. They had this one singer who was so beautiful. She was skinny and had super red lipstick. Her hair was cut like Miley Cyrus' but unlike Miley, this girl did not hump anything on stage. I was immediately jealous of her because she got to tour with Ed Sheeran and he was probably very attracted to her. Oh well. She sang one song that I had heard every day when I worked at Aeropostale. It was on the CD that corporate sent the store to play. I've posted the lyric video.
After the opening act got done we only had to wait about ten minutes until Ed would be on. We didn't scream too loud when he appeared on stage. I was just in awe. I hadn't seen many pictures of him and to be honest, his appearance does not match his voice. But that night he had a rough ginger beard so he was looking pretty hot. His first song was "I'm a Mess." At about the middle of the song I was crying. My dreams had come true. I was finally listening to Ed Sheeran live. I was in the same exact room as him! Only about 30 feet away. The crowd around us was pretty mellow, so I looked out of place. I was singing every word to every song and dancing to the beat of Ed's guitar. My favorite song that he sang that night was "Runaway." That song is about him running away from home when he was sixteen because his dad was a drunk. It's a very powerful song and it's relate-able to many kids these days who grow up in broken homes.

That night was honestly the best night of my life so far. I got to just let go and let the music carry me away. I plan to see Ed more often. My dream is to move to the UK to live a minimalist life so hopefully if I get to live out that dream, I get to see Ed many times. The last song he sang was "Sing." It's a very popular song on the radio. Before the song he told us to never stop singing the tune: "Woah a-oh oh Woah oh oh oh Woah oh oh uh-oh." (That was super hard to try to type out so forgive me if I missed an "oh".) But this really got to me because he was telling us that no matter what happens to us in life we need to just keep singing because that really all you can do.