the importance of being artistic.

Something I didn’t list in my aims for 2013, but that has become a focus for me early on in the year, is to reintroduce art back into my life. This stems initially from a throwaway comment Toby’s father made, asking me what hobbies I had. Generally, I don’t talk about my musical pursuits or my blogging with my family, because I would find it embarrassing to explain exactly what I do, or even worse, give examples of them to people who feel they have the right to judge and criticise you simply because they are related to you (which is not the same as having a close connection with someone. Some relatives we also enjoy a feeling of closeness and confidence with – for me, my mum, dad and grandmother; otherwise I tend to feel that my partner and my friends constitute the bulk of my “family”. If that makes sense.). It’s a similar thing about maintaining a boundary between your professional and personal life when you’re getting to know colleagues. Some colleagues may become friends, but I tend to be very careful and cautious about how much I let people know about me.

So through no fault of his own, Toby’s father has been shielded from the majority of my hobbies and personal pursuits, and is not aware of what I do outside of cleaning and maintaining the house. I dropped the word “blogging” with no further elaboration, and swiftly moved on to focus on my Italian classes. Unlike me, Toby is admirably open about his creative skills: he’s actually created a new blog dedicated to his knitting and culinary creations, which you should all check out. And so, in kind, I have decided to reactivate my drawing skills. I used to love Art at school, but I wanted to study languages and so I had to make the choice not to continue with Art after Year 9. I also was fairly decent at it, but after so long I wasn’t confident that I would be able to draw or sketch anything. I had made a few attempts during the less interesting lectures of my postgrad, but nothing more serious than preliminary tattoo designs (and we all know those turned out well enough anyway!). So after Toby gave me a pristine sketchbook he had never used, I decided to jump-start the year by buying a nice set of sketching pencils, one of those lovely tablet rubbers, and get drawing. My first attempt (sketching a white rose I found online) turned out like this:

It would appear that I still know how to draw! Since then I’ve done a couple of other things which I am really pleased with, and perhaps I’ll share some of them on here in time.

For my leaving present from Southbank, my colleagues bought my a Kindle, which was extremely touching. I am already a huge fan of it, because I do most of my reading when I’m on the tube or the bus, and my bag is now both less heavy and more roomy. I’ve also enjoyed browsing the online books in both the Amazon Kindle store and on Project Gutenberg. I’ve now read The Life of Pi (which I think is still available for a bargainous 20p), The Turn of the Screw and am currently starting Wuthering Heights. It’s wonderful that books published 100+ years ago are free to download, and I am taking the opportunity to enrich myself with classics I otherwise probably wouldn’t bother to read. Hannah sent me a great link to Stylist’s page on the best free books, which is a wonderful list to help get started on the Kindle (especially if you don’t want to spend too much money on brand new books at first).

Finally, another way I am seeking to enrich my life is through perhaps Toby and I attending some evening lectures. Over the past couple of years, we’ve been to the occasional talk, but as we are getting older, we haven’t got the energy to be out drinking every night (actually, I’m not certain we ever did!) but neither do we want to spend all of our evenings in. So in order to enrich ourselves, we could either do some exercise (I don’t know how successful that would be), or visit some exhibits, attend some lectures and listen to some interesting people. I have found a London Lecture List and already I’ve got some ideas for things that might be interesting. There’s also the second Vogue Festival in April, and I am certain that this year I’ll budget for it in advance and try to attend 🙂 If I indeed make it, I’m sure that I’ll cover the event on HOMME FATAL. It seems silly to stick to the TED app (which is an amazing resource) when we’re living in London and could go and see inspiring speakers in the flesh. This whole post is about jump-starting the year and seeking out new sources of inspiration in order to enrich and culture myself.

enter: 2013

I have found that writing a list at the start of each year has been a fairly successful way of realising at least some of my ambitions, as well as being able to look back at the previous year and seeing how far I have come. Since I started this blog back in 2009, each year has resulted in a lot of changes and accomplishments, which makes me incredibly happy!  So before I look at what I hope to have in store for 2013, I want to review my goals for 2012 and see how I did.

1. Learn to cook a new dish every month.

Tick… well, I got just over halfway before finally getting bored of this. I am just not one for cooking, and I really did not enjoy it. But after nine months’ worth of trying to make new dishes, I have learned some useful things and when I find myself in the situation of having to cook a meal, I can usually concoct something from whatever ingredients are in stock without resorting to a ready meal or pulling my hair out. So I think that that is progress!

2. Cut down on takeaways – to once a fortnight.

More or less! I think some weeks we do better than others, but we definitely have less takeaways than we used to. Hopefully we will renew our strictness with this rule over the coming year.

3. Move in with Toby.

Tick! This was one of the big achievements this year – we now are living together in our beautiful flat in Chiswick, and we are very happy.

4. Pay off my student overdraft.

Nope. Last time my car ate my money, this time the new flat and two wonderful holidays (to Paris and Prague) did it instead. But hopefully 2013 will be the year! Especially as I am being charged for using this overdraft now – so I’m fairly confident I will defeat it.

5. Learn Italian

Tick! In a couple of weeks, I will be starting my third term of learning Italian at the Italian Cultural Institute on Belgrave Square. My teacher Giuseppe is fantastic, and I really enjoy it.

6. Learn to sew

Tick! I think I learned this skill fairly early on into the year, and it’s been useful throughout. Now, I can repair holes and tears in tops, underwear, socks and trousers, and keep my wardrobe going a bit longer.

7. Finish my new album

Tick! Well, I finished 2526 – I had hoped it would be longer and wider in scope, but in the end the concept of the album dictated that I had to finish it in October. But nevertheless I am proud of it and I feel that the mood and quality of the songs represent another step forward for me musically.

8. Go completely digital with my music and film collections, and only keep physical copies of what I really love

Nope, not yet. I’ve managed to get all of my DVDs from Bristol to London, and the next thing is to get my CDs up here. I already sold a lot of the ones that I knew I didn’t want, but it’ll be easier to work out what I want to keep and sell once I have everything here in my flat, and can just put a pile aside for MusicMagpie or Cex or whatever. My iPod finally died in November after 4 years of faithful service, and though in previous years I would have had to run to the Apple store to buy a new one, this time I’m surviving with the (tiny) music library on my iPhone. Which I feel represents patience, maturity and restraint! As well as a concentration on what’s really important, and where my money needs to go. Eventually I’d really like another iPod but I can’t see myself getting one for another few months yet. So I feel that this aim is on hold for now – I’ll hopefully achieve it gradually, but in the meantime I prefer the tangibility of music and film purchases in any case. I am still learning to step into the future, I suppose!

—

5 / 5.5 out of 8 is perfectly reasonable, I think! And now, my list of goals and resolutions for 2013:

1. Quit smoking.

Toby’s never known me as a non-smoker, and I think it’s about time he did. It’s going to be difficult, and I don’t want cigarettes to have complete power over me to the point where I’m as much a slave to them having given up as I am being a smoker. I’ve already cut down quite a bit so now I just have to take the final leap. Going back to work will be difficult because I need the breaks and I will feel silly just walking around Notting Hill doing nothing, but I’ll work something out. I do enjoy a cigarette, and so perhaps every now and then I may have a cigarette socially – who knows. I’m trying to be loose about it at the moment, so that I don’t feel overly pressurised and that there isn’t a wagon to jump on / fall off of. But generally, this is the year I stop, and I know that I have the willpower (read: stubbornness) to do so. To muffle any temptation, I need to think of: the money I’m saving, my teeth not turning yellow, my blood pressure and life expectancy being improved, not smelling of cigarettes, and (most importantly) being healthy for Toby and showing that I value our love, life and longevity.

2. Pay off my student overdraft.

Third time lucky!

3 & 4. Get fit and toned, and write and record over half of my new album.

I was watching Skyfall with the delicious Daniel Craig, and I decided that I want his body. Except without quite so much effort, and my face shouldn’t be as aged as his. But he’s pretty amazing, physically. At the same time, I also decided that my new music has to be made with heart and soul, and in this way it will show my evolution. Hence my new life motto for this year is “Body and Soul” – I will look after my body and keep fit and hopefully lose some weight and tone up, and I will make music that is vibrant and true.

5. To sing live at least once, in front of an audience.

Because I haven’t done it in a long time, and I miss it!

6. Write a novel.

I already wrote a chapter of a novel a few months ago, but it trailed off and I haven’t done anything with it since. I have been inspired by Toby’s brother, who actually wrote a novel and got it published on Amazon and everything. I used to love creative writing ever since I was little, and so it’s a natural progression in a way for me to write a book. Watch this space…

7. Learn to moonwalk.

I love dancing, and I was watching the documentary for Michael Jackson’s Bad album and it suddenly occurred to me that learning to moonwalk would be something really fun. The only setback to this plan is that the floors throughout our flat are carpeted. But I wanted a goal that was quite light-hearted and fun, amidst all of the seriousness!

8. Pass Italian exam in the summer.

At the Italian Cultural Institute, at the end of each term you can take an exam to get a qualification demonstrating your proficiency in the language. By the end of this academic year (i.e. in July), I will have finished the upper intermediate class if all goes to plan – and so I think it would be good to have a recognised qualification stating my ability in the Italian language. So this is something that I want to achieve too. At the same time, I am hoping that I will continue reading literature in both Spanish and Italian to maintain my fluency in both of those languages (if I have to sacrifice one of my languages, I guess it would be French.)

9. Teach Toby how to play chess.

We have a nice wooden chess set on our coffee table, and I can’t believe that Toby is so intelligent and yet does not know how to play chess. So I will teach him – it’s an important life skill and keeps the brain active and from being rotted by episodes of 30 Rock and The Big Bang Theory.

10. Start saving up a deposit for a house.

I know, we only just moved into the Chiswick flat! Toby and I really like this area of London, and so it’s gonna be a long time before we can actually afford something here. But why not start now? This is something that will happen once I have finished paying off my overdraft (see number 2) but I hope that by the end of the year, I will have put some new money in my festering ISA that can be ultimately used for the deposit on a lovely flat or house.

Wish me luck, and good luck with your resolutions and goals for the year ahead!

Mariah Carey – Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel review.

Finally, it’s here (unless, like me you live in the UK in which case you are expected to wait until NOVEMBER 16TH!!!!  I will be buying the import collector’s version on Amazon, which drops on Tuesday.) – Mariah Carey’s new album, Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel.  Preceded by the lead single “Obsessed”, which has done very well but not shot to number one (leading certain people to brand it a ‘flop’ all the same), several questions were being asked of this CD: “Is Mariah’s voice really shot?” (No.) “Is it better than Whitney’s album?” (Yes.) “Does the fact that The-Dream and Tricky Stewart produced the whole album make it a bit monotonous?” (No… not really.  A couple of the songs are somewhat repetitive and reminiscent of other The-Dream tracks, but Mariah’s input and The-Dream’s variety are pleasantly surprising.) “Why did Mariah push her CD back? Was she running scared?” (No; she was making a cohesive R&B album and taking the time to make it perfect.)  Listening to the finished product makes this clear – where The Emancipation of Mimi (Mariah’s “comeback” “classic” album, which is possibly her least cohesive effort and contains some fantastic tracks surrounded by the most filler in any of her albums this decade) and E=MC² were literally a collection of songs, Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel takes you on a unified journey the way that Mariah’s best 90s efforts, the seminal Butterfly and Rainbow, and yes, even 2002’s Charmbracelet did.

Mariah’s vocals are stronger now than they were on Charmbracelet, though she often employs her whisper voice in place of full belting.  As it did on Butterfly, this gives the songs an intimate feel which brings out the intricate emotions inherent in her lyrics.  Standout “H.A.T.E.U.”, which means “Having A Typical Emotional Upset”, at first sounds like an angry-woman-scorned missive thematically similar to other songs on the album, but it is emotionally vulnerable as Mariah finds herself in a place where she misses her lover, but doesn’t know what to do with herself other than “change her number” and “move away” in an attempt to get over him and begin to move on.  The emotional limbo echoes in the production, which employs a hard-hitting slow beat and a baby’s cries along with Mariah’s whistle register.  Her high-pitched wails are a massive feature of this album, and are present on many of the songs – according to various tweets, Mariah wanted to explore using her upper range as a texture in homage to Minnie Riperton.  Just as on Rainbow‘s “Bliss”, on tracks such as “H.A.T.E.U.”, “Ribbon” and “Angel (Prelude)”, Mariah’s stratospheric notes come across less as an opportunity to showboat than as a genuine part of the song’s instrumentation and setting the mood.  At the album’s climax, a tasteful cover of Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is”, Mariah lets loose with gospel melisma and ecstatic squeaking to emphasise her joy and rapture in finally finding true love and encountering happiness after the ups and downs and broken relationships explored throughout the course of the album.  The only criticism of this song is that it ends far too quickly, robbing the listener of the climax – as soon as the vocal and musical apex is reached, the track is fading out!!! Here’s hoping that a longer edit of the song will surface.  But the point is that Mariah Carey is using all the ranges of her impressive voice for legitimate reasons – to serve the song and its mood, musical instrumentation, lyrical punctuation and emotional expression.  If there is any proof required that Mariah has grown as a singer, this album is it – even if she doesn’t belt as happily as she used to, her voice serves the songs more.

Having said that, Mariah also embraces radio trends on some of the more uptempo numbers.  Lead single “Obsessed” is one of a few tracks to use auto-tune.  Another question: “Why does someone with Mariah Carey’s voice need to use auto-tune?”  This is a somewhat valid question, but I think that Mariah is just trying to stay current and have fun.  Although some of the album’s slower material is more weighty and emotionally deep, songs like “Obsessed”, “Up Out My Face” and “More Than Just Friends” (which contains some fantastic lyrics such as “Secretly I know you wanna hit it like the lotto / And after that we can ketchup like tomato / We can make love in Italy in the grotto / Fresh off the jet at the Met they screamin’ bravo”) are designed to keep the BPMs up, keep things light and moving briskly, and create songs which have sharper lyrics and fun, bouncy melodies.  The marching band “reprise” of “Up Out My Face” is a fantastic, creative interlude that really knocks, and would have been great as an extended song – it harks back to one of Mariah’s performances of “Shake It Off” (perhaps the Thanksgiving Parade performance? I don’t remember… if anyone knows, feel free to comment!).  “Standing O” is another hard-hitting uptempo track that gathers its intensity as Mariah applauds an ex-lover for breaking her heart – “All you did was pound on it”.  The beats accumulate towards the end of the song, as Mariah’s voice gets more insistent and an almost operatic soprano punctuates her despair.  Although it had to grow on me somewhat, I am really enjoying the track.

There are a couple of tracks where I differ from what I understand to be the general consensus, according to other forum and blog comments, as well as video reviews of the album I’ve seen on Youtube.  “Ribbon” has been garnering comments such as being ‘overproduced’ with its distorted hooks forming part of the music, and more of a crunk beat than other tracks, really hitting hard.  From what I understand, people are saying the track is a bit overcooked and Mariah gets lost in it – I disagree! I love the song, its music is dark and percussive, but Mariah’s syrupy vocals and lyrics “Wrapped up, wrapped up, ribbon with a bow on it” sit on top of all that like the icing on a cake.  It’s actually one of my favourite tracks on the album, and although it is a typical The-Dream track that could have easily fit on his Love vs. Money album, I don’t think that it suffers for that – there’s not another track like it on the album, so it stands out.

Whereas my only weak track, which other people seem to love, is “It’s A Wrap”.  Mariah pours wine at the beginning of the track, so I guess we are supposed to relax into it, but the doo-wop beat and sparse piano forces the song to melt away and become unmemorable.  The lyrics are somewhat lackluster compared to the zingers on other songs such as “Up Out My Face” (“If we were two Lego blocks, even the Harvard University Graduating Class of 2010 couldn’t put us back together again” !!!!!!) and “More Than Just Friends”, or to the emotional heft of ballads such as “H.A.T.E.U.”, “The Impossible” and “Angels Cry”.  The only line that “It’s A Wrap” has going for it, IMO, is “It’s going down like a denominator” – and you have to wait for the end of the song to get to that bit.  Just a bit lackluster for me – but other people love it, so you may love it too and we’ll agree to disagree.

Earlier I compared Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel to classic Mariah albums Butterfly and Rainbow.  This becomes apparent during the album’s closing stretch – though on “Candy Bling” and “Inseparable” Mariah offers a relaxed yet absorbing throwback vibe (to former Mariah tracks “Yours” and “We Belong Together”, respectively), and on opening ‘prologue’ “Betcha Gon’ Know” Mariah masterfully weaves an absorbing tale of heartbreak and infidelity just as she wrote spellbinding descriptive lyrics on classic “The Roof” – it’s not until “The Impossible” that we really seem to penetrate into Mariah’s heart.  The sexy R&B feel gives nods to Jodeci and provides a classic texture that once more exemplifies just how much is missing from 2009-typical R&B. Hopefully this is a sign that older R&B values are coming back around – although Mariah popularised the trend of female singers working with rappers, Memoirs does not boast a single collaboration and is all the better for it.  “Angels Cry” is a heartfelt ode to love lost that sounds like classic Mariah, and of course there is the closer “I Want To Know What Love Is”.  These last two tracks really ratchet up the emotional impact of Mariah’s album, where other tracks are lighter and more fun, or restrained slower material – and make sure that it goes out on a high.

Okay, so I am a big Mariah Carey fan, and I am bound to say that I love the album.  For me, it’s a real album that flows (hence the various reprises and little flourishes that help the songs segue together sonically as well as thematically) rather than just a collection of songs.  The lyrics and vocals work together to compliment each song’s mood, content and impact.  And apart from “It’s A Wrap”, I really enjoy every track on the album.  So for me, taking the songs individually, they are winners, but the album as a whole is elevated beyond the sum of its parts to something quite special.  In my opinion, this is why it stands head and shoulders above Whitney Houston’s I Look To You (certainly not an album which has a cohesive feel, and I only like half of the songs anyway) as well as nearly every other album I’ve heard released in 2009.  This is where Mariah Carey is not only a gifted singer and vocalist, but an artist who keeps working at and developing her craft as a writer, producer and someone who envisions how her project should sound from start to finish.  Check the credits: Mariah Carey is Executive Producer, Album Producer, and a producer and writer on every single song (apart from the cover version).  As a singer, a songwriter and an artist, she is what I aspire to be, and Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel is, like Butterfly and Rainbow, an example of her at her very best.

veterans.

I opened up Crunk + Disorderly yesterday morning and was confronted by this post about Cyndi Lauper & Lil’ Kim’s recent performance at the Nelson Mandela concert.  Kim looked fantastic (better and better, certainly an improvement on recent years, with her weight back down and her face not looking so exaggeratedly plastic), and I was intrigued to watch the performance.

I was blown away.

Okay, Cyndi Lauper sounded like a goat at the start, and I’m not used to hearing the classic “Time After Time” over a hip-hop-lite beat.  But then Kim opened her mouth and sang, and my jaw dropped to the floor. Kim is a fantastic rapper, and the undisputed best female we have (especially since Foxy, Eve and Lauryn have all but vacated their seats) in the current game.  I remember ordering her Notorious KIM album from amazon, and bringing it to school on the day it arrived and causing a storm because I was listening to explicit material (I was 14! but it was a private school, so who knows 😉 ).  I did feel a thrill in playing it to my friends and listening to a woman spit explicitly sexual rhymes over exciting space-pop-hop beats, and ultimately I’ve become a fan of hers who possesses all her albums.  Her records are never anything less than lyrically complex and sonically thrilling.  But between albums, Kim doesn’t seem to be so consistent with her promotion nor her other ventures, so this video of her singing “Time After Time” was a beautiful surprise.  As was the fact that, although she sounded a little shaky (although she’s gotten flack for ‘singing’ on her rap records, she generally keeps in tune and the songs are always fun and playful), her voice was beautiful and hit the notes more or less consistently through the performance.

When it segued into “Lighters Up”, and Kim and Cyndi both traded rhymes, I was impressed at both of them for fusing their styles into something heartfelt and potentially classic: it was an unforgettable moment.  I hope you enjoy the video, because after her run on Dancing With The Stars was unfairly cut short, Kim seems much more dedicated to proving just competent and talented an entertainer is, and showing us more facets of who she is other than through rapping.  It was something a little different, but taking risks does pay off, and Lil’ Kim proved she is a veteran of the rap game who can do things other rappers just don’t do (Lauryn did, but not anymore… I guess Missy and Queen Latifah are also exceptions, but then they’re also veterans too, in their own ways).  I hope you enjoy the performance as much as I did.

This goes to show that the truly talented can never be counted out: Madonna, Mariah Carey, Jay-Z, among many others always have a fanbase to come home to, as long as they keep displaying their talented and the reason why they are legends.  Whitney Houston’s new album I Look To You will drop in August, and I have a feeling it might be her turn now… although the leaked tracks from the record don’t sound amazing, the set looks like it will sound classy and restrained and come from an emotionally mature place following her troubles of the past few years.  At the end of the day, if you still have it, then you have nothing to be afraid of because nobody can take your talent away; you have to surrender it.  And in the long run, it’s the veterans who never give up.