fear and self-loathing.

Lately I’ve noticed something about myself that never used to be the case.  Part of the idea of this blog is that I can use it to look at myself, examine my emotions and think things through.  It’s cathartic for me to write, but it’s also a way of me holding up a mirror to myself and trying to untangle emotions and confusion in my brain and heart.  By ordering things on the page and trying to make them as logical / rational as possible (which it isn’t always!) I can sort things out so that I can understand them myself, just as much as so that you all can understand, relate to and empathise with what I’m going through (and hopefully touch those of you who are or have been going through the same).

However, I now can’t tolerate the idea of doing personality quizzes, self-assessment or delving into my past and my psyche in a semi-public arena.  For not the first time, on Tuesday afternoon we had a class about psychometric testing and using these tests to determine a person’s aptitudes and skills.  This was fine, it was quite interesting and we did some example questions on verbal & non-verbal reasoning, numeracy, and spatial and mechanical awareness.  We then moved on to those psychometric tests which can be used to assess personality.  Now, although our lecturer dutifully informed us that we were all a mixture of every type of personality, and that every combination was positive, my back was immediately up.  As the example questions began, I felt a violent urge to disengage from the class and decided to quickly fill in my answers and then doodle on my page, not talking to anyone and not joining in any discussions sharing types, answers and anecdotes.  I wasn’t interested, I felt that a quiz of 8 questions (we did a very shortened version, since the full test is 88 questions!) was NOT enough to diagnose who I am, and I wasn’t interested in what anyone else had to say, whether anyone else felt that they really were what the quiz said they were or whatever.  I just wanted to get out.

I was talking to Mike, and later Toby, about my reaction – I was in a bad mood for several hours after this.  Why had I reacted so negatively to it?  Part of it is genuinely that I do not think that any quiz has a right to put me in a box or tell me who I am.  Because of this, as a careers adviser I myself probably would not use psychometrics to “analyse” clients, since that would be pretty hypocritical seeing as I can’t complete one myself (though once I had calmed down, I later on looked up my answer to the quiz, and while it was pretty flattering and seemed valid enough, I took it with a pinch of salt and forgot about it).  So I don’t like being generalised, and I don’t like being told who I am by somebody or something which evidently thinks it knows better, and which claims to be able to penetrate to the core of me in a matter of minutes.  I’m much more complex than that – we all are! – and I think that should be respected.  That’s part of it.

But part of it, if I am totally honest, is perhaps that I just don’t want to analyse myself in that way, and certainly not in a room with other people.  If it truly is going to delve into my psyche (which I still doubt), then the result should be for me and me alone.  Maybe a little bit of me is scared about what if it says something that really is undeniably true, but also that I utterly detest and despise?  Does that mean I am scared of myself? I hate myself?  What does that mean?  The fact is that this isn’t the first time I’ve reacted like this to delving into my past and my background (educational and personal) during class activities.  It’s probably the third, if I remember rightly.  I never used to be like this, and it concerns me a tiny bit – what am I so afraid of?  Why do I have such a sudden, strong negative reaction?  This reaction is only worsened by the fact that I know I’m overreacting – Mike said that he doesn’t take the quizzes seriously as they are usually a bunch of nonsense, and I know he’s mostly right.  Is it the fact he might be a tiny bit wrong that fills me with dread?  Is it dread that I’m filled with, or is it self-loathing, confusion or ignorance?  What’s going on with me?

The most rational thing that I can think of is that I’ve worked so damn hard to become the best person I can be, to become the person I’ve always wanted to be.  Over the years I’ve raised my intelligence, lost weight, learned to write, sing and produce my own music which I now market (check it out here!), made a lot of progress towards looking the way that I want to, become a lot more sociable and popular, made some wonderful friends, and I am proud of the person that I have become, while I still acknowledge that I have plenty further to go before I feel remotely satisfied with my achievements in life.  I’ve changed a lot – superficially, I’ve lost a lot of weight, stepped my fashion game up, dyed my hair and exercise regularly while watching what I eat.  Even though I’m plenty insecure inside, I know how to portray confidence and appear secure because at the end of the day, if I chicken out and don’t do something, it doesn’t get done and I regret not trying.  I’ve made all this personal progress and tried to change and improve the person that I am so much to be the better man that I want to be, aim to be… so what if one of these personality tests shows all that progress to be an illusion?  What if I’m just the same person as I was before, before I came so far?  Deep down, can we ever evolve? I believe I’ve evolved, I’ve grown a lot… it doesn’t feel like a lie.  I know logically that a quiz cannot discredit the progress I feel that I’ve made – the only person that can measure that is me.  But if it cut me down and put me back at square one, what then? What if it all means nothing and I’m destined to be the same person I used to be?  Is that what I’m afraid of?

I just don’t know.

quiet storm track walkthrough (part iii).

(clicky) Quiet Storm (album download) (clicky)

Here’s part 3 of the track walkthrough for my new album Quiet Storm.  Enjoy, download the album if you haven’t heard it (at the link above or the one at the foot of the page) and find parts 1 & 2 of the track walkthrough too, if you haven’t read those. 🙂

12. Rain (Interlude)

This was nothing more than a simple segue between “Quiet Storm”, and the literal idea of a storm, and the next track, “Jump Off (Part II)” which has a very dark, sad feel.  I thought that the rain was effective, atmospheric, and also reminds me of the interludes on Janet Jackson’s janet. album where there would be short, simple interludes of rain and wind which would keep the mood flowing.

13.  Jump Off (Part II)

This song is another of my favourite songs on the album, and is one of the more personal tracks also.  Lyrically, it discusses feeling like even when you fall for people, they can tell you the nicest things but by next week, you’re old news and they’re onto the next.  It’s about feeling used, even if you were down for it at the time, but realising that just because someone tells you that you’re beautiful or that they love you, doesn’t mean they mean it.  So in the song, I’m wondering whether even in all my dalliances over the past couple of years, I’ve let my heart get hurt all the time when it was just about sex and I should have just focused on the fun.  Musically, I like the combination of the deep beats and the music box / piano over the top, which gives it a combination of darkness and fragility.  Originally, the song was going to be a straightforward R&B ballad (and you can hear a snippet of the original version on my High Fashion mixtape), but having heard The-Dream’s original version of Mariah Carey’s “H.A.T.E.U.” (as well as the snippet of her version, on the fantastic Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel) I was inspired to totally revamp the track, restructuring the lyrics somewhat as well as making the music much more R&B and much more emotional and sensitive.  I think it worked, and I was so pleased with the way that this track turned out.

14. Devastate Me

This song is based on a track that is allegedly an instrumental from Britney Spears’ Blackout sessions (IMO, her best album along with In The Zone), since I found it on a mixtape with lots of other songs.  If you listen closely in the background, then you can hear what sounds like tiny snatches of Britney’s voice once or twice.  Anyway, I liked the dark, intense feel of the track, along with its pulsing beats and menacing strings, so I just decided to write some lyrics over the top of it.  The idea of feeling devastated seemed to go with the dramatic nature of the music, and lyrically the song speaks about somebody having you wrapped around their finger, and even though you might be in love with them or have formed some attachment to that person, you still know that they’re not necessarily good for you, and at any moment they could let you down or leave you in the dust, and you’ve put so much effort into loving them that you’re left with nothing – devastated.  The idea of knowing this is where the line “you done tricked me twice so the shame is not on you” comes in – you know exactly what you’re letting yourself in for, you just can’t make yourself resist, however hard you try.  It’s a tricky and intense situation!

15. Kissing You

This song was a really happy accident!  Some of the tracks on here took months of planning and development to come to fruition production-wise, whereas this took maybe a day or so.  I remember waking up in the morning and just having the refrain “Kissing you…. all I can think of is” going round and round in my brain.  One of the songs that inspired the whole nocturnal, R&B/dark concept of the album (when I was deciding what kind of feel I wanted to explore for my next project) was the track “When We Kiss (Missing You)” by an old girl group, Solid Harmonie, which I used to listen to when I was about 13 or 14!  So I doubt many people will recognise the sample of that song, which is what this track is based upon.  The deep, sparse bass and Japanese martial-arts type yell are from that song, as well as the bridge (which sneakily uses the girls’ vocals as backing, while I sing over the top).  I accentuated the oriental aspect of the production by adding some piano and shamisen to the mix, as well as extra beats towards the end.  I wanted the song to be mysterious, as its about an obsession that you can’t explain or logically untangle, but something that you can’t resist and just have to follow.  It’s where your heart rules your head, be it through lust or love.  The song is focused on the physical (a kiss) but also the emotional, of a love arriving when you least expect it and taking over your world.  The negative (as explored in “Jump Off (Part II)” and “Devastate Me”) ceding to the positive (this song and the next).  Love triumphing.  This song is one of the sexier songs on the record, even though it’s not really about sex.  It’s one of my favourites too, as it really has that mysterious, nocturnal feel that I wanted to be the overarching theme of the album.  It’s subtle, yet intense.

16. In Love

Like the last track, this song is largely built upon a girl-group sample.  In this case, it’s Mis-Teeq’s “It’s Beginning To Feel Like Love”, which was an album track from Eye Candy.  I liked the spacey feel of the song (a track that didn’t make it into the album or the mixtape was actually called “Space”), and I wanted to write a ballad that was very chilled, that you could relax to.  I said that I thought “Secret” was possibly the most romantic track on Quiet Storm, but perhaps this gives it a run for its money.  It’s just about how happy love can make you feel, and how unexpected the intensity of that happiness can be.  It’s about feeling untouchable in the midst of love, and about all your pain being healed by your feelings for that other person, and their reciprocation of those feelings towards you.  It’s a very optimistic, healing track lyrically, and the calmness of the production adds to that.  I added in some piano (again!) in the bridge to give it a little extra kick towards the end.

17. Come Home To Me

For me, this track is definitely going to be a single from Quiet Storm.  It’s very short and sweet, very immediate, and the beat is quite reggae-inspired, despite the overall feel of the production being straightforward R&B/pop.  The thunder rumbling at the very start of the song fits in with the overarching idea of a “Quiet Storm”, but it also represents the lyrical motif of the song, saying that although we had storms in the past, it’s time to get over it.  It’s about a lover who may have been unfaithful or made mistakes, so you had a bust-up, but now you’re ready to forgive them and give things another try.  It’s about recognising that sometimes, even though we may try to be strong and independent, ultimately we have to forgive someone’s transgressions and not cut our nose off to spite our face.  That’s not always the right message, and sometimes someone may do something too serious to be able to let them back in.  But when it’s the little things that cause a breakup, with time you can see whether it’s really worth being alone or whether it’s better to forgive and make up.  The song steals from Rihanna’s “Umbrella” towards the end, with the “forever ever ever eh eh eh” at the end – that was just a little bit of fun!  The backing vocals in the second verse are also inspired from a nu-classic Janet Jackson track, “Take Care”, from her 20 Y.O. album, which IMO is one of her best works and seriously underrated – another track which infused the concept and production within my album.

The final part, iv, coming soon!  Keep it locked, and thankyou all for the support once again. 🙂

(clicky) Quiet Storm (album download) (clicky)