I've been waiting ages to finally have enough time to write this post..... IT'S FINALLY HERE!
A bit about Nina- she's a Scottish (brownie points there am I right?) singer-songwriter, she plays the guitar, piano and flute, started her music career on YouTube but was a teenage model until she met and dated Ed Sheeran who (I'm assuming) got her to start producing and pursuing her music career more. She toured with him and Example and then started releasing EPs, and finally released an official album 'Peroxide' in early 2014. She spent the year touring and playing festivals, and she just finished touring the UK with The Vamps last month.
I started listening to Nina after listening to Ed's song about her (you've probably heard it, it's literally called 'Nina') for a week practically non-stop. I'd already known she made music but I hadn't ever really heard anything by her so, mostly just out of procrastination, I decided to check her out.
It was practically love at first listen... if that's a thing? Nina's songs are so easy to fall in love with. In a lot of ways she writes like Taylor Swift, meaning she writes songs that you listen to and just think 'YES, THIS IS HOW IT THIS IS HOW I FEEL SHE PUT IT IN WORDS'. Her lyrics are mostly about her... I was going to say love life and finding herself but I really think her lyrics are just about her, and her life and things she goes through and okay yeah a lot of them are about boys but they're the kind of songs that can relate to so many situations. I'm pretty sure I've related 90% of her songs about relationships to one of my situations even when at least 75% of them were probably written about a situation completely different to my own. Don't do the math, all you need to know is her music is the kind of music you can listen to no matter what you're going through and immediately feel comforted and understood.
In terms of her sound, it's pretty much just straight up acoustic, she has a very singular voice, it's kind of different to most of the popular or current music in America in the sense that it's just straight up music. It's similar to Taylor Swift pre-Red but more like, if you've heard it, any acoustic Ellie Goulding tunes just more upbeat. In contrast to Taylor Swift, it's not just Nina's lyrics that make her music one of my favourites, it's also her voice itself. Girl can hit notes, alright. She's kind of like if T-Swiz wrote an album with her new upbeatedness, but still acoustic and with killer lyrics.
Anyways, even if you don't like Taylor or Ellie, there's a good chance you'll like Nina so give her a chance! I find her music is very refreshing to listen to because we're so used to listening to the same old manufactured pop music, and in contrast, Nina's songs are very much just real, raw, music. Classic.
SOOOOOO go on and give her album 'Peroxide' a listen here!
My personal favourite songs by Nina Nesbitt are:
- Peroxide (duh)
- Mr. C
- Way in the World
- Some You Win
- Hold You (ft. Kodaline) = actually amazing I CAN'T EVEN EXPRESS IT ENOUGH
- The Outcome
- The Hardest Part
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 October 2014
Thursday, 15 May 2014
So Here's the Thing..
This year in my English class we read a group of short stories, one of them was called The Flash, by Italo Calvino, (you can read it here). "The Flash" is about that moment of realisation you have every once in awhile where you see the world through a completely different perspective, it's like you've looked up and suddenly you see everything clearly, no murky societal rules to blur your vision, and for a brief moment, you get it. But that moment is brief, and then it's gone, and every once in awhile you wish it came back... you spend your life waiting to see it that clearly again.
Well here's the REAL thing. Every once in awhile, we have "the flash" moment and it doesn't go away, however we don't call it that, we call it an existential crisis.
The thing about existential crises is that we all have them, if you don't ever have on in your life span, I question both your intelligence and your sanity. However, even though we all have them, I have come to the realisation that we don't actually talk about them, which makes more than no sense seeing as we're all in the same boat and probably could benefit a lot from knowing that we're not alone in our terrifying experience of an existential crisis.
The first one I ever had was in 7th grade, after some investigation, I realise that this is later than most peoples's first one, so I actually knew a lot of people at the time who knew exactly what I was going through, but of course instead of talking about it with them I lived in a constant state of anxiety and unhappiness until I found my way out through music.
Now, five years later, I have found myself yet again faced with the challenge of seeing the entire world through that flash perspective, wishing it would go away. The first time it happened, I didn't really realise what I was thinking or what I was seeing, now I'm all too aware.
The problem with the flash perspective is that it's meant to be only a flash, you're not meant to sit there and stew over what it means, and why it is the way it is, because let me tell you, it drives a person crazy. The flash is supposed to come and go to remind you that, for lack of a more relevant term, YOLO. That you've got to prioritize and know yourself well enough to know what you value and want from your life. BUT! When the darn, stinking, flash doesn't go away, it transforms from a bright flash of understanding and enlightenment, to a gray cloud of depression. When you can't stop yourself from seeing that world from the outside perspective, from completely outside the box, you're left there constantly asking yourself how you're supposed to live your life now, instead of actually living it. It's just plain awful.
Last but not least, let me just vent on this lasting flash experience... As I said before, everyone has existential crises. Very, very real ones.. Life changing ones that make you question your existence and the point of life and what happens after death and they are hands down, the most unsettling, and terrifying things to think and experience. So why is it that when I say that I'm going through an existential crisis, people laugh and go, "oh my gosh I had one of those while studying for math last night... the worst!" Excuse me, what? You had time to question all of life and existence and fall apart and crumble to absolute bits and then pick yourself back up and comment that on my instagram feed with a smiley face??? Well call me impressed.
Okay, seriously though, is it because they assume that that's what I mean by existential crisis, a flash moment of me going "what is life?" instead of the constant state of depression and anxiety I've fallen into as a result of my constant questioning of everything around me? Because I really am not trying to give that impression. And it is SO much harder to try and not feel alienated when everyone else pretends that existential crises are no big thing, or that oblivion doesn't terrify them, WHO ARE YOU? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE???? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS TO SUCH A CALM AND SECURE MIND SET.
I just don't understand.
Sigh.
Just trust me when I say, if you've experienced "The Flash" and are hopelessly waiting for that perspective to come back, move on, and enjoy your blissful ignorance. I envy you more than you know.
Well here's the REAL thing. Every once in awhile, we have "the flash" moment and it doesn't go away, however we don't call it that, we call it an existential crisis.
The thing about existential crises is that we all have them, if you don't ever have on in your life span, I question both your intelligence and your sanity. However, even though we all have them, I have come to the realisation that we don't actually talk about them, which makes more than no sense seeing as we're all in the same boat and probably could benefit a lot from knowing that we're not alone in our terrifying experience of an existential crisis.
The first one I ever had was in 7th grade, after some investigation, I realise that this is later than most peoples's first one, so I actually knew a lot of people at the time who knew exactly what I was going through, but of course instead of talking about it with them I lived in a constant state of anxiety and unhappiness until I found my way out through music.
Now, five years later, I have found myself yet again faced with the challenge of seeing the entire world through that flash perspective, wishing it would go away. The first time it happened, I didn't really realise what I was thinking or what I was seeing, now I'm all too aware.
The problem with the flash perspective is that it's meant to be only a flash, you're not meant to sit there and stew over what it means, and why it is the way it is, because let me tell you, it drives a person crazy. The flash is supposed to come and go to remind you that, for lack of a more relevant term, YOLO. That you've got to prioritize and know yourself well enough to know what you value and want from your life. BUT! When the darn, stinking, flash doesn't go away, it transforms from a bright flash of understanding and enlightenment, to a gray cloud of depression. When you can't stop yourself from seeing that world from the outside perspective, from completely outside the box, you're left there constantly asking yourself how you're supposed to live your life now, instead of actually living it. It's just plain awful.
Last but not least, let me just vent on this lasting flash experience... As I said before, everyone has existential crises. Very, very real ones.. Life changing ones that make you question your existence and the point of life and what happens after death and they are hands down, the most unsettling, and terrifying things to think and experience. So why is it that when I say that I'm going through an existential crisis, people laugh and go, "oh my gosh I had one of those while studying for math last night... the worst!" Excuse me, what? You had time to question all of life and existence and fall apart and crumble to absolute bits and then pick yourself back up and comment that on my instagram feed with a smiley face??? Well call me impressed.
Okay, seriously though, is it because they assume that that's what I mean by existential crisis, a flash moment of me going "what is life?" instead of the constant state of depression and anxiety I've fallen into as a result of my constant questioning of everything around me? Because I really am not trying to give that impression. And it is SO much harder to try and not feel alienated when everyone else pretends that existential crises are no big thing, or that oblivion doesn't terrify them, WHO ARE YOU? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE???? TELL ME YOUR SECRETS TO SUCH A CALM AND SECURE MIND SET.
I just don't understand.
Sigh.
Just trust me when I say, if you've experienced "The Flash" and are hopelessly waiting for that perspective to come back, move on, and enjoy your blissful ignorance. I envy you more than you know.
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