Musical Resolution

Happy New Year, dear readers! Hope you all had a fabulous time seeing out 2012 and seeing in 2013.

I've actually found myself with a New Year's resolution this year. I haven't bothered with one for years and years. But, this New Year's Eve, an incident occurred to inspire me to make a pledge...

1983: Love Cats, The Cure (Image source)

So, I ended up opting for a pretty quiet New Year's Eve. To help with the countdown, however, I decided to compose a party soundtrack, counting down (or up) from the beginning of the 1980s, when I was born.

1984: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Cyndi Lauper (Image source)

It was compiled in a quite quick and dirty fashion. I just opened up Wikipedia and looked up the singles that made the charts each year, picking out one that was suitably upbeat and had played some part in my life.

1987: Sweet Child o' Mine, Guns 'n' Roses (Image source)

I wasn't being a perfectionist about the actual release date or anything like that. So long as a song was in the charts in the year it represented, that was fine by me...

1992: Motocycle Emptiness, Manic Street Preachers (Image source)

I wasn't agonising over making sure all my favourite bands found a place in there. I wasn't bothering to think beyond the charts or pull out obscure releases.  It was just a party soundtrack, after all.

1994: Girls and Boys, Blur (Image source)

It was actually quite a fascinating exercise, to see what led on from what, where there was a sudden shake-up and contrast...

1997: Breathe, The Prodigy (Image source)

But as I progressed further on, coming into the noughties, I began to get a little bit anxious...

2001: Last Nite, The Strokes (Image source) 

'Hang on a second', I thought to myself. 'These chart lists are becoming less and less saturated with songs I love... or even know...' There was a sense of relief every time I spotted something with which I genuinely had any affinity...

2007: Rehab, Amy Winehouse (Image source)

I managed to squeeze something out of 2010 but then it dried up. The problem is, I've been spending the last few years discovering new music, but new music to me, not genuinely new...

2012: Ummmm...
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, The Andrews Sisters??? (Image source)

So, feeling incredibly humbled and out of the loop, I swore to myself that I would pay more attention to new music this year. Even if I write most of it off, I want to at least know what's going on out there. Even if I end up just going for things with a retro twist, like electro swing and modern close harmony groups such as the Puppini Sisters (hey, maybe I do know something!), at least I'll be informed.

After all, I always say that, even though I love all my classic music, vintage clothes and historic architecture, I love living now, in the twenty-first century. We have such rich pickings to choose from as we root around in the past, finding and keeping our favourite aspects from each decade. So, true to my seeking out the best of every time and era, I should weave more modern music into my listening, interspersed with Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra...

Does anyone else have any New Year's resolutions? Or does anyone else feel they should make a pledge to become a little more au fait with the modern world...?

A Decade a Day to the Jubilee: Part 3

The third and final part to the Decade a Day countdown to the Jubilee... I found these two days - the '90s and the '00s - the most challenging, I must say. Both because I don't have much belonging to either decade in my wardrobe, and because it's hard to turn something from such recent times into a distinct outfit. I ended up rather going with my own personal version and experience of these periods... Oh, and I was at work neither day so didn't have anyone to act out female emancipation with, unfortunately.

Firstly, Friday, the 1990s. I was a teenage Brit Popper. As I said in my last post, I no longer have my Doc Martens, which would have really made the outfit. But I did have my Ben Sherman blazer and a little straight denim skirt.

1990s. Girls can totally catch buses all on their own these days.

 And then, Saturday, the 2000s. For me, this was The Strokes, the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, and other such indie rock. So I tried for my best rock chic look. Horizontal stripes, pointy shoes, white belt, red lipstick... I don't own skinny jeans because they just don't work on my thighs ('skinny' becomes somewhat ironic) so I just went with these as the closest thing.

2000s. Girls taking the stage and music world by storm.

So, that's it. Six glorious decades of Her Majesty's reign in sartorial format. Hope you've all had a smashing weekend, and that those of my readers in the UK enjoy the rest of the four-day weekend!