What Music Means to Me

Childhood

As I grew out of children's songs and nursery rhymes I really enjoyed listening to chart music. Some of my favourite artists were Girls Aloud, Atomic Kitten, Will Young and Shakira. I was also quite accustomed to my parents music taste and really enjoyed listening to Madness, my dad's favourite band. My favourite song of theirs at that time would have to be baggy trousers because I have fond memories of my dad dancing around the house to it. It has become quite traditional that if a madness song comes on at a family party all of the men head straight to the dance floor to perform what has become their traditional madness dance. We are all still madness fans and I attended a madness concert at the end of 2014 with a group of my extended family. As well as being a fan of Madness you could also find 5 year old me sporting a Busted T-shirt, my favourite songs were Crashed the Wedding, Air Hostess and Sleeping with the Light on, me and my sister would always be listening to them. At such a young age I wouldn't have really understood the lyrics or the meaning of the songs however I really enjoyed the style of music and it wasn't like most songs I had heard before.

Early teens

In my early teens my music taste was still mostly chart music. Some of my favourite chart artists were Lily Allen, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, JLS, Dizzee Rascal and Pixie Lott. JLS were by far my favourite artist at the time and I was lucky enough to get meet and greet tickets to their first arena tour 'Outta this world'. They were a very popular band and I liked them because I thought that they were good looking, a lot of my friends liked them and their music was very catchy and upbeat. My favourite member of the band was definitely Aston Merrygold who has recently started a solo career and is releasing an album in October, I also got to see him perform at V-festival this year. I was also quite a big disney channel fan resulting in me being a fan of a variety of Disney Stars such as Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato and The Jonas Brothers. Although I don't listen to music that is currently on Disney Channel I do listen to songs released by the artists who used to be on there such as Miley and Demi. Their styles have become very different since they were on Disney and I definitely prefer their music now. My early teens was when I attended my first proper concerts, I attended my first 2 concerts in December 2009 one was for Miley Cyrus' Wonder World Tour and the other Pink's Funhouse Tour which are quite memorable experiences.

Present

I still mainly listen to chart music and pop songs however my music taste is much more diverse than when I was younger. My main reason for listening to more mainstream songs is that it is a lot more accessible and easy to find as it is played on most radio stations however my taste in music can be quite varied and I tend to enjoy most songs that I do come across from any genre or time period. If you was to look at the songs on my phone they range from Pop to Dance to Country to R&B. I don't have a favourite song in particular however there are artists that I would listen to more than others. By far my favourite artist for the past few years has been Ariana Grande and I was lucky enough to attend her concert at the beginning of June. Although, second would definitely be McFly who I have recently seen in concert twice, as well as seeing McBusted and meeting Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter. I'm also a fan of Years & Years, McBusted, Nina Nesbitt, Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora, Jess Glynne and George Ezra. Due to the diversity in my music taste I enjoy music events where there are multiple artists such as Capital's Summertime Ball and V-festival. I am still a fan of all of my favourite artists from the past and enjoy it when old 'classics' come on somewhere because of the memories they bring back.