I know a place

In 2013, I made a post on Facebook that I instantly regretted. I was walking to work, feeling a bit lonely, and had been listening to Flo Rida's dance-pop track Wild Ones.

I didn't like the track for the lyrics, but there's something upbeat, positive and affirming about the music. It made me feel good when I was feeling bad. Facebook was still a thing people used, so I posted that the song made me happy.

Someone I knew from school (a friend of a friend that I'd never really gotten along with) commented along the lines of "that's pathetic." I immediately deleted the post and almost felt a tear well up.

I wanted to share something that, no matter how he felt about it, had resonated with me. It brightened my mood that morning when everything else felt miserable. But 13 years on, I still remember how ashamed he made me feel.

Times have changed, and I don't really play that track anymore. But when I do hear it now, the panic and shame from that day come back up. It's why sometimes I'm scared to actually talk openly to people about the things I like.

I don't expect everyone to enjoy what I do — in fact, I go into most conversations imagining that they won't. But it seems so unreal that something as universal and powerful as music can ever be used as a tool against you.

About a year after that Facebook post, I went to see Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster at the Southbank Centre in London. It was a play about the real life murder of Sophie, who had been attacked in 2007 for dressing differently.

The internet has permanently meshed sub-cultures now, but in the mid-2000's, there was still a Mods & Rockers attitude in the country. The way you chose to dress visibly aligned you with a particular culture, genre, or movement.

Sophie's mum, Sylvia, set up the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, which in the years since has promoted tolerance and difference, and the Black Roses play was part of those efforts, and incredibly moving account of what happened.

It's been almost two decades since Sophie's death, and while there's less of a hard barrier now between sub-cultures, music, which can be such a tremendous tool to create inclusive, joyful experiences, is often still turned into something to divide us.

The Oasis reunion isn't really my thing. I enjoy a bit of their catalogue, but not enough to justify going to see them. And the culture around the band at their peak, especially the ladishness of the 90's Britpop scene, feels better left in the past.

Having been burnt when discussing my thoughts on popular music before, I stayed quiet. After all, why should how I feel about the band colour someone else's experience? There was more than enough media coverage on both sides ('They're the best band ever!'; 'Oasis should get in the bin') in any case.

The band's music means so much to a lot of people, and so I'm really glad that they got to see those songs performed again, surrounded by thousands of other fans singing back every word. I know that's how I felt when we went to Taylor Swift's Eras tour in the summer of 2024.

Just like with the problematic nostalgia that surrounds Oasis, being a Swift fan isn't without its difficulties. The tickets were absurdly priced (an individual artist probably shouldn't become a billionaire off the back of a single tour), and as a guy in his 30s, it's tough to talk openly about her music without feeling judged.

And yet, I try. I cautiously dip my toes into sharing my excitement, but only after I've decided it feels safe to do it. That even if they don't agree, the people I'm talking to won't go out of their way to make me feel bad for the things that bring me joy.

On a recent episode of the Drowned in Sound podcast, Sean Adams spoke to Jack, the founder of The Ticket Bank (which is an incredible organisation making gig tickets accessible to everyone).

Jack dropped into the conversation that his first gig was to see S Club 7 as a younger teenager. Even though everyone of a certain age can recite all of the lyrics to the group's gleeful hit Reach, you'd be hard pressed to find someone "serious" about music admit to liking that group.

Sean later admitted that his first gig was a similar pop group, and the not the indie band he usually tells people. It struck a chord (ahem) with me. My first gig was not Alkaline Trio, as I often say. I went to see the Spice Girls several times with my family, and those shows are a big part of the reason I began to love live music.

I've been gradually making a playlist of songs that I miss, to sit alongside my new finds. Some are recent, but get buried in the endless sea of new tracks I check out, others are songs I used to love and haven't heard for a while.

This morning, as I walked home, the Spice Girls' disco-flecked Who Do You Think You Are came up. I crossed the river, holding my head high, knowing that I don't need to worry about what everyone else thinks; I know who I am, and what I like.

As the coda brought the song to a climatic end, Rob Zombie's industrial dance floor filler, Dragula, crashed into earshot, just as the train doors slid shut.

Just Press Play

We all know that mesmerising riff from the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These), and I'd dabbled in some of the duo's mid-80's synthpop, but this week I actually sat down to listen to the group's 2005 remasters, and I've really fallen for some of their more offbeat tracks, like the hypnotic Paint A Rumour.

I also stuck Baby Queen's 2023 track 23 on repeat more times than I can count. According to Apple Music, I've played it 57 times now just on this computer, and it drags me deep into the story of Arabella Latham's night out every time.

And after managing to successfully battle through the (online) crowds to get tickets to her album launch and main tour, I've been enraptured with Holly Humberstone's new single To Love Somebody.

She posted more about the visual aesthetic for this album on Instagram, and I'm particularly fascinated by the Kate-Bush-mixed-with-The-Cure-by-way-of-Labyrinth vibe to the whole thing.