I absolutely loved coming up with a playlist for this weeks blog post! Thinking about all of the songs that influenced me throughout my girlhood brought back so many fond memories of me singing into a hairbrush, while dancing in front of my mirror, and imagining how great my life was going to be when I was a famous pop star. Obviously I didn't fulfill my younger aspirations of stardom but those songs still make me smile and occasionally compel me to reach for a microphone hairbrush. Music has always been a huge part of my life. I started singing when I was three years old and I have been singing ever since. Naturally as a singer, the first song that comes to mind when I think of my playlist is a song by Celine Dion. A lot of people make fun of Celine Dion for being so over the top but I LOVE her! I would sing my heart out to her album when I was a little girl, and even now I still belt her ballads while driving in my car, which often gets me a lot of strange looks from other drivers, but I don't care! The one song of Celine's that I sang more than all the rest was It's All Coming Back To Me Now. From the age of eight and on I have been singing this song! Obviously when I was eight I didn't understand the adult messages of this emotional love ballad, what drew me to this song was the sheer power of Celine's voice. When I sang this song attempting to mimic her range I felt powerful and I felt like each time I sang it my voice would get better and better. I also think that as a younger girl I felt a lot more mature listening to Celine's music, while my friends listened to Radio Disney. Looking like I was mature was a big thing for me as a younger girl, I always wanted to be thought of as an adult. My mother took me to Celine Dion's show in Las Vegas over a year ago, and when she came out onto the stage I started crying because she was such a huge part of my girlhood experience. You probably all think I am weird now, for liking Celine so much, but thats ok, I am not ashamed, Celine is awesome! :).
The second song on my playlist would have to be I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys. I think it is very important to remember that I was a child of the 90's. The Backstreet Boys were huge when I was transitioning through girlhood. I remember going over to my friends houses for sleepovers and watching the Backstreet Boys concert video while all of us gushed about which band member was the hottest. I personally was an NSYNC girl, Justin Timberlake has always had my heart, but the hype of the Backstreet Boys was so huge it was inevitable that I would get sucked in a little bit. The song I Want It That Way was the one song that all of my friends and I would repeatedly play while swooning over the images of the brooding and sensitive Backstreet Boy members. I blame this song for my unrealistic ideas of what I thought love was like when I was younger. This song made me feel like love was supposed to be all consuming and very dramatic. My friends and I would listen to this song and imagine our crushes serenading us with love songs written about us. All of us were under the impression that true love had to be extremely passionate for it to really be true. I have certainly learned that love does not involve a hunky teen with frosted hair tips serenading you, but during my girlhood I really believed that love would someday come to me in that form. This song more than anything reminds me of all the fun that my friends and I had together, and how silly you can be when you are young and naive.
The third song on my playlist is also a direct result of being a 90's kid. Britney Spears Oop's I Did It Again, was one of my anthems as a young girl. Britney was huge during the prime of my girlhood, her CD Oop's I Did It Again was the very first CD that I owned. When I was younger, turning eight was a huge deal, because my parents wouldn't allow me to pierce my ears or have sleepovers until my eighth birthday. I am not sure why they picked the age of eight, but it was the standard for all of my sisters and I. For my eighth birthday party I had a huge sleepover at my house with fourteen other little eight year old girls, and the very first gift that I opened was a pair of earrings for my newly pierced ears, and Britney's CD. I guess you could say that Britney's song was sort of a validation for me that I was growing up and I wasn't a little girl anymore but in fact a young woman. I remember thinking even at a young age how this particular song was so great because Britney was this extremely beautiful and strong woman who was basically tricking this guy into thinking that she actually liked him, but she was really just playing a game. For some reason as a young girl I found this song very empowering. I was a weird kid. When I hear that song now I think of all the great times I had in my younger years and I also think about how foolish I was for looking to such a provocative pop singer as a role model.
Overall the music that influenced me during my girlhood was pretty awesome and I think that all of us have been shaped in some way from the songs that we identified with when we were young.
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