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Momentous Mondays: Influential artists of the next 5-10 years – Week 39: Shawn Mendes

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Have you ever listened to a song, an artist, maybe an entire discography, and have been totally amazed, flabbergasted, lost for words, full of pride and admiration, for the artist- even from the get-go? Have you ever listened to a song and been grateful that you are alive in this very moment while this particular artist is alive, to breathe the same air as them? On second thought…wow, that sounded creepy and hero-worship like, don’t you think? No, but seriously, have you heard a song by an artist, and have concluded from the outset that ‘this person gets it, he/she knows what the point of music is, and that that’s what music is all about!’? Have you ever heard a song and immediately concluded that this artist is ahead of their time and is bound to be an instant fan favourite and a future star? Perhaps it was an artist who was very young and they were writing music as accomplished and as resonating as veterans of 30 or 40 years. Or perhaps they were talked about as being a has-been, a fading star that has recently recaptured their spark and has also ‘made it’ with the younger crowd. Whatever the case, I am sure there has been one artist that has clicked with you, that has made you want to dive deeper into music as a whole and has challenged you with questions about life, love, death and everything else in between. For me there have been several- influential artists whom both Jon and I have written about, that have stood and are going to stand the test of time, and have indeed written about and sung about meaty issues and often taboo topics. Artists that have looked at a blank canvas and have declared “Yes, I will sing about this, this, and this, even if it doesn’t win me any awards”. Artists that have used a proverbial blank piece of paper and a proverbial paint brush and just painted for themselves, and not for others. Artists who aren’t afraid to shake the status quo, artists who in my mind are fearless. So for these artists, you can read about them in our blog series, and yes, I intend to briefly touch upon another artist right here and now- but let me first speak about the concept of walking fearlessly and what that mindset does for you.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 70: ALANIS MORISSETTE

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There was a time before the internet, the rise of technology as we see today in society, where life was simpler. We didn’t worry as much, we enjoyed things more (mainly because of the lack of accessibility that people have had to things, meant that once you had the thing that you wanted, you were more appreciative of it). We actually got excited about things. We appreciated the finer things in life, and without the advent of the social media juggernaut, facebook; we were more present in conversations, we hung out with our friends more often, and just made an effort to communicate with people better than currently nowadays where sending a tweet, a text or even a facebook post is much more of a commonplace than ringing someone on the phone or hanging out with them face to face. And maybe it goes with a lot of other things that are more accessible now, compared to back then, where things weren’t as readily available at our fingertips as much. Music in the 1990s and the 2000s carried with it, a sense of a different time compared to music of today, and ever since my blogging series that I started to embark upon, from February 2019 onward, I’ve noticed a few things. That the changing musical landscape over the last 20-30 years or so, reflects a time that was very much different than the one that we are in today. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. Exploring artists like Lady A, Keith Urban, Alicia Keys, Lifehouse, Switchfoot, Shania Twain, Train, DC Talk, Michael W. Smith, Chris Tomlin, Hillsong, Goo Goo Dolls, Ed Sheeran, Adele, Delta Goodrem, Owl City, U2 and Ronan Keating (to name a few), has me being appreciative of all genres encompassed in my blogging list thus far, and being reminded that each musical genre, across each decade in time, has its place in music history, impacting various people across the decades. I may like a band or an artist that is totally different than you, and that is ok. And as I’m about to start upon week 70 of this 2+ year musical experiment, I am reminded that God indeed can use whatever music that people are listening to (I guess, bar anything that is blatantly derogatory and downright nonsensical and wild), to bring people towards a sense of a revelation and realisation about love, life, God, and the rest of it. Music is most definitely the universal language; and has been the basis of coming together for people of varying colours and creeds for quite some time…but having said that; it still seems to be prevalent that people in the music ‘game’ and industry for quite some time (who had their starts in the 1980s and 1990s), seem to have more of a ‘realer’ career than artists in the current state of today.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 62: SARAH MCLACHLAN

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What are some of the fondest memories of your childhood? The moments in time, when you were younger, where all the things that mattered in that moment, was enjoying what was in front of you, where you didn’t care about anything except for the enjoyable moment that you were in? Everyone has times in their life, where they look back and think ‘yes, this was a time in my life where things were simpler. Where I didn’t worry or care about the responsibilities that I have now, or when I just enjoyed life and the simpler moments, just because’. I know there have been moments in my own life where that has happened. In a nutshell, it was when I was watching movies…Disney in particular. And while right now Disney has become a massive conglomerate- with its own television channel (Disney +), once upon a time, Disney and its movies shaped a generation of people growing up, like no other. For me I was born the late 1980s; and grew up in the 1990s. I can remember my parents saying that for every day during my formative years (let’s say I was around 3 – 4), I’d want to watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, every day. Maybe that did happen like I may have wanted it back then, maybe my mum didn’t cave, and I only watched the movie once every few days. Nevertheless, Disney was a big part of my childhood growing up. Movies like The Lion King, The Jungle Book, Oliver and Company, The Fox and the Hound, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Mulan, Hercules, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dumbo, Robin Hood, Tarzan, A Goofy Movie and The Sword in the Stone, have all been watched by myself and my family at various points during my primary school years, some movies maybe more than once. I am reminded even now much of a positive impact Disney and its movies has had on myself as I was growing up, but I guess through all of those aforementioned movies above, I guess the one category of Disney movies that have been my favourite, and will still be my favourite as the years continue to progress, would be movies under the umbrella of Disney/Pixar. A partnership between the Walt Disney Company and Pixar Animation Studios, movies started to flourish from 1995 onward. Starting off its catalogue with the highly successful (and now highly nostalgic) Toy Story (starring heavyweight actors like Tom Hanks and Tim Allen), the Disney-Pixar brand has continued to be a reckoning force even now in 2020. One such movie that stood out to me during the 1990s from Disney Pixar was in fact the 1999 movie Toy Story 2- a sequel to the 1995 classic movie Toy Story. Not that the storyline to the 1999 movie was memorable at all- in fact, in 2020, I can’t really recall what happened in the 1999 film, only the basic plot that Woody was stolen from a yard sale by a greedy toy collector, learning about his own origins as being a main character in a fictitious 1950s TV show, all the while, the other toys (Buzz, Rex, Hamm, Slinky etc.) try to rescue Woody from being sold to a Japanese museum. While the plot itself is a little convoluted for kids to even follow, what stood out for me, years later even in 2020, was the original song written for the movie.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 32: BRYAN ADAMS

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Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I feel that artists can be too good for the period of the time in which they were impactful and prevalent in. Hear me out though. Take this new artist Bryan Adams for example, of which I am going to be discussing. Amongst the sea of countless other music artists, one could assume and think that this person Bryan hardly stands tall amongst the rest at all- besides, I’m sure everyone has heard of artists like Rascal Flatts, Owl City, Carrie Underwood, Shania Twain, Phil Collins and Ed Sheeran, to name a few. But Bryan Adams? Ok, maybe the people who indeed grew up with music from the 1980s have heard his presence on the radio, but for the average commonfolk who has just been listening to the radio all these years and nothing else, can an artist like Bryan cut through all the supposition and assumptions, and make his own music known in a world where image and how you project yourself can in many ways be more important on a fan-based level than the actual songs and meanings of them in the first place? Let me say from the outset- Bryan Adams is a legend in his own right. He is a influencer, a musician, a singer-songwriter, and a passionate guy who wants to connect feeling and emotion through the way he knows how- through music. But had it not been for this blog series, and me taking a gamble on hearing a few popular songs from the 1980s as influence for this series in general, I would not have heard Bryan and his music at all- except for his crossover hits ‘Summer of ‘69’ and ‘Everything I Do (I Do It For You)’, which is a tremendous shame. I would’ve carried on my life listening to what I’ve been listening to- nothing wrong with that; but looking at my own life and the musical tastes I have now compared to even at the beginning of 2019, I’ve taken more risks, which is a good thing. Bryan Adams is one such risk, and a well-received one. For Bryan’s knack for creating 1980s songs that still have that aura and connection about them now as I’m sure the songs had back then is nothing short of genius and maybe, God-given. Bryan’s songs have influenced a generation far and wide, and though he may even be reaching a demographic group on a generation level higher than myself, the songs nevertheless have profound meaning, asserting my view that he is one of my top 5 most surprising (in a good way) artists I’ve come across in my blog series of 32 artists (out of 100, and then a further 20 world-class artists) thus far.

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