Tag Archives: better man

MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 100: ROBBIE WILLIAMS

They say that your teenage years are your most formative. I don’t know if that’s a fact or not, but I remember it being said somewhere. I’ve since found an article that I’ve linked above, but throughout my whole life, I was told that the years from 12-19 are the years where the human mind is most impressionable; and that from your 20’s and 30’s and into adulthood, while you’re exploring the world around you, your ideas are more or less and mostly fully formed and set. That’s not to say that you can’t ever change or do a 180 later on in life if you so choose to do so. But by and large, the majority of people develop most of their values, thoughts, morals, ethics and who they want to be, well before they turn 20. Is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? Dunno, it’s just something that I’ve been thinking and surmising about. And in relation to this blog about influential artists and what Jon and I listen to these days; if we follow that logic, then Jon and myself, who were ‘sheltered’ and listening to only Christian music before in the 2000’s, shouldn’t even be writing this blog. We should be so dogmatic and set in our views about music… but we aren’t. We’ve allowed God to shape us and mould us, while we listen to uplifting, inspiring, and thought-provoking music, not necessarily by Christian artists; all the while holding onto our faith and keeping close our non-negotiables in the faith and what we believe to be primary issues in the doctrines of Christianity. We’ve grown in our love and appreciation for artists like Keith Urban, Little Mix, Selena Gomez, Maren Morris, Goo Goo Dolls, John Mayer, Jackie Evancho, John Legend, Carrie Underwood, Owl City, Delta Goodrem, Avril Lavigne, Thomas Rhett, Lindsay Ell, The Shires, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and most recently Mickey Guyton and Kylie Minogue, to name a few. We’ve discovered and realised that the divide between Christian music and mainstream music is becoming blurrier and blurrier (and that can be seen as a good or bad thing, depending on your point of view!), and we’ve understood much more throughout these three years about music, God, life, death, the hard questions and everything else… than I guess any other time in my life. I’m sure Jon can testify to that. Yet if we are to believe that article above that our teenage years are the years in which we learn the most, then why am I at 32, announcing that the last 3 years have been the time in my life when I have learnt the most, predominately through this blog series about influential artists?

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 67: LITTLE BIG TOWN

Sometimes I wonder why it often takes something drastic around the world to make us all look more inward, appreciating things like family and friends, especially during such a difficult time in 2020 around the world because of COVID-19. I mean, to put it in a blunt way, why did it have to take a global pandemic like COVID-19 to make us all ponder, think and wonder, to better our relationships with our family, to realise that we don’t need as much as we think we do, to understand the importance of friendships, to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t be as involved with technology as maybe we were prior? I know, very blunt and crude in my own assumptions, that such a pandemic like COVID-19 makes us realise things about ourselves and others that maybe we just haven’t realised before…but I’ve realised that that indeed is very much true. I know for me, during this time of quarantining and isolation, of having a break from work and using the time to connect more with people around me, I’ve realised a few things. That over these last few months, it is often things like TV shows, music and movies, that often get us through difficult times and struggles, be it in the form of an escapist TV show, a movie about superheroes, or even a favourite album from a favourite artist that speaks to you, both when the album was recorded and released, and even now. Music I reckon, has the power to change lives from the drop of a hat- you hear a song that just hits your soul, and from then on, you’re not really the same. A song that challenges your preconceptions and misunderstandings about this and that. It is in these songs, and the artists that sing them where I’ve started to write about. Not necessarily the most popular artists (the ones that have so many accolades, but alas, songs that don’t necessarily tug at the soul, but rather just give us a cool beat), but it is the influential ones, that artists that may be popular, but also could be under-the-radar as well, that have really challenged my own views of society as a whole, especially during this COVID-19 2020 year.

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