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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 54: NATALIE IMBRUGLIA

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‘…it got to a critical point for me where I was just like, ‘I’m not sure I want to be doing this’. All I wanted to do was be on stage performing, and there was all this other BS, for want of a better word. I just think I got to the point where I was so frustrated trying to please everyone, then please the label, and then make choices I didn’t agree with, and it was time for me to focus on something other than myself. It’s also very insular. You are your product and that gets annoying too. I think as you get older as well, I’m not really obsessed with my career in the way that some people are. For me, I just want to enjoy my life and be happy. I want to get the balance of work and pleasure more on an even keel…’
‘…I think that’s always been there [ageism in music]. The entertainment industry in general – whether it’s male or female – is always considered a young person’s game. More so for women than men, but it’s one of those ongoing problems that has always been there. We go two steps forward and then ten steps back sometimes. You can choose to let that bother you, or not bother you. It’s not something I allow to really frustrate me by any stretch, but it’s certainly there. It’s a constant pressure on women in so many different ways to be… even at my age I’m considered to be far along the line for doing it. Then you look at Fleetwood Mac killing it on tour and making good music. There are a lot of artists who still have careers…’

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Momentous Mondays: Influential artists of the next 5-10 years – Week 18: Little Mix

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Justin, living in Australia wanted to go on a holiday. He booked a holiday for June over the phone for Christchurch New Zealand, but also booked via the internet for Wellington just in case his credit card details weren’t written down word for word by the clerk on the other end of the phone. He then packed his suitcase full of woolly jumpers and jackets as he heard that the weather was cold, snowing and windy but also packed his trunks and swimmers just in case he wanted to swim in the Cook Strait, if the weather was up to it. He installed burglar alarms the month before leaving, just in case the 40 he already had were faulty and he had to buy some more. He also enlisted his friend to take care of the place for him, and bought a black Doberman to guard his house as well, just in case his friend was unreliable. He then packed his laptop as well his i-Pad just in case he wanted to use one more over the other. He also paid for Foxtel in his hotel rooms in New Zealand just in case he wanted to watch the England vs Australia Ashes series on TV. He disconnected his SIM card from his international mobile phone as he didn’t want people to disturb him, but also bought another phone with international roaming just in case he changed his mind. And finally, perturbed by the possibility of another Cyclone Larry, or another Bali Bombing that could occur in NZ, he decided to cancel the much-anticipated holiday, just in case.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 14: RONAN KEATING

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Can I be very candid and honest? I was never a big fan, if a fan at all, of boy bands. Sure I’d know about them from time to time, and more recently there was this wee little band called One Direction (and yes, I will discuss this influential band in length in another post dedicated to them!); but as a whole, boy bands weren’t at all that impacting to me when I was younger. Even now, they aren’t necessarily the most sought-out ‘genre’ of music that I’d listen to from the word ‘go’. Nevertheless, boy bands have shaped and moulded music and society as we know it- from Boyz II Men, Take That, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and Westlife, to Jonas Brothers, Jackson 5, Boyzone and One Direction; boy bands have been sprouting up throughout music history aplenty, and thus, it is no wonder that one such artist from my list of 100 would be of the boy-band variety. And so for me to prepare for this blog post, I was a little unprepared throughout the week, and even now, I’m trying to find the words to say about this artist- words that will do them justice and respect the amount of success they’ve had since being a part of their former boy-band group. For me, this ‘genre’ of music is as much needed in society as it was back then- but when music for lack of a better term, is consumed at a faster rate as years go by; boy bands can sometimes fly under the radar to become the ‘forgotten’ ‘genre’ of music. This week’s discussion leads from the front with singer-songwriter Ronan Keating; an Irish singer who was one of the founding members of boy-band BoyZone, a popular Irish group in the 1990s. With around 10 albums under his belt, Ronan has solidified himself as one such artist, whom has successfully broken off from their former boy-band group, to have a relatively successful career as a solo artist- other artists to achieve such a feat include Robbie Williams (of Take That), Michael Jackson (of The Jackson 5), Ricky Martin (of Menudo) and Justin Timberlake (of NSYNC), to name a few.

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