Musical Tastes of an Introverted Teenager

When I think back on my teenage years, you'd probably spot me with a set of obnoxiously big headphones on, music blaring through my MP3 and totally consumed in the whatever book I was reading - which on reflection, would have either been a high concept supernatural romance or a gloomy and serious contemporary drama.

Like my reading tastes, my music tastes varied and before Spotify was a thing, people were genuinely if they played one song from the other. I could never be tied down to a particular genre or theme, so I'm going to TRY and give you an idea of what could have been playing through those headphones a decade or so ago...

The Twilight Era

From 2008-2012 (fourteen to seventeen for me), it was impossible to escape the franchise that was Twilight. It offered that escapism and some time to just indulge in pure and simple melodrama - with vampires and werewolves. My first introduction to the rock band Paramore was their angsty credits song in Twilight. This song perfectly encapsulated a time where I read nothing but supernatural romance, not just Meyer, but Fitzpatrick, Cast and Stiefvater.

Looking back, I think this was my tentative first stages of embracing the inner angst that I mostly kept under wraps. Not the wisest choice. Despite being a Hermione Granger type in real life, I enjoyed indulging in dark and mostly tragic romances. They were trashy reads and songs like this were the perfect soundtrack!

Tragic Love (Songs)

Thankfully, my life did not reflect the songs I chose to listen to during long study nights. RnB was always a personal favourite of mine and JoJo's various songs on stages of love and heartache, which was far removed from my love life - I never had to scream "GET OUT!", but looking at this list... I think that is a good thing - the last thing I needed was teenage heartache to make sad mixtapes for healing purposes. I made those for friends and family though, mainly because I enjoyed the process of burning CDs. Remember those? Anyone?

"It was WICKED!"

Those were my first three words when I left the theatre the first time I saw Wicked on stage in the West End. Remarkably I'd lived sixteen years without seeing the reimagining of the Wizard of Oz - and it showed by my pure enthusiasm for the show. I must have listened to this MULTIPLE times in the weeks after seeing this show.

It's safe to say I had these words memorised ridiculously fast. Embarrassingly fast.

Here's what you missed on GLEE!

When I was younger, the campy, flamboyant and often Broadway covering TV show centred on a bunch of misfits and their even more of a misfit choir teacher was a smash-hit. At the time, I enjoyed it for exactly the reasons stated - it was cheesy, flamboyant, easy to consume and did I mention how campy that musical loving show was? Wow.

Looking back as a twenty-six year old, it's safe to say this series has not aged well in the slightest. It was very much a niche production and in my opinion, I don't think all of the characters or storylines have a timeless feel. Aside from nostalgic purposes, this is a guilty pleasure listen I must admit.

Wake Me Up INSIDE!

This is back in the day of peak YA fandom, especially within the vampire genre. I must admit, at fourteen I fell into that trope of continuing or even combining series I loved at the time with songs like Bring Me To Life playing in my ears. The stories that I can remember clearly (with some embarrassment) are a few, but I'll give a brief summary: Twilight meets Vampire Diaries when Jacob Black imprints on Elena with a crossover that rivalled Avengers: Endgame, An OC (Original Character) in various danger and romances in a Teen Wolf duology, gritty Glee with an original cast and several LGBT romances in the Harry Potter universe to name a few - based on readers requests and random bursts of inspiration.

I wanted to give these franchises the dark realism they lacked and this transcended into my original work - this band was among many, especially when I was getting into the writing zone to tackle the tropes of Vampire Diaries and rewrite them... not well, but it was an A for effort. Lets just say, I've vastly improved since my melodramatic fanfiction days... This was the closest I got to a Goth faze.

I'm trying to keep this short and to the point, but other singers I would definitely include are ones that vary from power ballads to musical covers - it's difficult trying to include all the songs that shaped me (for better or for worse!)

Therefore I bit the bullet and made a list for your listening pleasure which sums up the complex variety of the teen angst I expressed through music.