Rósín
Music is according to a Badly Drawn Boy lyric swimming around the goldfish bowl of my head, “Just a soundtrack to a life.” That’s the secret, music as something that compliments the action instead of forcing it too far. If someone was making a film of you, right now, wherever you are, would the music fit? Rósín Murphy is just a bit special, a proper pop artist; the most apposite form for this moment.
She sings about love. Well mostly about love, but a lot about sex too, somewhere in that intersection between the two. That venn diagram is for another time, but her kind of intersection is mine too. There’s something razor sharp in her analysis of relationships and succinct filth. It’s the pop music for smart people.
The distorting effect of pop culture on perceptions of love or relationships is something that’s been much discussed. I’m no great consumer of romantic comedy, but its implicit expectations pervade society. In the light of so much anodyne ‘emotion’, Rósín feels like she’s lived every experience she sings about. Her love is not perfect, it hurts. It’s sometimes confused. It’s the thing that if worthwhile you will go to the end of the world for. The soundtrack for my now.
It’s a coffee and a scrawled expurgation, an ambiguous text message, a middle distance stare at drifting clouds and contrails. Other times it becomes a bit lip, a cheeky grin, the time after alcohol and ice cream.
