Lifestyle
14 • queensjournal.ca
LIFESTYLE
Friday, February 3, 2023
Music can change your life
Three songs that mark pivotal moments
Emily Parkinson Contributor
Music has always played a big part in my life and certain songs often mark pivotal moments for me. My memories are the most vivid when I can associate them with a particular song. Here are three songs that changed my life and why. “A Year Without Rain” by Selena Gomez
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Selena Gomez standing in the desert, her long dress blowing in the wind. I stood in front of the TV in awe of her beauty. That’s when I decided that “A Year Without Rain” was my new favourite song. It was around eight at the time, and up until then, the only music I really listened to was what my parents played in the car—which consisted of a lot of screamo and Sarah McLaughlin. “A Year Without Rain” was the first song I got to
make up my own mind about. I got to go around and show it to other people, instead of it being the other way around. “Waltz #2” by Elliott Smith
I first listened to Elliott Smith’s music at some point in high school and discovered that a lot of his songs were in my favourite movies. His song “Miss Misery” was famously in Good Will Hunting, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1998. Similarly, “Son of Sam” was played in the Love, Rosie soundtrack—a movie so heartwarming you can’t help but appreciate the music accompanying it. I’m sure there were more, but those were significant to me at the time. “Waltz #2” caught my attention with Elliott’s lyrics, which are always the perfect amount of emo. This song was hugely significant for me because it made me realize this was the kind of music I liked.
Songs by Selena Gomez, Elliott Smith, and Hovvdy changed my outlook on life.
This song came to me in the peak of my angsty teenager days and spoke to me more deeply and personally than any song I’d heard before. I think Smith’s music has a life-changing power for a lot of people and that’s why he is so beloved. “Blindsided” by Hovvdy
“Blindsided” appeared on some Spotify-generated mix of mine this past summer. It was one of those moments where you’re tuned out of the music and your brain is on autopilot, and then you tune back in at the perfect time.
Something in my brain clicked when I heard the lyrics “could’ve really used you in my life.” It was a beautiful yet heartbreaking lyric that I kept thinking about even after the song had stopped playing. True Love, the album “Blindsided” is on, is equally as vulnerable and nostalgic. Hovvdy’s songs walk the line between euphoric and depressing, which was perfect for the way I felt this summer. I would give anything to get to experience their songs again for the first time. ***
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What makes music special isn’t always the songs themselves, but rather the situation or mood you’re in when you’re listening to them. These songs are obviously very significant to me, but a lot of that has to do with when I was introduced to them and how I felt when that happened. My mood had a lot to do with how I interpreted these songs and why they affected me so much. Though they may not be as life-changing for you as they were for me, I hope you’ll give these songs a listen.
Skinny shouldn’t be the goal—healthy should be The importance of re-examining our modern beauty standards as young adults
Clanny Mugabe Assistant Lifestyle Editor This article discusses disordered eating and body image and may be triggering for some readers. The Canadian Mental Health Association Crisis Line can be reached at 1-800-875-6213. Trends come and trends go, and that truth is best seen in the shifting fashion and beauty standards in our society. Celebrity culture acts like a magnifying glass to our society, as these figures dictate and mimic what’s trendy in our everyday lives.
There’s a thin line “between having a
healthy diet and falling into disordered eating patterns. This is best seen with celebrities who have careers that span multiple decades—what Ashley Tisdale wore on the red carpet in 2005 is vastly different from what she would wear today. Fashion isn’t the only thing that trends; bodies do, too. The body type that was in Vogue for the past few years was the ‘slim-thick’ body type, which came in tandem with the proliferation of more body-positive messages as a body positivity movement rose. It was a rocky road to get there, but with fashion companies embracing plus-sized models and retailers offering a more diverse range of sizes, what was deemed
Celebrities’ bodies can be the result of unhealthy habits.
acceptable and beautiful expanded to be more inclusive. Then Kim Kardashian and co. shed the ‘slim, thick’ body type and we saw a rise in ultra-skinny bodies being seen as ultra-fashionable again. This begs the question: was thinness ever not fashionable? The idea that the body positivity movement was 100 per cent positive and effective is flawed. ‘Skinniness’ is still tied to the image of attractiveness; that’s why ultra thin and ultra-tall models still dominate the runways, and why certain fashion retailers actively discriminate against plus-sized people. Abercrombie and Fitch is infamously known to be hostile
to plus-sized shoppers, with its former CEO Mike Jeffries making it difficult for diverse body types to buy their clothing. Just because ‘slim-thick’ was the body type of the decade doesn’t mean thinness wasn’t prioritized. It’s important to remember that ‘slim’ is the modifier to ‘thick,’ so a certain type of skinniness is expected to be acceptable. Due to these expectations, diet culture is still promoted in our society, dressed up in ‘healthfocused’ language. We’re easily fooled by juice cleanses, restrictive dieting, and various other techniques for losing weight. The problem here is this
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standard is unattainable and unhealthy for many. ‘Heroin-chic,’ the ultra-thin ideal that proliferated the early 2000s and dominated the media of our childhood, is called that because it’s associated with weight loss from heavy drug use. Celebrities profit from these toxic messages by being images of what we should attain. To fit into Marilyn Monroe’s dress, Kim Kardashian glamourized crash dieting on television—in Disney+’s The Kardashians—to rapidly lose weight in an unsustainable and unhealthy manner. Among young people, this incredibly narrow beauty standards often leads to body
dysmorphia and disordered eating habits and behaviours. The more celebrities engage in this behaviour, the more risky and unhealthy actions impressionable fans might engage in because they think it could alleviate their body image issues. There’s a thin line between having a healthy diet and falling into disordered eating patterns. Due to the structure of beauty standards and social media, that line gets blurred as unhealthy dieting habits become normalized in the pursuit of conventional attractiveness. It’s true that adapting a healthier lifestyle, like increasing the amount of exercise you do and having a better diet, can lead to weight loss, but there are hundreds of other things that factor into our appearance: genetics, environment, hormones, and even pure, random chance. In a perfect world where everyone were able to achieve perfect nutrition and be perfectly athletic, there would still be a wide range of body types in the world. The truth is, as they stand, diet culture and beauty standards do more harm than good. There are billion-dollar industries that rely on our insecurities to maintain their profit margins. They gain from eating disorders and body dysmorphia. It’s important for us to uncouple our desire to be healthy from our desire to be skinny, so that we can truly pursue the healthiest and happiest life that we can achieve.