When you load up Spotify, a great big chunk of the time you can’t think what to play, right? You default back to your old favourites, those albums and songs you played on repeat when you first discovered you could make them yours.
This isn’t about guilty pleasures; it’s about those songs you’ll still be listening to when you’re old and in your rocking chair. So, enter Teenage Kicks – a playlist series that sees bands running through the music they listened to in their formative years.
Next up, Josephine Vander West, aka one half of Oh Wonder and 100% of That Woman..
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Simon and Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water
When I was 11 years old, Hear’Say released their Popstars version of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. I remember falling in love with the song and excitedly playing it for my dad. He patiently listened and then played me Simon and Garfunkel’s original version. I was completely blown away by how raw and pure it was, and it got me lost down an S&G rabbit hole that I’ve never got out of.
P!nk – Family Portrait
I was completely obsessed as an 11-year-old with the honesty and vulnerability of Pink’s writing on this album. I absolutely rinsed it on my brand new CD Walkman (along with Eminem’s ‘Stan’) and can still recite all the lyrics of the whole record. Her vocals are completely ridiculous on this song.
Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi
The same thing as Hear’Say happened with Counting Crows. They released a song called ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ featuring Vanessa Carlton, and again I obsessed over it. In stepped my dad on the sidelines with copies of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Ladies of the Canyon’ and ‘Blue’, and I was floored. Who was this woman, with this angelic voice and these crazy songs? When he told me that she had written them all herself, it blew my tiny mind. It was at this point I started playing pop songs on the piano rather than just classical music. I’m so grateful to have discovered such iconic songwriting at this age.
Vanessa Carlton – A Thousand Miles
Vanessa Carlton (and Norah Jones) became artists who really helped me join the dots between women singing, playing the piano, and writing their own songs. I was part of the Vanessa Carlton fan club (which I think her dad used to run) and became completely obsessed with her writing. I bought the sheet music and learned all her songs on the piano when I was 12, which then prompted me to start writing my own songs at 13.
Fionn Regan – Put A Penny In The Slot
Alongside my obsession with alternative bands was my foray into the acoustic-folk scene. Fionn Regan was peak 16-year-old me, and I saw him perform numerous times. I was also obsessed with Gregory and the Hawk, Laura Marling, Sam Amidon, and Johnny Flynn, and listening to these artists really helped me solidify my songwriting at that age. At 17 years old, I felt confident enough to release my own piano-based songs on MySpace, which was the start of my music career! I went on to play hundreds of gigs between the ages of 17 and 22, rocking up to any venue that would have me with my piano and playing a show, buoyed with confidence after seeing Fionn Regan deliver knockout intimate shows with a guitar.
Modest Mouse – The World At Large
In my mid-teens, I ditched Christina Aguilera and Nelly Furtado (my pop queens) when I discovered alt music. I was obsessed with Motion City Soundtrack, Jack’s Mannequin, Ben Folds, Bright Eyes, and remember queueing up for shows at the Astoria in London to make front row. This song particularly transports me right back to being a teenager, and making mix CDs and feeling all the feels. Modest Mouse really helped make sense of those teenage pubescent hormones flooding my body and brain and inevitably soundtracked me learning to drive, cruising around my neighbourhood, blaring music out the speakers and feeling invincible.
Death Cab For Cutie – Summer Skin
Long before the days of Apple Music, there was the iTunes Free Single of the Week, which I always devoured. This tune came out in September 2005 in my peak teenage woe era, and it hit all the spots. So began a lifelong obsession with Ben Gibbard’s songwriting; Death Cab remain my favourite band of all time, and were the foundation of my musical connection with Anthony when we first met and started working together. We actually had our first kiss at Ben Gibbard’s show at Union Chapel in London back in December 2012, and all these years later, we went out to New York to watch the Death Cab anniversary tour at the end of 2023 in Madison Square Garden, New York. To say I’m a fan is a complete understatement.
Feist – My Moon My Man
The album ‘The Reminder’ was a seminal record for me. It came out when I was 17 and re-ignited my love for female artists making pure, raw, and effortless music. I listened to Leslie Feist’s first three records on loop all throughout my late teens and into my early twenties, and her latest album ‘Multitudes’ was a huge influence on my own music making. She is the OG music queen for me. ■
Taken from the September 2024 issue of Dork. That Woman’s debut album ‘Find Joy’ is out now.
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