Nathan Sykes - Unfinished Business

It's no secret I've been a fan of The Wanted since I was 13 years old, they were the one of the first bands me and my friends became a fan of and even though we became fans of other bands and artists along the way, nothing ever seemed to compare to them. (It's what we now call our 'fan girl phase'). Back in 2014 they announced their split (or 'break') and although we were all slightly heartbroken, we had all grown up since the early days, and we new there were only good things to come for them all individually. Fast forward 2 years and Nathan Sykes' first solo album has just been released. His first solo song More Than You'll Ever Know was released back in 2015 and soon followed was his first solo single Kiss Me Quick. Unfinished Business features both of these songs as well as his other hit singles Over and Over Again, Give it Up and Famous; all of which have been hugely successful with his fans and already began to give him an identity before the album was even released.

Unfinished Business has been long awaited, however, it didn't disappoint. Nathan has chosen a variety of songs to feature on his debut album, ranging from more upbeat songs such as, Money, Freedom and Twist to slightly slower songs such as I Can't be Mad and Tears in the Rain. There are also songs I'd say are "feel good" songs and I think these are my favourite. There's Only One of You, starts off quite slow, however it slightly picks up at the chorus, and by this point you just want to join in with your own bad version of the song.


The variety of songs that feature on the album show the versatility of Nathan's voice; with the range of tones he uses with each different song, and the different paces that range from slow to upbeat, his capability is more than shown within the album. This diversity also portrays both the fun side of Nathan and his more serious side. His more emotional side is clear in the likes of Famous and I Can't be Mad, however as soon as songs such as Money come onto play you just want to jump and dance. One thing I love about this album is that one minute you can be wanting to dance along and shouting the lyrics, and the next you want to sit deep in thought and just listen to the meaningful lyrics that accompany Nathan's incredible voice.

Unfinished Business gives us more of an insight into who Nathan wants to be as a solo artist. This album gives him his own identity and individuality, separate from that of The Wanted and making him into his own artist. I may be slightly bias as a fan, but I can't find one thing wrong with this album. Although it's not to everyone's taste of music, you can't always please everyone and I think this album should be listened to with an open mind, I'd say the songs are a huge difference to those created by The Wanted and the more grown up tone of Nathan Sykes is a lot more matured and impressive.

Unfinished Business is now available from a range of retailers, click here to go directly to Nathan's online store.

"Where words fail, music speaks"

Until Next Time,

Alice x

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D - Drama

For about four years drama and acting were a big part of my life. In year 9 I took a liking to the subject and was determined I wanted to be an actor but by the end of year 13 I knew that I didn't have the mindset or confidence that was needed to enter such a difficult and brutal industry.

I decided to take Drama as one of my GCSE options and in year 10 and 11 it was my favourite subject. Being able to make these characters that were previously just written on paper become alive, with a background story and different attributes just made all the rehearsals and hard work worth while. I always remember the first few times I performed, I was so nervous about getting up in front of my class and having all these eyes watching me, but by the end of year 10 it became second nature to me. Of course getting anxious before a performance exam was a given, but gradually I got to the point where performing in front of my class didn't really phase me, and rehearsing and performing my GCSE exam piece "Cage Birds" was probably the highlight of my whole Acting experience. We put so much hard work into the play, using a lot of our free time to go into the drama studio and improve different little aspects of our play to ensure we would perform our final exam to the best of our ability.

"JUST"

For AS drama and theatre studies, we had to perform a monologue. When I first found out we had to perform on stage alone as part of our exam I freaked out big time, but so did a lot of other people on my course. I'd never performed by myself before, with no one else on stage with me to help boost my confidence so it was real test of how confident I had become in myself and how much I had actually developed as an actor. It was also difficult planning and creating this whole character alone, with no group around you to help develop your ideas. But I'm glad I didn't just leave at the first hurdle, that I carried on and completed the performance, as feeling proud of myself after our exam was one of the best feelings. We also did a group performance in year 12 and performing "JUST" was definitely an experience. Three of us had to speak in sync for most of our lines and it was quite stressful trying to portray three individual characters as well as one combined character, however, the experience was also fun as we got to create these really creepy and unusual costumes/makeup for our characters.

A2 was a totally different story to my previous years of studying Drama, as we had to devise a group piece. I personally struggled to devise and contribute any ideas to the group, and I felt kind of useless when the other members of my group were coming up with these amazing ideas each lesson when I could barely create one idea a week. Devising a piece was stressful for all of us, we new the plot we wanted to lead but we couldn't figure out a way to portray it, so we kept coming up with ideas but then changing them when we realised they just didn't fit in. By our tech and dress rehearsal we were still a bit of mess, and when we found out how confusing we'd made our story by not explaining it properly, we realised we really needed to knuckle down in the next few days to be able to pull off a decent performance. We added physical theatre to create more effective scenes and we improved our lines so they actually helped explain what was going on. Which I'm glad to say all paid off in the end.

Monologue Costume!

After deciding to apply for acting at university and attending all the auditions, I received a conditional offer on an acting course. I was so proud of myself that I'd actually managed to get a place on my dream course. Except I didn't know whether to accept the place or not. All the heartbreak I went through after getting rejected from the 3 other uni's I'd applied to, I just didn't know if I'd ever be able to hack the whole "you got rejected now move onto the next one" I felt like every rejection just meant I wasn't good enough; although everyone was telling me all these stories of famous people who had been rejected at the start of their careers, and I wanted to believe that I could do well in the industry, I  just knew that I didn't have the self belief or mindset that was needed and because I didn't have either of those things I was loosing my motivation to continue performing, although I loved it. In the end I did reject my offer, and I have decided to pursue Media at university instead.

I hope you've enjoyed reading a little insight into my Drama experiences.

"One of the best things about acting, is that it allow you to live other peoples lives without having to pay the price"

Until tomorrow,

Alice x

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