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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K - Keyboard (Playing the Keyboard)

Teaching myself to play the keyboard was a quite offhand and random decision. I don't think I ever really officially decided to learn, it just kind of happened. In years 7-9 all students ended up playing the keyboard at one time or another as it was quite easy to pick up and play simple tunes on. In Year 9 I started to really enjoy playing the keyboard, we got to find some of our own music it and play duets and so getting some independence made me want to play the instrument more regularly. Eventually I decided I wanted to do music GCSE which meant having an instrument I officially played, so I could be assessed doing solos or duets. This meant I needed to practice more regularly and take playing the instrument more seriously; and I was lucky enough that my parents bought me a keyboard for my birthday that year, so having rehearsal time and space was a lot easier for me.

 I became really enthusiastic about playing, my teacher taught me the basics of learning to read sheet music and so I was constantly finding new piano sheet music online so I could rehearse and play different pop songs or theme tunes rather than classical songs. It was quite easy to teach myself the basics of the piano. Once you know where the chords are on the keyboard and you find a way of remembering where an A is it becomes a lot easier from then onwards, as that's the most difficult part. After that it's just learning the different patterns of chords for the songs - and the more you rehearse each individual song the easier it becomes. My Dad use to play the piano when he was younger too, so having him give me some tips when I began learning really did help.

The only thing I struggled to grasp was confidence in playing to other people. I remember the first time my teacher wanted us to perform to our class, I was terrified, I was shaking so much and I couldn't physically remember the sheet music, I think I must've attempted playing four or five times and although I was getting encouragement from my teacher, she eventually realised I wouldn't be able to perform that day. However, when we had our first GCSE music evening a few months later, I performed to a full audience of parents, teachers and friends and although I was still crazily nervous before hand but I was so proud of how much more confident I'd become in such a short space of time. But I think without doing drama along side music I wouldn't have gained any confidence at all, performing as someone else and playing a character, helped me gain more confidence in just being on stage as myself.

Do you guys play any instruments? Or had a battle with confidence?

"Music softens the pain, increases the joy and opens the heart"

Until Tomorrow,

Alice x

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Ed Sheeran - Multiply (X)

Ed Sheeran has been one of my favourite artists since he released his first album Plus (+) back in 2011. His latest album Multiply or X, was released on the 23rd June 2014 (UK) and holds a total of 12 tracks. However the deluxe edition of the album holds an extra 5 tracks making the total come to 17 songs instead. The album includes singles, "I see fire" from the film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, "Sing" which Sheeran co-wrote with Pharallel Williams (the voice behind number one single "Happy" back in 2014),
"Don't" which first came about as a riff on the star's phone, "Thinking Out Loud" which has a music video that sees Sheeran ballroom dancing with Brittany Cherry,  and the most recent single "Bloodstream" that is yet to be released.

Ok, so Ed Sheeran's latest album was released nearly 8 months ago, but the outstanding music on this CD ensures that you can have the songs on repeat for hours on end and it will never get boring. I personally am a massive fan of his music because each song is distinctly different from the one before and the one after. The large range of genres his music covers, including, a folksy, acoustic sound, mixed with hip-hop and rap elements; mean his unique sound attracts a large range of different people. Although his target audience is typically around 16 to 25 year old men and women, as he himself is only a young adult and so he can relate to them more, older people are also fans of his music.

I can't talk about every song from the album (we'd be here for days), so I'll talk about my favourite song "Photograph".When my sister first bought this album she was listening to this song non-stop, therefore, this was the first song I heard (aside from the singles that had previously been released), and because of this I instantly became attached to the slow start in the song and the meaningful lyrics. I always try to take as many photos as possible so the obvious background story to this song meant I could easily relate to the lyrics "We keep this love in a photograph, We made these memories for ourselves". 

"I can't tell you the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone" 


Check out Ed's new album on iTunes: It costs £11.99 to download.

Until next time, 

Alice x

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