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, Another Sky.
Jimmy Eat World – The Middle
Catrin Vincent: This one got me through school. Nothing like a chorus that tells you what you want to hear. “Everything will be alright”. I even did a terrible cover of it and couldn’t do a guitar solo at that point, so I did a piano solo. I had zero shame. I’d find workarounds, you know?
Tracy Chapman – 3000 Miles
Catrin: God, this one cuts to the bone. I always resonated with this song, even though it wasn’t meant for someone like me. And that’s the beauty of music. You can always find what you need to hear in someone else’s story.
Ben Howard – Keep Your Head Up
Catrin: I loved walking around my hometown listening to this. Very leafy. His whole album ‘Every Kingdom’ sounds how my hometown looks. I remember feeling like I was in a movie walking around mulling over my teenage bullshit. Get me out of here!
Biffy Clyro – Folding Stars
Catrin: Looking back, Biffy Clyro were my favourite band. It’s mad we got to support and meet them. I had a friend called Ellie, and I always used to think of her while listening to this song.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Give It Away
Naomi LeDune: I picked up the bass guitar when I was around 14, so this song was on heavy rotation, or at least until I could play it well enough to earn my first belt in slap bass. After all, slap bass is the absolute zenith in bass playing, so naturally, I obsessed over the likes of Flea, Bootsy Collins and Victor Wooten.
Paramore – Misery Business
Naomi: This song really helped me live out many of my childhood fantasies of getting my own back on the mean girls at school. The muscle memory my fingers acquired from punching in 368 on the Sky remote to watch the music video on Kerrang was pretty impressive. Also, Hayley Williams is sensational.
blink-182 – Feeling This
Naomi: This song had such a dramatic sense of regret and sadness, which naturally spoke to me as a teenager who wore those two things like a pair of gloves. I loved blink-182 so much that my first bass was pink, just like Mark Hoppus. I am enjoying their return to the music scene.
Coldplay – Don’t Panic
Naomi: I have so many fond memories of this era of Coldplay. This song, in particular, strikes a chord with me as the first track of the album ‘Parachutes’. My dad was always in control of the music when we were in the car, especially during holiday road trips, and I particularly loved it when I heard this come on. I knew the next 40 minutes of music were going to make the long car journey ahead more bearable.
Taken from the March 2024 issue of Dork. Another Sky’s album ‘Beach Day’ is out 1st March.
