I bought me an illusion and I put it on the wall (or, how Guns n' Roses changed my life)

As a young child I was exposed to the usual mix of children's songs (Wheels on the Bus), 80's pop hits (Locomotion) and mainstream rock (Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet was one of the first albums I can recall owning myself - on cassette of course).  There was also a lot of jazz and blues played in our house, which no doubt had some influence on my musical development; but more on that in a future post.

Then, at 8 years old, I heard Appetite for Destruction by Guns n' Roses for the first time and it completely changed the way I thought about music. 

We only said goodbye with words, I died a hundred times

Amy Winehouse’s death, apart from being tragic and a loss of a great musical talent, has exposed the hypocrisy of a mainstream media who revel in the gory details of musicians’ debauchery but pretend that they had nothing to do with the downfall; in some cases even having the nerve to speak out against those who criticise the behaviour that they by turns glorified and ridiculed.

Others have done this as well but the mainstream media is the worst perpetrator of this – showing every photo of every drunken night out, every video of supposed drug use, and every detail of every fight (usually with members of the media who don’t understand an individual’s right to privacy sometimes).