"Those who say the music of today isn't as good as it used to be aren't looking hard enough"

I recently heard the quote above articulated by a friend of a friend and I thought it was outstanding. The quality of the way music used to be and the way it is today is something of a neverending debate, primarily because it is based upon when you were born, your taste in music and the type of music you grew up listening to.

I'm a '90s kid. I was born in 1992 and grew up listening to the likes of Spice Girls, Steps, S Club 7, 5ive, Britney…the list goes on. This was the kind of music which made me feel happy and want to dance around my bedroom using a hairbrush as a microphone (don’t judge, we’ve all done it - some more than others). And now over a decade has passed and hearing those songs still has that same effect; the nostalgia of being a kid and wanting that precious time back again is overwhelming.

I then turn to my nine year old brother, who was born in 2003. He has grown up with the likes of One Direction being played on the radio, Jessie J, Olly Murs and Rihanna, and to him this is good music. While I might struggle to understand why anybody would choose listening to “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction over “C’est La Vie” by B*Witched, he has no problem in doing so. This is the music of his childhood, the soundtrack to a time when he doesn’t have a care or worry in the world, a time when he has the freedom of a child that adults so desperately crave.

The world of music has changed enormously over centuries and more so in the last 100 years. In the early 20th century, you would go to see singers and bands play live in bars and clubs in order to listen to their music. Now, we can listen to it anywhere. Not just at gigs, concerts and festivals, but on the train, in the bath, at parties, on the other side of the world, on the moon, wherever you like. And while in the moment, we whine about the autotuned robotic sound of Nicki Minaj and cringe at the thought of Justin Bieber being top of the charts, we have to remember that it's the good stuff that will last.

For instance, does anyone remember Cascada? Basshunter? Their music isn't that old and already it's virtually been forgotten. How about 3 of a Kind, who wrote that awful song "Babycakes", which stayed at number 1 for a week before disappearing into the chart archives never to be heard again? Has anyone uttered any of the lyrics to a Blazin' Squad song in the last 5 years? These pieces of music are not the ones that you want played at your 50th birthday bash to remind you of the good times, simply because they weren't around long enough for you to remember how old you were when they were released.

The music of today is not dead. While in the midst of a music storm in which autotune is being used more often in a recording studio than medication is in a hospital, we must not forget the gems that appear in amongst the other so-called "artists".

We will always have music and while, at the time, a lot of it is terrible, it is the special pieces which will be remembered. These are the pieces of music which will be played at weddings and everyone will still know the words. It is the special pieces that will be played on the radio 10 years after their release date and people will smile and sing along.

You can't blame a teenage girl for listening to Justin Bieber. You just have to keep listening to the music that you love and that is all that counts.

Below I've added a few of my favourite timeless classics, they may take a while to load if your computer is as slow as mine, hope you enjoy!

A bit of a ramble.

I have recently discovered, according to my "blog stats", that the majority of my audience are Russian. So, hello Russian readers. I don't know any Russian I'm afraid, but I appreciate you dropping by.

I'm not sure what this blog post is actually going to be about yet, so I'm just going with the flow as I type. The last week has been a bit of a slow one. I'm currently sat in my room wearing old clothes, drinking coffee and being miserable because I am ill. This, according to general consensus, is what you do when you're ill. You mope. You slob around the house feeling sorry for yourself because you feel rubbish through no fault of your own (contrasted with, for instance, if you got drunk the night before). You can't face eating, you just want to sleep all day and all night until the horrible yucky feeling goes away and leaves you in peace. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to sleep so the yucky feeling is still here and probably intending to hang around for a bit longer. Not for too long though, I hope.

I got Netflix yesterday. I'm only using the free trial for a month thing, I have to cancel it on September 21st, which works out well as I'll be back working away at Uni after that. Because I have a little brother and I spend 97% of my time being with him while my parents are working, I have so far watched 3 kids films in the last 24 hours. These include, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", "Open Season 3" and "Hocus Pocus". Kids films are all well and good but I was on the brink - so when my little brother Luke went out this morning with my parents, I watched The Sixth Sense, primarily to remind myself that while I feel awful with the flu, my life could be a lot worse.

Holiday adventures

Today we returned from our holiday in Center Parcs! I am exhausted, bruised, battered, aching all over the place but I had the most brilliant 5 days! And would definitely love to do it all over again.

This time we went to Elveden in Suffolk, as we've never been to that one before so thought we'd give it a go. I was definitely not keen on returning to Longleat after the last time, I did actually want to have a holiday which I would enjoy and going back there would certainly not allow that to happen. So hence our choice of Elveden, which we had heard was much flatter than Longleat and a bit smaller, so it was slightly more compact with less people.

On Monday, the five of us packed into my Mum's Citroen C3 with loads of suitcases and we were ready to go, with only one mere problem in that my mother's car is tiny. It's essentially a car for midgets. My Dad has been begging my Mum to buy a bigger car for years, and she's been having none of it. She isn't, however, the one who has to squeeze in the back next to a whinging child who radiates heat the same temperature as the sun and a lanky unsociable 17 year old who's blasting dubstep out of his headphones as though he's half deaf, with virtually no room left for important things, like breathing. But that's the joys of family bonding, isn't it? I think? Who knows, the point is, there wasn't much room. However, we were going on holiday for the first time in two years. So I wasn't complaining. That much.

We arrived in our midget car in mid afternoon and it was sunny, happy and had a good atmosphere. I did actually forget that the second you enter Center Parcs, it is like entering your own little world. It's desolate from any towns or cities, there is just beautiful open countryside surrounding you, and it's gorgeous. We hired our bikes and found our little cosy cabin not far from the Center Parcs Village Square. Luke made the rookie error of bagging one of the bedrooms for himself and Jack, before realising that this was in fact the smallest room and the size of a cupboard in comparison to the bedroom he'd left me. So I was happy but Jack was slightly pissed off.

Throughout the week we got up to all sorts of activities to keep us busy. We played Badminton and went on long bike rides which were brilliant, very exhausting, in the case of the bike rides, especially when my Dad was leading the way, but great all the same. We also went on a pedalo boat in the lake, during which time my Dad sent us straight into a water fountain and we were all drenched. The swimming pool was amazing - they usually are at Center Parcs. I'm a little kid when it comes to swimming, I absolutely love it. This swimming pool had huge slides, a really powerful wave machine and rapids which we must have gone on at least a hundred times. It wasn't difficult to go crashing into other people and get bashed and bruised, but that was part of the fun.

I actually ended up injuring myself in the kids adventure playground as well. I was balancing on a horizontal giant rope, and to cut a long story short, I basically fell off it and gave myself really bad rope burn right across my arm. I may be 20 in a few months but I swear I still have the mental age of a 5 year old, it's pretty shameful. But completely worth it....

Tree trekking on Wednesday was quite eventful; we were attached to harnesses and had to do an assault course through the trees, and it was actually really good. I have to confess I had a bit of a tiny incident. I jumped off a wooden ledge to get to the next part of the course attached to a zipwire, and I did reach the next wooden ledge but ended up accidentally heading back down the zipwire in the wrong direction. I was hanging there for a good 2 minutes before one of the helpers came to rescue me. My family have insisted time and time again and will do no doubt until I'm old and grey that I pulled a "Boris" (if you haven't seen the video, I've added it below), but still maintain that I did not. Boris got stuck half way on the zipwire, at least I made it to the other side. Back up on this would be extremely appreciated.

All in all, I would say our holiday was a success! Without consideration of brief family bickering, minor medical implications with my brother which I won't go into, and moments of stupidity on my part, it was actually brilliant. Same time, same place next year, please?

Chatalie the Natabox

I changed the name of my blog today! As you can probably see above, I decided to use a bit of brain power and ditch 'Natalie's Blog' for something a bit more creative and personal. So I chose to use 'Chatalie the Natabox', something which reminds me of my childhood and the way I used to be.

I say 'the way I used to be' because even though a lot of my friends and family tell me time and time again how I have a tendency to waffle, I find that I have lost a bit of this in myself, especially when talking in public. It does make me question whether or not that's why I love to write. I can type or jot down everything I'm thinking and feeling in one moment and happily hide behind the words I have written. Saying them out loud is a totally different matter, that takes far more guts.

I was dubbed 'Chatalie the Natabox' at my primary school by my best friends. As the name suggests, I would just talk and talk and talk till I drove people crazy, and I soon found it the norm to be referred to as 'Chatalie' or 'Chatty Natty', simply because it fit so well and people used it all the time. It wasn't until I began secondary school aged 11 that I found my confidence soon diminishing and I have always wondered why this was, whether it was one thing, or a number of different factors which built up slowly over time. Either way, I found myself becoming more shy, unable to find the confidence to speak up in class and in front of big audiences. In social situations, I would comfortably sit and listen to the conversation in front of me without contributing much at all, because I always felt I had nothing interesting to say. After all, I considered most people to be far more interesting than me full stop. 'Chatalie the Natabox' had slipped away and I had barely even realised it.

My lack of confidence is still something I suffer with today. I struggle to express myself and my opinions in the fear that I'll be disagreed or argued with, or laughed and mocked, which is stupid in reality. I shouldn't give a damn what other people think, nobody should. But I always do and I wish I didn't. Being yourself around people you've never met before can be tough, but nobody will appreciate you in the way that they should if you don't love who you are in the way that you should.

I have always been a little bit too scared to blog publicly in case people judged me and thought I was a bad writer. After all, writing is the only thing I have. It's the only thing that I believe myself to be good at. If someone were to take that away from me, what would I have?

But I've decided to go crazy and take a risk. If I'm going to be a successful writer, my writing has to be read. So happy reading, and please, don't criticise too harshly. 'Chatalie the Natabox' is finally making a comeback!

August

I think I may be the worst blogger in history. I think if I want to be a writer, I'm going to have to start coming on here more. Anyway, I'm here now. Hello. How've you been. Nice to see you again. etc. etc.

It is August, as you can probably work out for yourself by looking at the title of this post. August 10th 2012, which seems mad. How is it August? How? How did this happen? Where has the year gone?

It is of course The Olympics at the moment, and it's in London! It has been the most incredible two weeks so far; watching the events really has become a huge part of my day to day life in no less than a fortnight. Everything is just addictive to watch, even the stuff which nobody ever watches, archery, trampolining, judo. The lot. Amazing.

We're going to Center Parcs in Elveden Forest on Monday which is very exciting. It will be our first family holiday for 2 years so we're all buzzing to go and hoping it'll be more successful than our last trip. The year before last we went to the Longleat site, which was lovely but so steep and hilly it might as well have been on top of a bloody mountain.

As Center Parcs regulars are aware, you have a bike with you for most of the trip so you can travel around the site as cars are disallowed. However, some idiots decided to screw that rule and drive about like it was a bloody F1 racing track, carelessly swerving amongst 3 year olds on tricycles and the odd deer which would be leaping about. So while you were panting up what felt like Kilimanjaro on a bicycle, you also had the added worry that you might be run over by a petrol loaded Landrover the size of a monster truck at any moment. Instead we started travelling on a little bus for most of the weekend, which slightly defeated the point of being at Center Parcs.

Hopefully this years trip will be slightly more successful. Hopefully.

Nats. X