Ages ago, we're talking years ago, I started this little series that mostly consisted in me being emotional about albums I loved, and in the light of the ten-year anniversary of one of my absolute favourite records, the game-changing kind, it is time to dig the Album Club from six feet under.

This time last week, I was sitting on my downstairs sofa at about eleven in the evening, watching Tonight Alive frontwoman Jenna McDougall perform acoustic renditions of tracks from the band's debut album What Are You So Scared Of, which was celebrating a decade of life. And it took me back. It's simple, really. It took me back.

The first time I heard Tonight Alive's music was a surprise. They were supporting Young Guns on a small UK tour, and I was attending the Manchester show, thinking the only support was one of the rising stars of British metal at the time, Polar. I remember walking into the Deaf Institute, and it's strange how vivid those memories are, considering I haven't gone back to the venue since, but I remember walking in and past the merch table and seeing Tonight Alive's set up, and thinking I didn't know they'd be playing, and I think my brain said something like "oh, yeah, they're that Australian band. It's cool, I wanted to check them out."
And it's even stranger how, almost a decade down the line, the most vivid memories I have from that night are about Tonight Alive, the one band on the lineup I didn't know. I remember Jenna asking whether people knew Mumford & Sons before the band played their Punk Goes Pop cover of Little Lion Man, and thinking shit, I don't know who Mumford & Sons are! What's a little lion man? And I remember meeting Jenna at merch at the end of the night and, when we were taking a photograph together, Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name Of started playing over the venue speakers, and she was so happy to hear that song she squeezed my shoulder.
And maybe it's not that strange that almost a decade down the line, Tonight Alive are the only band from that night that never left me.

People leaving.
There was a concept I was struggling with around this time. You know, in One Tree Hill, Peyton's art piece with the traffic lights and the line "People always leave" inked above it? That was where I was at. And I was desperately waiting for someone to slide the matching one, the second half of the set that said "sometimes they come back" underneath my apartment door. This time in my life was a time of changes I didn't want. I didn't want to leave the safety of university. I didn't want to watch my mum leave me every day. I didn't want to figure out being a grown-up like this. This undoubtedly affected all my friendships. Every single one of them. And, eventually, because being around the depressed girl who's desperately trying to make it out on her own, as if this will give her more value in the future, every one of them fizzled out, and everyone left.
It sounds like such an emo kid cliché, thinking that the only thing I had going for me was music. But it's the truth. The only thing I had going for me was music. Bands broke up every once in a while, sure, but my favourite bands didn't leave me. They stuck around. If I turned up at a venue to watch them play, whether it was in Paris or somewhere stupid in the United Kingdom, they didn't care that I was sad. They only cared that I was here, and they stayed. And I desperately needed things that stayed.

So my love for Tonight Alive stayed. At the Young Guns show, I had bought a copy of one of their EPs, Consider This. And somewhere in my heart, ten years down the line, it still holds the most special place. I was listening to that thing on repeat. And, you know what, I'm not trying to rewrite history. 2012 me did not listen to albums unless I had CDs, and even when they were on my good old iPod, I listened to songs. Not albums. For the longest time, I was the kind of girl that played music on shuffle. And I can't pretend I once listened to Eject, Eject, Eject, the opening track to What Are You So Scared Of? and thought shit, this is life-changing. If I say this album is a collection of songs that changed my life, it's in the wrong order, it's a mess of a collection and an impact bigger than words could ever say.

In September of 2012, Tonight Alive played the Batofar, in Paris, one of these strange little shows during which a local band's album release party was squeezed in the middle because why the hell not. (Because we were trying to capitalise on our complicated relationship with pop-punk.) The venue was not very full, and the "moshpit" was basically just me and two or three of my friends dancing around behind the first few rows. (I have a vivid memory of a girl in heels and a blazer running in, pushing me hard, and leaving, but that's a story for another day, really.) But what I remember the most is the build-up to that show. Because I was listening to What Are You So Scared Of? on loop, albeit in the wrong order, for days and weeks on end, and thinking this is it. This is what I've been looking for. This is what I need.
This is what I want to believe in.

Early-2010s me had a complicated relationship with others, with life, and maybe most importantly with herself. The self-loathing was otherworldly, and I simply believed I would never amount to anything. I had big dreams but no idea where to start. I changed career ideas every other week, from translation to touring with bands. None of these ideas stuck around, maybe because I didn't allow them to, maybe because I was constantly fighting to stay afloat, and that shit gets exhausting, and maybe because they were shot down by the people who didn't believe in me, and those people weren't always me and my subconscious. For the sake of this, let's just say I didn't have the best support system in my early twenties.
And I remember walking in that boat, on a strangely warm day at the end of September 2012, and for an hour or so, I didn't have to fight anymore. I didn't have to be strong, and mature, and resilient, and show how well I could handle everything or take a hit.
I could just be.

Every time I hear Tonight Alive play the title track, What Are You So Scared Of?, I always check in with myself. I think of the things I want to achieve, and I ask myself, very seriously, while I'm dancing and singing along, what the hell are you so scared of? What's stopping you? If you asked the girl on the boat that night, her answer would have been a mile long. If you asked the girl on the orange couch who was watching one of her favourite songs being played on her phone, she would have stopped dead and thought well...I don't know, actually. And it's during one of those moments that I realise how much growth I have made alongside this band. I can't really tell where the line "What are you so scared of / Judgement's not unfair / It's what we've learned to see" took my mind ten years ago, but in 2021, it reminds me that yes, people will talk, and they will judge, and, well, it's a free world, really, but it doesn't have to stop you, and it doesn't have to hinder you, and it doesn't have to hold any sort of weight in the things you want to do and the decisions you make. I don't know if that's what I'm supposed to find in there, and I can't pinpoint when the realisation happened, but I know, for a fact, that it's always a great motivator.
Yes, the world will watch, but it doesn't have to stop you.
What would have stopped me ten years ago doesn't stop me anymore, and even though I don't have receipts and examples, I can promise you, hand on my heart, that this song is one of the many reasons why the things that would have stopped me ten years ago don't stop me anymore.

During the Instagram live stream, Jenna played Sure As Hell, which she said was her favourite song on the album, and explained how she had this feeling it was her future self that had written it for her at the time. And while I don't know much about future selves, I like the idea that, back in the day, Sure As Hell felt like everything I wanted to be. I wanted to get to a point where I could say "I never felt more free / I've never been more true" and "Now I'm finally content" and mean it, mean every word, every syllable, every letter. And maybe, just maybe, it was all a sign. A sign that I would get there. It would take a lot of growing pains, but I would get there. And, ten years later, feeling this, for real, for the most part, it's priceless. I think it's why I feel like I have grown up with Tonight Alive. Because all the words I wanted to believe in, I carried them and used them as catalysts until they came true. Kind of "fake it 'til you make it", except that none of it was fake, and I sure as hell meant all of it. 

As explained by the band members on social media these past few days, What Are You So Scared Of is an album that was born in fearlessness, in the unshakeable belief that you should pursue every opportunity that arises. This is an album that was born in youth, in the voices of five teenagers and young adults who had something to say, messages to spread. It's okay not to be in control all the time. Don't waste the time you have. Live in the moment. Love should feel safe. Listen to your heart. Let go. It's okay to acknowledge when someone's presence in your life doesn't work. These are messages born in youth, learned in the experiences that come with growing up, and, very importantly, carried out through most of Tonight Alive's career, in some way, shape, or form. These are messages I have taken with me and still keep in my heart, even when I'm older, even when I'm not a kid fresh out of university anymore, a kid who had a bone to pick with the whole world, even when I'm a girl who knows where she's going, who's starting on the big dreams, who's content with who she is. Maybe especially then. 

I would like to say that a record like What Are You So Scared Of and a band like Tonight Alive was my figurative piece of art that reminded me that "sometimes they come back" slipped under my apartment door when I least expected it yet needed it the most, but, ten years later, I have learnt that it is my reminder, or maybe my lesson, that not everyone leaves, and not everything disappears, and the songs you love will always carry you home. 

[ To celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the record, Walls Of Sound has written a fantastic piece on What Are You So Scared Of? and how it changed the face of Australian pop-punk. It counts as part of the inspiration behind this post, and it is a fantastic read, and you can check it out HERE. ]

Let's begin with a story you may or may not have heard. It all depends if a, you know me personally, b, you have been reading this blog for a long time, or c, all of the above.
I grew up in France and, due to the COVID crisis, I have had to move back home. I now live in a tiny village north of Paris without traffic lights or a decent-sized car park for me to learn how to skateboard, and I am exposed to mainstream French culture daily. 
I try, sometimes. Over breakfast, I will sit in front of the only music channel we've got (by music, I mean they're playing the same ten music videos on loop for most of the day, until you get to 7pm and then, you can move on and watch about five episodes of Pawn Stars on loop, before there's a low-budget action film, possibly starring Jean-Claude Van Damme) and I will attempt at finding something I like about the video in front of me.
The thing is, the vast majority of the time, the positive things I find are "I like her outfit" or "I like that guy's windbreaker," so it isn't going very well.

French mainstream culture is something utterly and intrinsically bizarre. A part of our collective psyche still believes in the French cultural exception, some outdated concept that leads us to have quotas of music that has to be in French on the radio and believe the sun shines out of our national backside. And at the same time, France seems to have completely given up on promoting music of any kind. You'll have the odd segment on the news, usually featuring someone who hasn't been on television in fifteen years, or someone related to an already famous artist, and that's pretty much it. We have one musical program, a classic called Taratata, but it's on at, like, eleven in the PM, in other words, not at a time when anyone is in front of the television, and the artists on it are usually famous already anyway.
The bulk of what's in the solitary, abandoned music channel is trendy rap about women and crimes, tacky rap about smoking weed and fancy cars with music videos filmed in football stadiums, remixes of ten-year-old songs, and white men with guitars and fedoras singing about how beautiful life is, how they love the village where they're from, and how we need to protect the Earth and the polar bears (but they're probably still eating foie gras at Christmas). Most of these songs have been written by the same dude. The only rock song we've got on there is the unexplainably present Summer Is A Curse by Australian pop-rock band The Faim. Why? No one knows.
This is, in all honesty, quite depressing. 

Finding out it isn't the same in every country is still bamboozling to me. (Is bamboozling a real word? It now is.) A part of me believed it was the same everywhere across the world, a planet of mainstream culture promoting the sons and daughters of your already famous people, and not much else. The rest of me knew it wasn't so, but it didn't stop me from being bewildered when I realised it.

Having "alternative" as my favoured genre of music and half of my favourite bands being Australian led me pretty early on to find out what triple j is. For those who don't know, it is THE radio station down under, and its most famous segment is called Like A Version, in which artists cover other artists' songs. About a year ago, a random man in Sydney told me it was a government radio, and it entirely blew my mind. 
Since the start of 2020, I have delved pretty deep into Australian music, and have often fallen into a deep dark hole of triple j videos on YouTube. (It's surprisingly easy. You'll listen to a song by an artist you like, and the suggestions will be a person you've never heard of covering Linkin Park or Avril Lavigne and, if you're like me and a sucker for a cover, you're there until the end of time, watching people perform In The End with a harp.) 
A lot of bands and artists I appreciate, which, again, fall under the "alternative" umbrella, have been performing live from the studios and been broadcast for the country to hear, at a time of day when people are likely to have the radio on, ie, not the middle of the night. 

A couple of days ago, something else about triple j and the multiple videos I have been watching hit me. 
There are quite a lot of women involved in the process, and a lot of these women are playing rock music, pop-punk music, alternative music, are playing the guitar, the bass, or the drums. See, our representation of women in French mainstream music is limited to a very small amount of categories: 

a- R'n'B singers with songs that don't always mean anything at all, but then again, maybe I'm too old to get it. (No matter what anyone ever leads you to believe, "tu hors de ma vue" is not a grammatically correct sentence in French.)
b- Girls next door with acoustic guitars who whisper into a microphone and are really pretty with minimal makeup on, and usually sing about love, but in metaphors that make no sense to the general public, but then again, maybe I'm not middle-class and cosmopolitan enough to understand.
c- Mylène Farmer. She's been majorly famous since the eighties, every single one of her songs is either about death or sex, again in metaphors I'm not sure I understand. To the best of my knowledge, she's the only French woman who consistently sells out stadiums and arenas all by herself, and she's got a bit of a rockstar mystique about her. Too bad she's also made it her mission to choose young protégées and have them sing sexually charged songs when they're sixteen.

Again, finding out it wasn't like that in every other country in the world blew my mind. You mean to tell me that some other places celebrate women in different genres? Invite women on the radio and they play instruments, and they are relatable, and don't have to fit into a certain category? You must be lying.
Except it's a real-life thing that's happening in Australia.

I understand it was a long-winded, roundabout way of getting to a list of music made by Australian women I have been enjoying a lot in 2020.

Before I get into the heart of things, I will go back to my first love when it comes to music made by Australian women: The Veronicas. Identical twins Jess and Lisa Origliasso, originating from Brisbane, have entered my life in circumstances I don't remember when I was seventeen. I remember downloading their debut album The Secret Life Of... and playing it every morning on my way to school on my old MP3 player, thinking this was the real deal. I had found IT! Girls in a pop-rock band! Girls playing the guitar! Girls in a rock band that wasn't fictional! Something to fill the pop-punk Avril Lavigne-shaped hole in my heart! 
(I wasn't a big fan of The Best Damn Thing at the time and I couldn't relate to pink-haired Avril anymore, I was seventeen and life was a struggle, leave me alone.)
It's been a disgusting amount of years since I was seventeen, but I still love every minute of The Secret Life Of..., and I still know it all off by heart. Even though I had no clue they were Australian at the time, they were my introduction to what I would like to call The Badass Women Of Australia. A part of me freaked out a little (a lot) when I saw them on a big screen in the train station in Brisbane. Live music is but a distant memory, but I would LOVE to see them live someday. According to hearsay, they had a wall of death going on at Good Things Festival in late 2019. How sick is that? 
(Side note: Good Things Festival had Parkway Drive and The Veronicas on the same lineup, and I have rarely heard of any festival which catered to every part of my personality like that.)

Jumping on a train pretty much last minute, I had done before.

But jumping on a plane? That was a new one.