♡ ˚.*ೃInterview♡ ˚.*ೃ Emily Magpie
28 March 2024
I hated Fresher’s week. An army of eighteen-year-olds packs up their duvets and newly purchased toasters to begin the ‘best year of their lives’. A week-long holiday, full of clubbing, activities, and chugging VKs. But there’s a catch—you have no friends to share it with. So, while you’re forced into a whirlwind of relentless socialising, you’re bound to spend your Wednesday night crying alone in your bed. Trapped between four unfamiliar walls, with four unfamiliar people. ‘These should be the best days of my life—but why does it feel like the worst?’.
Alice Shone, a nineteen-year-old artist, has captured the feeling perfectly. Her latest single, Blame the Moon, unfolds within the backdrop of her first-year bedroom. Adrift in a flat with strangers and miles away from home, she turns to the moon on lonely nights, portraying it as a familiar, comforting face. A face she can depend on.
Despite delving into themes of loneliness, Blame the Moon emanates a surprising sense of reassurance. Shone’s lilting guitar, tender lyrics, and soft vocal tone coalesce to create something rather uplifting. As if she’s acknowledging the transient nature of these overwhelming emotions.
Blame the Moon rests very neatly in the bedroom-pop-verse. A musical cosmos big with teenagers—particularly girls—and invisible to anyone over 25. She’s perfected the intimate, dreamy ambience without tipping into lift music territory. The familiarity embedded in her sound is precisely what the song seeks and ultimately achieves.
My first year was soundtracked by Morrisey’s moody lyrics and Marr’s bright guitars. The Smiths provided a liberating escape for miserable British teens, challenging staid ways to think, look and dress. Today, first-year students find their soundtrack in bedroom pop—a genre providing a unique form of liberation. The imperfections of homemade tracks and delicate aesthetics create nostalgic and romantic narratives that captivate listeners, allowing them to lose themselves in its stories.
So, if you’re suffering from fresher’s week loneliness, take solace in Alice. Don’t panic, it’ll pass. These will be the best years of your life.
