I’ve just watched P!nk’s INCREDIBLE performance at The Brit Awards, and it’s left me very emotional!

Quite rightly winning the Outstanding Contribution to Music award, which incidentally hasn’t been presented to a performer since the 2012 ceremony, it also represents nearly a lifetime of my listening to her amazing music.

In 2001, I was just 16 and starting out as a gay lad… I’d started going out to Manchester’s Gay Village and throwing myself around the Indie room at Poptastic, to the sounds of Get The Party Started, Don’t Let Me Get Me and Like A Pill (and we won’t mention slinking about at 3am in Essential to Lady Marmalade back in 2000, ha!).

By 2002/3, I was leaving home for Uni in Manchester, and things weren’t great – family wise, Mum and I weren’t speaking (and didn’t for 12 more years) and I was definitely going out and having too much of a good time. Family Portrait seemed a suitable soundtrack for sliding in to this part of my life.

In 2006, just as I was getting out of my funk and finally being a bit more responsible and working in The Gay Village, rather than just propping it up, anthemic bops like Who Knew, Leave Me Alone (I’m Lonely) and U+ Ur Hand arrived courtesy of the I’m Not Dead album along with lyrically beautiful songs like Dear Mr President and the hidden track, I Have Seen The Rain

In 2008, I’d just moved to London and the album So What (my personal fave) was in my ears non-stop. Songs like So What, Bad Influence, Please Don’t Leave Me and Funhouse were the songs playing on my first ever iPhone as I explored my new home, and started to explore the social scene in London. Sober was also on this album and it remains my personal favourite of all her songs – I listened to it solidly for about two months. Glitter In The Air totally made me swoon and feel so much emotion. (side note, I totally wanted it as my ‘first dance’ for when I got married (civil partnered back then) but my friends Johnny and Richard totally took it and made it theirs – a really beautiful moment to share in!)

Seeing the Funhouse tour at The O2  was one of the BEST moments of my life!

In 2012, I’d had enough of London, and had met my future husband, Max. We moved (back, for me) to Manchester to the sounds of The Truth About Love album as we travelled up the M6 ready to start our new lives together. Blow Me One Last Kiss, Try, and the phenomenal Just Give Me (A Reason) were all from this album, and I have many memories of these songs as I was doing seemingly mundane things – unpacking boxes, walking to work, shopping etc. It’s also my favourite of all her music videos.

By 2017, an album that (by name) reflected how I felt after my Cancer diagnosis/battle was released – Beautiful Trauma, which included the fantastic What About Us. It was something that I could twist and draw parallels through what I’d been through.

I’m a HUGE fan of The Greatest Showman and I genuinely think her version of A Million Dreams (with her gorgeous daughter Willow) absolutely exceeds the original, to the point that I wish that it had and that she’d been in this film – she would have been PERFECT in it. If you were to ask me today, which song I’d choose for my first dance, it’d definitely be this, no hesitations.

Watching The Brit Awards performance, I got very emotional, and that she’s been recognised for twenty years of making music (and in so being a constant part of my life, ups, downs and the super-shitty bits) feels like a perfect milestone.

Here’s to the next Twenty…ish!!!