Music Monday #17: Sleeping In The Nothing by Kelly Osbourne

2005 was a good year for me when it came to music, with Confessions On A Dance Floor released late in the year, earlier that same year Kelly Osbourne released 'Sleeping In The Nothing' another album that is a rarity in that I love every single track on the album and can listen to the entire album uninterrupted from start to end.  Where Confessions served as an uplifting EDM dream, Kelly dabbles in darkness much like her father Ozzy, and Sleeping In The Nothing does that perfectly.  The synth-pop vibes are something of a staple for me that are common in a lot of the music in my library most of which won't feature here as that is in the realm of EDM featured on compilations which I decided not to add to this list.

This album however has a recurring theme of toxic relationships and the impact they have on you, I am sure you can see why this album fits me like a glove.  As a general point I love Kelly Osbourne and think she's fabulous, I own both of her albums and I would love it if she returned to music but I understand if she has no interest, she has a successful career that she doesn't need to pursue it, I also realise that despite my adoration the album itself wasn't a commercial success which I think is a shame, I consider it a masterpiece and I still turn to it when I have emotions I want to process.

'One Word' holds a particular significance for me in my experience hooking up with closeted guys the lyrics are quite poignant "One word breaks the code of silence, Silence tells me all I need to know" and "It's not the way that I want it, It's just the way that I need it" fitting the situation perfectly, that one word in this instance being "gay" the word you can't speak when you see them in public and you're around people that don't know, where you have to keep their secret and the reasoning they give being the understanding that for whatever reason they either can't or aren't ready to come out.

'Uh Oh' likewise speaks to the frustration when you're around those people in public, when they deny how close they are to you, how toxic that becomes to the underlying friendship, that lyrics "Uh-oh, I think I better go, Before I turn this love into a crime" epitomise the mentality of the tight rope you walk and how easy it is to fall off, worse yet are those closet cases that don't even acknowledge your existence in public, the lyrics "The social strain, Is watching you out with all your friends, With the disgust that you pretend when I walk on by, You wear it well, Treating me like someone you don't know, But then you call me on the phone To tell me goodnight" - I really don't know if Linda Perry who wrote the songs for Kelly had the analogues to LGBT life in mind when she wrote those lyrics but to me they fit so well it has to be intentional.

Side note, Linda Perry has also written for Pink and Gwen Stefani two artists that have featured on this list already and will both feature again before it ends, so I do find an affinity with her writing style, I think she is an amazing songwriter, often forgotten, overshadowed by the artists she writes for, I just wanted to take a moment to show some appreciation.

The idea that Sleeping In The Nothing is actually about LGBT relationships though for me is only reinforced by some of the other track titles, 'Secret Lover' in particular is putting it right out there in no uncertain terms it's about hidden relationships, but also 'Suburbia' a title which I take as a nod to the Pet Shop Boys, but the lyrics "In your dreams you're fabulous, But in your life, ridiculous, See Alice had to go to Wonderland, To sip upon the tea that left her in a trance, yeah" these lyrics to me epitomise the mentality of a closeted gay guy who struggles with the duality of maintaining an internal and external persona that diverges so significantly, but the lyrics go on "Life for you is just a great big game, You have no control and all you feel is shame, Don't try to numb the pain, Tomorrow comes and you will be OK" I don't know how much more obvious I can make this analogy but that word "shame" to me is the key to the meaning of the song, the idea that you have to conform and fit in and accept the uniformity, with "suburban life" being a metaphor for society's expectations.

My favourite track on the album however is 'Save Me' which has the most meaning for me personally.  It speaks to the feeling that your internal struggle is blatantly obvious to other people, but nobody cares.  That you can feel anger against the people around you for not acknowledging the misery that the environment they created is destroying your soul and they don't offer you any help.  If you needed any further speculation that this album was about LGBT life, in 'Save Me' the lyrics read "All of my life I've locked away my feelings, And all of this time I've been living a lie, I was so afraid, Pathetically misleading, It was my empty space, a need to fill my void" you can't get much more explicit in spelling out the idea that this whole album is about oppression and repression and how toxic it can be. 

The lyric that always stayed with me was "When you looked in my eyes You knew I needed saving, And when you saw me getting high Why didn't you come save me?" because that above anything else encapsulated the feeling of despair and abandonment and rejection by society, the downward self destructive spiral and the path to unending darkness that it leads to, and how when you are so vulnerable and can't reach out to people out of paralysing fear you move ever closer to that eternal darkness and feel like not only do people see it, but that they watch it expecting you to die for their amusement.

I did say Kelly dabbled in darkness and that Sleeping In The Nothing manages to do that perfectly, there is no screaming rage on this album, the closest thing you get to an explicit expression of anger comes in 'Don't Touch Me When I'm Sleeping' perhaps the darkest track on the album, yet the album still manages to capture the emotion and the feeling of emptiness that it creates.  Sleeping In The Nothing is more about self expression and discontent than anything else.  This album is another one of those albums that will remain in my library that I can't see myself ever getting rid of, that I still use as a go-to when I need to process the emotions that I associate with it.