life in 10 tracks with esthetician raquel medina-cleghorn
on an early love of punk & walking down the aisle to Cocteau Twins
Esthetician Raquel Medina-Cleghorn’s music preferences have traced her journey from San Diego to Portland back to San Diego to her eventual arrival in New York, with early interests in punk giving way to a love of electroclash and shoegaze. Today, she’s kept busy by her Tribeca-based skincare hub, Raquel New York. Here, she shares the songs associated with some of her strongest memories, from rebellious hair-spiking makeovers with her childhood best friend all the way to her wedding day.
Dead Kennedys
When I was 15, I met a crusty punk named Happy and he introduced me to punk rock. He would lend me records, mostly 7” from local crust bands. I co-opted my parents’ record player until I got my own suitcase record player for Christmas. He also loaned me records by the Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables and Plastic Surgery Disasters. My best friend Rachel and I would rifle through her parents’ vinyl collection, too - they had less hippie tastes than my parents and had some classic punk records we’d play over and over, memorizing all the lyrics. This song is so different from the classic DK sound - the melody makes it sound quite beautiful, until you listen to the lyrics.
Cocteau Twins
The memory association I have with this song is easily the strongest. I had gotten into Cocteau Twins around 2012 or so, introduced by my friend Bryson. I already liked shoegaze, but the glossolalia of Elizabeth Fraser’s singing felt so magical and otherworldly. When my husband John and I were planning our wedding last summer, we knew music had to play a large part in it, and we chose this song for my walk down the aisle. We have no idea what lyrics she’s singing, or the meaning behind the song, but their music is all about the feeling and I can’t think of anything more romantic than these sounds. A few months before the wedding, John’s friend Joe was in town from London. We went to dinner at some random pizza place in midtown and asked Joe to do a reading. He accepted, and in conversation asked what song I was walking down the aisle to. I just told him it would be by the Cocteau Twins. A little while later this song came on and we all remarked how unusual it was in that setting and that we had just been talking about them. I had already selected this track but the coincidence of hearing it while meeting one of John’s oldest friends made it all feel kismet and connected.
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Raquel!! My Bravo-loving aesthetics queen!!