Music Moments #7

It's only been 10 months since the last "music moments" so I would say it's time for an update!  So, what am I listening to right now?  Basically there are two albums I can't get enough of at the moment.

First off... Sia - 1000 Forms of Fear

She has such a different voice, I'm hooked!

You all probably know Chandelier from the radio (depending on which country you live in).  Love this song, it has a great story and beat.

Another popular single from this album is, Elastic Heart.  Again, a song full of emotion and a beat that just makes you bob with.  Too bad the music video is getting such negative press.  I actually think Maddie & Shia did a uniquely great job.

I really appreaciate that Sia (helps) write her own songs, it makes them seem deeper and more heart felt.  The entire album makes you feel you've stepped into someone else's head.  Besides the two most popular singles, there are other songs worth checking out on the album... Fire Meet Gasoline, Hostage, & Straight for the Knife.


The second album is completely different but still delves into deep feelings & relationships... Alex & Sierra - It's About Us

I mentioned them back in 2013 when they were competing on X Factor and now they finally have an album out!!!  Loved their style from their first perfomance on the show.

I am not sure if their music is playing on US radio's or not, but it should be.  It is yet to make it here in The Netherlands, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. 

They have to videos made and the songs are great, Scarecrow & Little Do You Know.  The songs are catchy & meaningful and make you want to sing along.

For their first album I think it went well, they didn't venture too far from the style that we all fell in love with during X Factor.  Other worthy songs on the album, Bumper Cars (it definitely needs an official video), I Love You, & Back to You.


Hope you all give them a chance and enjoy these two albums as much as I do!

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!

:) Danica

Music Moments #6

Being that I'm in the car roughly 2hrs a day (school runs & sports) I have a lot of time to listen to music.  You can often catch me using my steering wheel as a drum or singing at the top of my lungs.  But being that I listen to so much music I can easily get bored of a song or cd, so it's important to keep finding new stuff.  (New to me, not per say new to the market.)

During the last season or so of X Factor or American Idol I kept hearing poor attempts at some song called Radioactive.  After a while I grew curious and wondered what the actual song sounded like.  After hearing Imagine Dragons original version I knew I wanted this on my car playlist!  I went even further and gave the entire album (Night Visions) a chance.  Not every song is for me, but I definitely have favorites to recommend besides Radioactive...  Demons, I can play this over and over... On Top of the World, it's just fun.  And even better, we get to see Imagine Dragons live this summer, because they're playing at a huge weekend long music festival and we have tickets!!!

And obviously I can't survive on one album alone when bopping back and forth, so I tossed in some John Mayer also.  (Funnily enough my husband and I stumbled upon his music in the same weekend, while in different countries!)  My husband basically likes one song, Speak For Me... I am yet to get this in my car but will probably get around to it this week.  Me, I've been giving his Paradise Valley album a chance.  There are a handful of songs I like... Dear Marie, Badge & Gun, Waitin' on the Day, & I Will Be Found... o.k., more than I realized!  Needless to say, I'll be looking up more of his music.  (And I don't care that my friends laughed and said they don't take him serious.)

What are you listening to these days?  Any recommendations for my car playlist?

(BTW, still occasionally listening to the songs from Music Moments #5!)

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!

:) Danica

Music Moments #5

The other day while watching The X Factor I made an interesting discovery.  There I sat thoroughly enjoying a ballad (great job Danie, even if they did vote you off) when it hit me which song the girl was singing... Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus.  It was too late I had already opened my mouth and announced to my husband that I liked the song, and we both burst out laughing when we realized it was a Miley Cyrus song!  But I must admit, even though she's having a Britney-Spears-lost-her-mind moment, the song is good.  The song only, not the video, or all the other antics she's up to!  Sometimes it takes someone else covering a number to open your eyes and ears to a decent song.  To be honest, I probably never would have given the song a chance... and it's easily avoidable considering I rarely listen to the radio or watch music videos.  So I guess, thank you X Factor, because I've listened to the song over and over again.

Besides Miley Cyrus' new number there's also another decent ballad in the charts right now, a nice surprise... Rihanna's Stay with Mikky Ekko.  Rihanna seems to be able to do it all, dance numbers and touching ballads, did you know she already has 12 #1 hits!

So what's on my playlist these days besides Wrecking Ball & Stay... other numbers I can't get enough of right now and you should definitely give a chance... Bruno Mars : When I Was Your Man and Pink & Nate Ruess : Just Give Me A Reason and some older ones... Plain White T's : Hey There Delilah and Radiohead : Creep  My playlists are generally highly influenced by one of two things, exercising or writing, and right now I'm working on a romance novel so my playlist is full of emotional ballads at the moment.  What's on your playlist these days? 

If you're interested in what other music inspires me in my day to day life or hobbies, check out old Music Moment posts!

Bye! Dag! Adios! Namaste!

:) Danica

Music Moments #4

Music can influence peoples lives, and activities.  We use music to inspire us, to make us happy, to make us remember, to make us dance, the list goes on and on.  In previous Music Moments posts, I was sure to let you know what was playing around our house at that time, or even what I was using to motivate myself during exercise.  This post is similar, but I'm not going to delve into the tunes filling our heads at this moment.  This post is about a small phase I went through a couple months back, I wouldn't say I'm embarrassed just saying it was unusual for me.  Here goes, I went through a short country music phase, there I said it.  For those who know me, well, they know country music isn't really my thing, as a teen I would cringe when I heard it.  But now as an adult I am a lot more open and occasionally I actually hear songs I like when I give them a chance.  Now, in most of my Music Moments posts I'll mention what I am listening to while writing, whether writing a blog post or a fictional story you can basically say I write most days of the week.  This is actually how I stumbled into this country music phase.  I was working on a love story (all of my stories are love stories, but not your typical mushy romance novels) and one of the main characters happened to be southern.  So to put myself in the right mood, I decided to get my hands on some country music.  Obviously since I don't listen to country I have no idea what is considered good these days, but I do know what was considered good years ago.  Don't laugh, because I ended up with the strangest combination... Johnny Cash, Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw, & Garth Brooks.  But it worked, it helped me to put myself creatively and imaginatively in a southern town with thick accents all around, helping the story feel more realistic.  Then I ended up planning a trip, back in March, to visit my grandmother in Tennessee, so this sort-of continued the country phase.  Luckily, because there are limited radio stations an hour outside of Nashville.  Turns out country music is different these days, it almost leans more towards pop than drawn out sad ballads.  There were even a few songs I could bounce my head to, but I must say I have no idea who the artist was and I probably never will.  For now, the country phase is finished, I'm on to the next story (I have a lot of unfinished stories) and this one needs dubstep and not country. 

(For those of you who do thoroughly enjoy country music, like my grandmother, I'm not putting it down, so please don't misunderstand me.  Whether I enjoy it or not doesn't mean I do not appreciate the talent.)

Other Bloggers #2

Just like me there are many men, women, and teens sitting behind their computers typing away.  All providing something different... a heartfelt story, a journey through hard times, an exercise plan, cooking tips, decorating ideas, stories of travel, photography appreciation... the list goes on and on.  It's amazing to me at times how this world of blogging becomes so intertwined and how we cross paths with people from all over the world.  For some of you connecting and getting your blog out there is easy and for others you might be wondering if anyone is reading at all.  I found one of the best ways to get connected is through a blog with energy and full of fun ideas, like blog hops.  And I happen to know of one : Sincerely, Paula. 

Maybe you've stumbled across her blog in the past, maybe this is the first you've heard of it, but no matter what it's worth checking out.  There's something for everyone when it comes to finding blogs you're interested in or just promoting your own blog.  She has two main blog hops, "Wordless Wednesday Blog Party" & "No Rules Weekend Blog Party".  These blog parties attract an array of bloggers... personally I've gained quite a few new followers this way and linked up to blogs I might not have found on my own.  Who knows, maybe one will get mentioned next round!  If you enjoy my blog love, be sure to check out the first "Other Bloggers".

Music Moments #3

My life is full of music moments, certain activities almost require that there is music involved.  For me those main moments are while driving, exercising, and writing.  But throughout the day music also fills our house, especially when my husbands home, his iPhone is always bolting out the latest tunes.  And when he's not home, well, there's a lot of kids music... Barney is a favorite with my tot!

 

What's the number one album blasting through our house at the moment :
 

It's Mumford & Sons latest album, Babel.  They can do no wrong!  I thought their last album couldn't be topped, but now there's Babel.  I'm sure you've all heard I Will Wait playing on the radio.  The banjo and mandolin keep your head bobbing and the songs are catchy and hard to get out of your head.  There's a great mixture between upbeat songs and slow ballads, all of which worth listening to.  And what's even better, it's music I can listen to with my toddler around and not worry about her repeating vulgar words or hearing adult only content.

 

What's playing in my car (o.k., my husbands car that I borrow occasionally) :
 

I have to admit, I still haven't taken Fun or Lana Del Rey off the USB stick.  But I also added Green Day's newest album, Uno.  When I added this album it reminded of how much I enjoyed their 1994 album Dookie.  It was one of those albums that accompanied my early teenage years.  As soon as I added it to my car playlist I realized I still remember all of the words.  The mind is a funny thing, I can't tell you what I did last weekend but I know all the words to Basket Case and When I Come Around 10 yrs later!

 

What's playing while I exercise :
 

Somehow I missed out on a genre of music called Dubstep.  When I finally realized I was interested in it, I coined my own term, techno-hip-hop.  My husband was embarrassed for me and after I said it to friends for the umpteenth time, he told me it was actually called Dubstep.  Immediately I hopped on the computer and looked around for a popular artist in this genre, and I found Datsik.  I wouldn't say this music is for everyone, but wow does it get you pumped up.  Something you need while working off the fat on the elliptical machine.  And on one of the rare occasions I ended up in a bar after 2AM, they were blasting this music and the crowd couldn't get enough.  I could have danced the rest of the night away (except I'm 31 yrs old and I knew the next day my toddler would come home from grandma's!)  I'm sure there are other great Dubstep artists out there, so if you know any, please let me know.

 

What's playing while I write :
 

Well, right now Mumford & Sons, but lately the Queen of the Damned soundtrack.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Queen of the Damned, it was a great vampire movie from 2002.  It also had a worthy rock music soundtrack.  Not just any rock, great music created with the help of Jonathan Davis from Korn!  I was working on a mythological story and the music was perfect to play in the background.  Once I played the album a couple times it dawned on me that I could also use it while exercising.  You can't compare it to Dubstep, except it does get your blood flowing... and... you really have to enjoy this type of music to get into it (I imagine a lot of people my age and over cringe at the sound of either!)

Well, that's it for this time... who knows what I'll be listening to next!  Do you have any suggestions?

Other Bloggers

I follow plenty of blogs, each one bringing something different to the table.  And occasionally during my day one of these blogs pops into mind.  One I follow is called Herding Cats, and she has a series of posts called Taphophile Tragics.  In other words she finds cemeteries and gravestones interesting and writes about them.  I thought she had given up on writing the back stories of these long gone people but it turns out she just started a blog specifically about them, called Beneath Thy Feet.  I happen to live near a really old cemetery; I pass it going to the park, taking my daughter to school, letting the dog out, etc., and as I peek over the brick walls my thoughts occasionally trail back to her blog.  Now I have no intentions of researching the gravestones or taking her ideas, but I did happen to take a lot of photos there the other day.  So here's to you Nicola Carpenter, thanks for maintaining such an interesting blog.
 

Who knows, your blog may be the next inspiration for one of my posts!  Keep an eye out for a follow up post.

Music Moments #2

Here's another follow-up post!  It's not that I'm out of things to talk about I just wanted to share some great albums with you. 

What's playing in the background as I work on my blog and books?  I keep switching because I can't decide which album I like better.  There's stiff competition between Fun. - Some Nights & Lana Del Rey - Born To Die.  They're not exactly the type of music I have always listened to, who knew I liked Indie Pop; my husband says it's because I'm getting older so the music I listen to isn't as intense.  Maybe he's right, or maybe I haven't heard any rap or rock albums that really interest me lately.  Well, except for Jay-Z & Kanye West's album - Watch the Throne.  Needless to say there are some great songs on the above albums, besides their main singles you should listen to Carry On & National Anthem.

What's playing while I'm exercising.  Rihanna's 4th & 5th albums, Rated R & Loud.  I still can't believe how many popular songs/albums she has pumped out over the years, she's on #6 now.  She makes great music for dancing and exercising.  My daughter also loves her music, unfortunately she's not allowed to watch any of the videos because of their intensity.  Actually there are few videos my daughter is allowed to watch, most of them are quite disturbing these days.  Sometimes my husband and I flip on the music channel (not MTV because they don't even play music) and after a few videos we look over at each other questioning what we were just exposed to.  We're not prude, it's just most videos these days are strange, they'll do anything to get a rise out of you.  (Seriously I'm not getting old.)

What's playing in the house that my daughter enjoys?  Right now thanks to American Idol she's enjoying Creedence Clearwater Revival.  We just play a best hits albums and she thoroughly enjoys it.  Even at 2 yrs old she can appreciate real music and instruments.  And since the entire family loves oldies, you'll also occasionally hear the Forrest Gump soundtrack, and if it's just the girls even the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.  I think movie soundtracks are a great place to find a good compilation of music.  Plus you get the added benefit of having great movie scenes pop into mind when you hear the songs, it's an all around fun experience.  Since American Idol had such strong contenders this season, we are also eagerly awaiting albums from Joshua Ledet & Phillip Phillips.

I hope all of you have background music in your lives.  Whether singing along in your car, bopping around your living room, or just kicking back and taking it in, everyone should have music moments.

Music Moments

In my house music is very common, and my daughter has grown to enjoy music as much as us.  We like to crank it up after my husband gets home from work and dance around the living room, great family music moments!   

One album we are all enjoying at the moment is Mumford & Sons (they're a British folk rock band). It seems to be the running background music of our lives over the past two weeks. It's funny how you can like an album so much you will listen to it repeatedly. I remember at one time thinking Kings of Leon would never get taken out of rotation, but eventually they all get replaced. As of now Mumford & Sons is taking their slot on our playlists.  Then there is always Adele, she's great, I think everyone can appreciate her talent.  She's also someone we can listen to with the entire family or individually.  I'll often turn on one of the above albums while I'm writing, they're soothing, don't distract, and have a lot of emotion to them.  From what I understand Adele has become quite popular in The States but I'm not sure about Mumford & Sons... so for the ones of you who have never heard of these albums you really should give them a chance.  Now if I'm not listening to mellow British music, I'm listening to American rap, I love it! 

I love any music that will get me dancing but there's something special about rap. I wish I could say I outgrew it as a teenager but I didn't. I also wish I could say there are a lot of great rap albums out today, but I can't.  Other than dancing to it, I really enjoy exercising to it.  It's peppy enough to get me moving, yet has this aggression to it to keep me motivated on the crosstrainer.  The past couple of weeks I have either listened to Flo-rida or Nicki Minaj while exercising.  My husband also appreciates rap but he can't stand Flo-rida; he's more of an Eminem type.  And Nicki Minaj just makes fun rap, she's a little eccentric and that definitely reflects in her album.  I'm sure you've read this and lost a bit of respect for me, but you have to understand I enjoy a variety of music.  Before driving lessons I like to listen to Andrea Bocelli, and while growing up I almost played out my Phantom of the Opera cassette tape.  And I enjoy Metallica as much as I enjoy The Beach Boys!  I hope you all have music moments throughout your day!