Mwahahahaha. I've actually managed three blog posts in consecutive days! This is almost turning in to a thing I can keep up! Oh, what a marvellous day it is to be me :D
#10. Acapella by Kelis
Kelis does something memorable that isn't Milkshake! Yes, I know such a concept is rather foreign, but boy did she manage it with Acapella. It's a song that shouldn't be good for many reasons: pretty repetitive tune and most of the song is actually sort of sung-spoken. The good thing is that it's some of the catchiest lyrics and the song just won't get out of your head. The amount of times I've found myself randomly singing "before you, my whole life was Acapella..." under my breath is slightly worrying. I think one day I might try and slip it into a news report I do. I'm totally going to do that, much like I promised Jonny I would one day manage to get "horrageous" in to a news report.
Anyway, Kelis. Yeah, it's a great song and well worthy of a spot in my top 10. Plus, the video is seriously trippy which only makes things even better. Win!
#9. Promise This by Cheryl Cole
Fun story: I hated this song when it first came out. Heard it when it debuted and thought "oh my god, that's awful." It was probably the "alouette" bit, if anything. I mean, let me make it clear: I'm sort of indifferent to Cheryl, in the sense that I felt sorry for her with the whole Ashley thing but then I don't worship her like a worrying majority of gay guys appear to do. Liked "Fight for this Love" but hated "3 Words". It took until Children in Need and her performance of this song for me to think "huh...it's actually quite good." About 20 listens on iTunes later and I can definitely say I love it. It doesn't really stop going from start to finish (apart from the little alouette refrain in the middle) and that's what really keeps the song going: it's full energy and really makes you remember it.
#8. Fireflies by Owl City
It seems like aaaaaages since this song came out. In fact, I nearly forgot it when I was making the list because I thought it had come out in 2009 - but, no, there it was at the start of 2010 and it's impossible to leave it off the list as a result. Sure, Owl City has done pretty much nothing else since then and while it's certainly a bit of a divisive song, Fireflies is still a lovely little pop song. I probably fell in love with it even more for the video though, because when you listen to the two together, it works so well and puts across the idea for the song. The same cannot be said for a video along a similar ilk, I'd say:
Mika tried to go for a "going back to your childhood" thing with the We Are Golden video and failed horribly, instead looking like a lunatic in his pants. Which ain't a good look. Owl City, on the other hand, has a bit of optimism to it and more importantly, the right amount of childhood innocence. Helps that he's not dancing in his pants too, I guess.
#7. Gettin' Over You by David Guetta & Chris Willis (ft. Fergie & LMFAO)
The award for longest artist contribution tag goes to...well, yeah, but to be fair all five of them (who knew LMFAO were a duo!?) are pretty damn good on this song (Guetta obviously for his producer skills and whatnot). I mean, overall this song is all over the place, with Fergie randomly interspersed in wherever she wants to be, Chris Willis (whoever he is) showing off some damn good vocal skills while LMFAO put together the bulk of the song for whatever reason. I mean, ultimately this song makes no sense. It shouldn't work...but it does. It works so well that it makes me want to dance. That takes a lot as many people well testify; I have no idea how it's a song about getting over someone really, but it sure as hell makes you feel good by the end.
29/12/2010
28/12/2010
Songs of 2010, #14-11
Keep on truckin' and keep on moving through the songs of 2010. Only a batch of four now since that works out better if I'm going to have this done in some sense of order by Friday.
14. Any Which Way by Scissor Sisters
Gr. So, the big return of the Scissor Sisters in 2010 wasn't as big a success as it could have been, which was a massive shame since a lot of Night Work was their best work yet: Any Which Way leads all the others, although Invisible Light, Sex and Violence and Whole New Way are close contenders to best song of the album. What makes Any Which Way particularly memorable is Ana Matronic's absolutely awesome refrain towards the end of the song; I've said it before and I'll say it again, Ana is probably one of the best women in music at the moment. She probably has one of the best stage presences I've ever seen. She's just awesome. The version of the song they did with Kylie at Glastonbury was also suitably amazing and certainly a sight to behold, particularly since it was Kylie's debut at the legendary festival.
13. Airplanes by B.o.B (ft. Hayley Williams)
The song that inspired about a million Facebook statuses, Airplanes is still pretty damn good even if everyone and their cat has now heard the line "I could really use a wish right now". To be fair, yes it's a good chorus but I sort of have a love/hate relationship with that girl from Paramore (as she shall be forever known in my heart) since the only Paramore song worth a listen is Misery Business and we had to sit through The Only Exception in Glee in the middle of a BRITNEY SPEARS TRIBUTE EPISODE.
*ahem*. Anyway, as I was saying before: even if it's overplayed and firmly etched in everyone's minds now, Airplanes is a pretty good song. B.o.B's had a good year and this firmly put him on the radar, with his rapping probably being the best bit of the song when you listen to it a few times.
12. Teenage Dream by Katy Perry
It's fair to say that at one point in 2009, it looked pretty grim for Katy Perry. GaGa was on the scene and pretty much taking her place as the new girl on the block and doing a damn good job of it: after the smash of I Kissed a Girl and then the absolutely awesome Hot N Cold (still one of my favourites of all time), she sort of floundered with Thinking of You and Waking Up In Vegas. But boy did she come back fighting this year; California Gurls was a bit of harmless fun but it was the follow up, Teenage Dream, that really re-established the new Mrs. Brand. It's a bit sad that the Glee version of the song has pretty much eclipsed it in popularity now, since the original is a damn good song no matter how you look at it. No surprise that she chose to name the album after the song, really.
11. Take It Off by Ke$ha
Oh, Ke$ha. Only she could decide one day "hey, I'm going to get a load of friends together and we're going to do another video for my new song for the sake of it". I mean, let's be clear about something: she's hardly the best vocallist ever. All of her songs sorta sound the same (apart from maybe Your Love is My Drug). But that's good because all of those songs have been pretty damn infectious pop and there's no harm in sticking to a winning formula. Take It Off has been her best song since Tik Tok though, particularly thanks to the chorus that gets in your head and just won't leave. Probably like Ke$ha herself at the end of a party. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Glozell:
Lordy mercy, P DIDDY!?
14. Any Which Way by Scissor Sisters
Gr. So, the big return of the Scissor Sisters in 2010 wasn't as big a success as it could have been, which was a massive shame since a lot of Night Work was their best work yet: Any Which Way leads all the others, although Invisible Light, Sex and Violence and Whole New Way are close contenders to best song of the album. What makes Any Which Way particularly memorable is Ana Matronic's absolutely awesome refrain towards the end of the song; I've said it before and I'll say it again, Ana is probably one of the best women in music at the moment. She probably has one of the best stage presences I've ever seen. She's just awesome. The version of the song they did with Kylie at Glastonbury was also suitably amazing and certainly a sight to behold, particularly since it was Kylie's debut at the legendary festival.
13. Airplanes by B.o.B (ft. Hayley Williams)
The song that inspired about a million Facebook statuses, Airplanes is still pretty damn good even if everyone and their cat has now heard the line "I could really use a wish right now". To be fair, yes it's a good chorus but I sort of have a love/hate relationship with that girl from Paramore (as she shall be forever known in my heart) since the only Paramore song worth a listen is Misery Business and we had to sit through The Only Exception in Glee in the middle of a BRITNEY SPEARS TRIBUTE EPISODE.
*ahem*. Anyway, as I was saying before: even if it's overplayed and firmly etched in everyone's minds now, Airplanes is a pretty good song. B.o.B's had a good year and this firmly put him on the radar, with his rapping probably being the best bit of the song when you listen to it a few times.
12. Teenage Dream by Katy Perry
It's fair to say that at one point in 2009, it looked pretty grim for Katy Perry. GaGa was on the scene and pretty much taking her place as the new girl on the block and doing a damn good job of it: after the smash of I Kissed a Girl and then the absolutely awesome Hot N Cold (still one of my favourites of all time), she sort of floundered with Thinking of You and Waking Up In Vegas. But boy did she come back fighting this year; California Gurls was a bit of harmless fun but it was the follow up, Teenage Dream, that really re-established the new Mrs. Brand. It's a bit sad that the Glee version of the song has pretty much eclipsed it in popularity now, since the original is a damn good song no matter how you look at it. No surprise that she chose to name the album after the song, really.
11. Take It Off by Ke$ha
Oh, Ke$ha. Only she could decide one day "hey, I'm going to get a load of friends together and we're going to do another video for my new song for the sake of it". I mean, let's be clear about something: she's hardly the best vocallist ever. All of her songs sorta sound the same (apart from maybe Your Love is My Drug). But that's good because all of those songs have been pretty damn infectious pop and there's no harm in sticking to a winning formula. Take It Off has been her best song since Tik Tok though, particularly thanks to the chorus that gets in your head and just won't leave. Probably like Ke$ha herself at the end of a party. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Glozell:
Lordy mercy, P DIDDY!?
27/12/2010
Songs of 2010, #20-15
Yes, it's a belated return to blogging, but it's not too belated since it allows me a chance to post my favourite 20 songs of 2010. I'll probably go back in to "proper" blogging sooner or later but, yes, this gives me a chance to be all music journalist-y or something of that ilk. There's no real rules here, other than "it has to have been released in 2010", at least as a single if not as part of an album. Let's get straight in to it then, shall we?
20. Satellite by Lena
Ah yes, Lena, 2010's winner of Eurovision. Anyone who knows me will probably know that I'm a massive Eurovision nerd (I'm thinking 2011 is finally the year that I host my massive ass Eurovision party. I have a house for it now, at least...) and this was one of my favourite songs during the competition, which means it was a nice change for it to win. Anyway, Lena's voice is a bit...different, mainly thanks to the fact she has the weirdest faux-British accent I've ever heard. I actually like it though, even though it wasn't universally loved. "Satellite" is a good little pop song and in terms of the recent Eurovision winners is pretty damn awesome, to be fair. It'll be fun to see her defend her crown in 2011 to say the least, depending on what she comes out with.
19. Pass Out by Tinie Tempah
See, I like music that isn't strictly pop music! Anyway, Pass Out is actually a pretty damn good song even if I don't usually like rap music, mainly due to the fact that I love the lyrics to this song. Anyone who can include The Hills, Scunthorpe and Uncle Fester in the same song and make it go to Number One in the charts sort of deserves to be ranked high in any ranking I'd have thought. I'm not a massive fan of the rest of Tinie's songs that I've heard so far, but as far as a mainstream debut goes, this is as good as it's going to get for the guy.
18. Toxic by the Glee Cast
Ah, Glee, how I love you. A lot of the time they get criticism for just doing straight covers of pop songs and never really making them sound a lot different - apart from throwing a whole hunk of auto tune which can often be completely unnecessary. But then came this AMAZING version of my favourite Britney song and they sort of blew it out of the water. The fact that in the episode itself the song sort of got butchered by the acting going on around it was a damn shame, because the entire cast sound great and it's a really good arrangement of the song. Heather Morris also sounds amazing, further cementing my theory that she is indeed the most talented member of the cast (sorry Chris Colfer, you know I love you deeply but it's true. She's that fucking awesome.)
17. Love The Way You Lie, Part II by Rihanna & Eminem
After the rumours of a sequel to "Stan" and then the actual sequel of "Empire State of Mind (Part 2)" (and, if you really want to count it, California Gurls), it sort of made sense that we would get a sequel to Love the Way You Lie. Unlike ESoM 2, though, Rihanna actually keeps a lot of the original heart of the song and simply reverses it: instead of the majority being Eminem's rap, it becomes Rihanna's pop and he simply has his own smaller rap solo later on in the song. If anything though, this is the perfect sequel song; whatever the relationship between the two characters portrayed in these songs really is, the way it's so beautifully told in both songs works so well. The only reason this ranks lower than it's predecessor in my mind is because without the original, this just wouldn't work quite so well.
16. Only Girl in the World by Rihanna
On the whole, Rated R was a bit of a disaster. Sure, Rude Boy was pretty good, but it was a bit of a nothing song in reality. And Te Amo was alright but it wasn't exactly going to set the world alight. All in all, it was just...not what we expected from Rihanna. So what did she do to fix this? Release this pounding dance song (the Europop influences in particular shining through) and wrap it up with some frankly amazing live performances of it. This is the natural progression that should have come from Good Girl Gone Bad; Rude Boy was the starter that led in to this main course.
Yeah, I'm using food analogies. Go me!
15. Commander by Kelly Rowland
I sort of feel sorry for Kelly Rowland (I'm saying this knowing that she's probably loaded and hasn't got a care in the world, but work with me here). "Work" was a damn good song, while "When Love Takes Over" was probably the song of Summer 2009. Yet she's never really managed to establish a solo career that's kept strong on its own, and Commander was unfortunately a prime example of this, only managing a top position of number 9 when it really could have done so much better. It's a huge tune with a damn good vocal performance by Rowland and it was probably one of my favourite songs of the summer, even if solely for the chorus (which is by far the highlight of the song).
So, yes. That's the first six, I'll put the next batch up tomorrow hopefully. In other news, I'm in a sort of very "bleh" mood since I'm bored out of my mind and stuck at home thanks to the inability of the Manchester buses to run at a reasonable service half the time. Plus, it needs to be New Year now please. Just so things start happening I guess. Ja.
20. Satellite by Lena
Ah yes, Lena, 2010's winner of Eurovision. Anyone who knows me will probably know that I'm a massive Eurovision nerd (I'm thinking 2011 is finally the year that I host my massive ass Eurovision party. I have a house for it now, at least...) and this was one of my favourite songs during the competition, which means it was a nice change for it to win. Anyway, Lena's voice is a bit...different, mainly thanks to the fact she has the weirdest faux-British accent I've ever heard. I actually like it though, even though it wasn't universally loved. "Satellite" is a good little pop song and in terms of the recent Eurovision winners is pretty damn awesome, to be fair. It'll be fun to see her defend her crown in 2011 to say the least, depending on what she comes out with.
19. Pass Out by Tinie Tempah
See, I like music that isn't strictly pop music! Anyway, Pass Out is actually a pretty damn good song even if I don't usually like rap music, mainly due to the fact that I love the lyrics to this song. Anyone who can include The Hills, Scunthorpe and Uncle Fester in the same song and make it go to Number One in the charts sort of deserves to be ranked high in any ranking I'd have thought. I'm not a massive fan of the rest of Tinie's songs that I've heard so far, but as far as a mainstream debut goes, this is as good as it's going to get for the guy.
18. Toxic by the Glee Cast
Ah, Glee, how I love you. A lot of the time they get criticism for just doing straight covers of pop songs and never really making them sound a lot different - apart from throwing a whole hunk of auto tune which can often be completely unnecessary. But then came this AMAZING version of my favourite Britney song and they sort of blew it out of the water. The fact that in the episode itself the song sort of got butchered by the acting going on around it was a damn shame, because the entire cast sound great and it's a really good arrangement of the song. Heather Morris also sounds amazing, further cementing my theory that she is indeed the most talented member of the cast (sorry Chris Colfer, you know I love you deeply but it's true. She's that fucking awesome.)
17. Love The Way You Lie, Part II by Rihanna & Eminem
After the rumours of a sequel to "Stan" and then the actual sequel of "Empire State of Mind (Part 2)" (and, if you really want to count it, California Gurls), it sort of made sense that we would get a sequel to Love the Way You Lie. Unlike ESoM 2, though, Rihanna actually keeps a lot of the original heart of the song and simply reverses it: instead of the majority being Eminem's rap, it becomes Rihanna's pop and he simply has his own smaller rap solo later on in the song. If anything though, this is the perfect sequel song; whatever the relationship between the two characters portrayed in these songs really is, the way it's so beautifully told in both songs works so well. The only reason this ranks lower than it's predecessor in my mind is because without the original, this just wouldn't work quite so well.
16. Only Girl in the World by Rihanna
On the whole, Rated R was a bit of a disaster. Sure, Rude Boy was pretty good, but it was a bit of a nothing song in reality. And Te Amo was alright but it wasn't exactly going to set the world alight. All in all, it was just...not what we expected from Rihanna. So what did she do to fix this? Release this pounding dance song (the Europop influences in particular shining through) and wrap it up with some frankly amazing live performances of it. This is the natural progression that should have come from Good Girl Gone Bad; Rude Boy was the starter that led in to this main course.
Yeah, I'm using food analogies. Go me!
15. Commander by Kelly Rowland
I sort of feel sorry for Kelly Rowland (I'm saying this knowing that she's probably loaded and hasn't got a care in the world, but work with me here). "Work" was a damn good song, while "When Love Takes Over" was probably the song of Summer 2009. Yet she's never really managed to establish a solo career that's kept strong on its own, and Commander was unfortunately a prime example of this, only managing a top position of number 9 when it really could have done so much better. It's a huge tune with a damn good vocal performance by Rowland and it was probably one of my favourite songs of the summer, even if solely for the chorus (which is by far the highlight of the song).
So, yes. That's the first six, I'll put the next batch up tomorrow hopefully. In other news, I'm in a sort of very "bleh" mood since I'm bored out of my mind and stuck at home thanks to the inability of the Manchester buses to run at a reasonable service half the time. Plus, it needs to be New Year now please. Just so things start happening I guess. Ja.
11/07/2010
Music is the victim.
"All the things I know right now
If I only knew back then
There's no gettin' over
No gettin over'
There's just no getting over you."
Getting Over You, David Guetta ft. Fergie, Chris Willis & LMFAO
"No matter lightning or thunder,
Buckets of rainwater,
You can't flood this town!
In a world unknown,
You've gotta hold your own,
You can't stop me-
You're never ever gonna stop me now."
No Floods, Lady GaGa
"I can remember days
Things weren't always this way
I used to make you smile
If only for a while.
But now I can't get through
There's no way I can lose
I know some days are hard
But must you make mine too."
Earthquake, Little Boots
"You said "Sit back down where you belong;
In the corner of my bar with your high heels on."
Sit back down on the couch where we
made love the first time and you said to me,
'There's something, something about this place.""
You and I, Lady GaGa
Lyrics from songs that seem relatively poignant right now to me. I've never enjoyed break ups, and considering this was technically my second one with Davey it was sort of that little bit worse. Still, I'm sort of talking to him right now which is all good, but to say I'm not hurting would be a lie. I'll survive though, although it does throw quite a few things up in the air, but that can be dealt with at a later date at least. Still...yeah. Music is good for me right now.
25/06/2010
Sex and violence...
No particular reason for that title other than the fact it is the title of a song from the Scissor Sisters' new album and happens to be the best damn track on said album. Thank God for internet leaks is all I can say - but I'm being a good little fanboy and I bought the album anyway so hopefully they can power their way to another #1. The album itself comes out on Monday, which also happens to be the day that Jonny and I are descending upon the Manchester Apollo to see Mr. Shears, Mrs. Matronic and the rest of the band live. This will make it the third time I've seen them now, which might seem a lot, but oh it'll be worth it. I know that just based on the quality of their songs, the energy they always put in to performances, and some kind of intuition. Obviously, I'm psychic (oh, how I long to be Karen Smith...)
But, yes. A blog post. This post is actually mainly a way of updating the blog, since I feel like I sort of need to do it (as I haven't done it in a while). I also know that I probably will be without any great deal of internet until Monday, by which point I'll probably have no energy to write for the blog and therefore it'll probably go the route of my many, many other failed projects. The reason for this lack of internet will be my trip to Scotland to see Manic and Ryan, alongside Davey and Alex, which shall no doubt be a fun visit (the first time I've ever been to Scotland too, now that I think about it). Suffice to say my boyfriend's decision to shave his head the day before we go on said trip will no doubt result in my verbally castrating him at some point over the weekend, but all is fair in love and war. Oh, how I love that phrase.
I'm sort of in two clashing moods at the moment, which is something I've got used to over the past few months. The main mood is the one that I've been dragging around for the better part of a month at least; the one where I feel like there's some kind of black cloud constantly hanging around my head. It's bothering me that I can't shake it off, mainly because I don't know what it is that is getting me down - when I do know, I can generally work around it or cram it away in the cracks of my mind until I have my next massive emotional breakdown. Healthy way of dealing with things, I know, but I manage to get by. Thankfully, this is being offset for the immediate time being in the fact that I've got a good few things possibly lined up: Red Bull are offering the chance for one "young" reporter to travel to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, which could be an amazing opportunity if I manage to nab it (since doing the F1 coverage is probably my dream job out of all possible journalism based ventures). I also managed to forget that sitting right on my old doorstep of MGS was a possible link to a journalist's dream, as Michael Crick, the current editor of Newsnight, is a fellow "Old Mancuncian". My old Politics teacher reminded me of this fact when I went in to school today for a visit and suggested that if I wanted, he could perhaps inform Mr. Crick of my existence and potential for some experience alongside him for a couple of weeks. So, suddenly, I've gone from having nothing to do all summer to possibly getting a whole lot more lined up, which could work very well for my career.
It's 2.18 in the morning and the cows on the field near my house are mooing. If they keep me up, I swear that I'm going to go make some burgers for a very early breakfast.
The other thing that could take up a portion of my summer would be if Jonny and I actually did apply for, and successfully be casted on Coach Trip. It'd be an amazing experience in a way, even if we would have to share a coach with a load of reality TV wannabes and several horrific old couples. We already sort of have a strategy planned on the slender chance that we were cast. "The nice young wholesome boys who get on really well with the older couples, then bitch about them to the camera." I watch too much reality TV, really, because that's something I've seen played out so many times before. Oh well, though, it gets you casted.
Anyway, blog post over, more or less. In honour of the fact that I've started playing Final Fantasy VII again (yay for PSP) and getting further than I have in a long, long, loooong time on this game, I shall tack on "One Winged Angel" for the music tastes of today, alongside the entire Night Work album. Particular tracks from that would be "Whole New Way", "Fire With Fire", the aforementioned "Sex and Violence" and the wonders of Sir Ian McKellan on "Invisible Light". Toodles.
But, yes. A blog post. This post is actually mainly a way of updating the blog, since I feel like I sort of need to do it (as I haven't done it in a while). I also know that I probably will be without any great deal of internet until Monday, by which point I'll probably have no energy to write for the blog and therefore it'll probably go the route of my many, many other failed projects. The reason for this lack of internet will be my trip to Scotland to see Manic and Ryan, alongside Davey and Alex, which shall no doubt be a fun visit (the first time I've ever been to Scotland too, now that I think about it). Suffice to say my boyfriend's decision to shave his head the day before we go on said trip will no doubt result in my verbally castrating him at some point over the weekend, but all is fair in love and war. Oh, how I love that phrase.
I'm sort of in two clashing moods at the moment, which is something I've got used to over the past few months. The main mood is the one that I've been dragging around for the better part of a month at least; the one where I feel like there's some kind of black cloud constantly hanging around my head. It's bothering me that I can't shake it off, mainly because I don't know what it is that is getting me down - when I do know, I can generally work around it or cram it away in the cracks of my mind until I have my next massive emotional breakdown. Healthy way of dealing with things, I know, but I manage to get by. Thankfully, this is being offset for the immediate time being in the fact that I've got a good few things possibly lined up: Red Bull are offering the chance for one "young" reporter to travel to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, which could be an amazing opportunity if I manage to nab it (since doing the F1 coverage is probably my dream job out of all possible journalism based ventures). I also managed to forget that sitting right on my old doorstep of MGS was a possible link to a journalist's dream, as Michael Crick, the current editor of Newsnight, is a fellow "Old Mancuncian". My old Politics teacher reminded me of this fact when I went in to school today for a visit and suggested that if I wanted, he could perhaps inform Mr. Crick of my existence and potential for some experience alongside him for a couple of weeks. So, suddenly, I've gone from having nothing to do all summer to possibly getting a whole lot more lined up, which could work very well for my career.
It's 2.18 in the morning and the cows on the field near my house are mooing. If they keep me up, I swear that I'm going to go make some burgers for a very early breakfast.
The other thing that could take up a portion of my summer would be if Jonny and I actually did apply for, and successfully be casted on Coach Trip. It'd be an amazing experience in a way, even if we would have to share a coach with a load of reality TV wannabes and several horrific old couples. We already sort of have a strategy planned on the slender chance that we were cast. "The nice young wholesome boys who get on really well with the older couples, then bitch about them to the camera." I watch too much reality TV, really, because that's something I've seen played out so many times before. Oh well, though, it gets you casted.
Anyway, blog post over, more or less. In honour of the fact that I've started playing Final Fantasy VII again (yay for PSP) and getting further than I have in a long, long, loooong time on this game, I shall tack on "One Winged Angel" for the music tastes of today, alongside the entire Night Work album. Particular tracks from that would be "Whole New Way", "Fire With Fire", the aforementioned "Sex and Violence" and the wonders of Sir Ian McKellan on "Invisible Light". Toodles.
13/06/2010
Music, makes the bourgeoisie...
I have to thank Steve Jobs a lot, really, for the following blog post. See, there was a time when I literally didn't give a shit about music. It all just seemed the same, kinda crappy stuff with the occasional song that I liked and I'd listen to it whenever it came on the radio. That all sort of changed back in like, 2004, when I discovered that, for some reason, my dad had got an iPod. The fact that he never used the iPod meant that I more or less commandeered it, and so began my obsession with music. Well, also my obsession with my iPods, because as many of you will probably know, I pretty much can't go out anywhere without my iPod. I have this need to listen to music, at least to be hearing something a lot of the day. I've developed the rather handy talent of being able to listen to my iPod with one earphone in, while still talking and listening with the other ear (something I proved to my great pleasure in Portugal last year). A lot of people question my music taste a lot of the time; to be fair, a lot of my taste in music is commercialised pop, but I don't care about that - I like it, that's what's important. I also have something of a female dominated musical taste: the only solo male performer in my music section on Facebook is Adam Lambert, which doesn't really say a lot (anyone who says Lady GaGa, that joke was barely funny this time last year, now it's just old and tired).
Music also has the ability to change my mood quite a bit. I also sort of have to listen to music that is relevant to my mood - so, for example, when I'm feeling oddly depressive or in some kind of relationship blue, I seem to end up listening to something like New York by Paloma Faith. For the uninformed, that song's all about her boyfriend having left her, which is a really positive thing you'd want to be hearing when something relationship-wise isn't going as planned. When I was walking around New York at the start of this year, I found myself having to actually put Empire State of Mind on repeat, because I kept on interrupting whatever song was on the iPod to change it back to ESoM. Sometimes it doesn't work, but most of the time it actually does and I end up feeling quite good. I have my "go to" happy songs too, the ones that are bound to cheer me up. There's GaGa, of course, but the main song in this category is "fairyland" by Ayumi Hamasaki. Oh yeah, I love my J-Pop, by the by. Well, to be exact, I love Ayumi Hamasaki. I have every single album of hers downloaded (the day I realised that her work was up on iTunes was a very, very happy day), but the one I inevitably end up listening to is (miss)understood, and inevitably it ends up being fairyland that gets put on. It's just a happy song, it always brings a smile to my face. Go figure.
There's a lot of music I can't stand - most rap songs and quite a lot of R&B, because I just...don't like it. I can't stand clubs and stuff that play crappy things like dubstep, which seems horrifically pointless and just tends to give me a headache. There's also a lot of bad remixes for a lot of songs that I like, so to have to suffer through them when I know the original is a far superior version is kind of annoying. The worst one was a remix of Halo which made it in to some really soulless electronic song that had nothing of the impact the original did. Of course, this may be slightly biased due to the fact that Halo helped me get through a particularly rough spot early on in 2009, when I found myself listening to a constant repeat of Halo, Run and No Floods (GaGa song for the uninformed) at night to try and keep myself going. This was also a period where I completely shut off from the world - I think there was in fact a couple of days where apart from sleeping, I just had my headphones in the entire time listening to music to try and keep my mind off much more negative thoughts.
So, yeah. Music is sort of awesome, no doubt it'll be something I talk about more in this blog as it goes on. Writing this is indeed quite...therapeutic almost, plus it gives me something to do whilst I'm trapped in Leeds on my own for the next few days >_>. For now, I shall end on the songs that I've been listening to most recently, which would be a mix of "Wavin' Flag" by K'Naan (the Coca Cola song for the World Cup), "Can't Be Tamed" by Miley Cyrus and "Popular" from Wicked, as performed by the awesome Kristin Chenoweth.
Music also has the ability to change my mood quite a bit. I also sort of have to listen to music that is relevant to my mood - so, for example, when I'm feeling oddly depressive or in some kind of relationship blue, I seem to end up listening to something like New York by Paloma Faith. For the uninformed, that song's all about her boyfriend having left her, which is a really positive thing you'd want to be hearing when something relationship-wise isn't going as planned. When I was walking around New York at the start of this year, I found myself having to actually put Empire State of Mind on repeat, because I kept on interrupting whatever song was on the iPod to change it back to ESoM. Sometimes it doesn't work, but most of the time it actually does and I end up feeling quite good. I have my "go to" happy songs too, the ones that are bound to cheer me up. There's GaGa, of course, but the main song in this category is "fairyland" by Ayumi Hamasaki. Oh yeah, I love my J-Pop, by the by. Well, to be exact, I love Ayumi Hamasaki. I have every single album of hers downloaded (the day I realised that her work was up on iTunes was a very, very happy day), but the one I inevitably end up listening to is (miss)understood, and inevitably it ends up being fairyland that gets put on. It's just a happy song, it always brings a smile to my face. Go figure.
There's a lot of music I can't stand - most rap songs and quite a lot of R&B, because I just...don't like it. I can't stand clubs and stuff that play crappy things like dubstep, which seems horrifically pointless and just tends to give me a headache. There's also a lot of bad remixes for a lot of songs that I like, so to have to suffer through them when I know the original is a far superior version is kind of annoying. The worst one was a remix of Halo which made it in to some really soulless electronic song that had nothing of the impact the original did. Of course, this may be slightly biased due to the fact that Halo helped me get through a particularly rough spot early on in 2009, when I found myself listening to a constant repeat of Halo, Run and No Floods (GaGa song for the uninformed) at night to try and keep myself going. This was also a period where I completely shut off from the world - I think there was in fact a couple of days where apart from sleeping, I just had my headphones in the entire time listening to music to try and keep my mind off much more negative thoughts.
So, yeah. Music is sort of awesome, no doubt it'll be something I talk about more in this blog as it goes on. Writing this is indeed quite...therapeutic almost, plus it gives me something to do whilst I'm trapped in Leeds on my own for the next few days >_>. For now, I shall end on the songs that I've been listening to most recently, which would be a mix of "Wavin' Flag" by K'Naan (the Coca Cola song for the World Cup), "Can't Be Tamed" by Miley Cyrus and "Popular" from Wicked, as performed by the awesome Kristin Chenoweth.
10/06/2010
The Places I've Been...
This post was originally me talking about my favourite places and me saying why, and then the ones that I didn't like, in some kind of odd ranking thing. That was the plan, of course, but then I started writing about New York and realised that, oh God, I have far too much to say on here and I'm going to need to do something different. To which, this is the something different.
There are three places I love more so than anywhere else in the world. New York City, Paris, and Cala En Porter. You'll have heard of the other two, but chances are that you'll never have heard of the latter, so I guess that's where I should start. Cala En Porter is a town on the island of Menorca, which for those of you still not in the know, is part of Spain (it's a Balearic, along with Majorca, Ibiza, and...the fourth one). It's also where my family part-own a villa, so I've spent quite a few holidays there. Oddly, (Manchester and Leeds withstanding, of course) it's the one place I've ever felt like I was comfortably "at home". Whenever I go there, it doesn't seem like anything's changed and you can just slot right back in to normal life. I know people there - I know where everything is, I can walk around to the Spar just like I can to Sainsbury's. I don't know whether it's because we actually own the villa or not, but that place just seems like it's part of me.
It's also memorable for me because of the events of my summer holiday in 2008. For those of you who don't already know this, that was the point I finally decided to come out (well, make if official at least) to everyone who was on the trip, i.e.: all the Worsley people. While I could go in to length about the hi-hi-hilarious event that was my coming out, everyone's probably heard it by now and we don't need to talk about it anymore. If you wanna know about it, ask me, I've managed to make it slightly more concise than it used to be. But it's really because of that holiday that I feel so much whenever I go back to Menorca. It meant a lot to me to finally do that and I'd planned to do it in on that holiday for about 6 months, mainly because I felt it was a safe enough environment to be able to do it. I also think it was that holiday that made me grow up quite a bit too because I sort of felt like I was "in charge" since it was my villa and all, so it all kind of meant a lot to me. Even if I did undergo something of a nervous breakdown for 72 hours or so.
My real "happy place", though, is Paris. I'm like a kid in a toy store whenever I'm in Paris. The place is literally the most stunning, inspirational and frankly joyous place I know (well, Disney's probably happier, but you're not going to get that much inspiration from squealing like a 3 year old and running to hug Tigger...). This, of course, is slightly annoying in that I'd wish my happy place was somewhere in the UK. My plan at one point a couple of months ago had been that I'd be in Paris right about now, since the Eurostar was dirt cheap and I could technically get fairly cheap deals on some nice enough hostels. Finding people to go with wasn't as easy and thanks to a variety of complications it never materialised, but I still want to go at some point during this year. Paris is kind of wonderful in the sense that it's home to the only art gallery I've never been completely bored by, even if the Mona Lisa isn't all it's cracked up to be in person. That's how good a mood the city puts me in: I can stand an art gallery. Seriously, that takes a lot. I'm forever annoyed though when I go to Paris, mainly because I inevitably end up travelling with my parents and my brother, who demand we go on an open top bus and never get off it, so we're stuck just seeing places from afar.
I just have this burning desire to really explore Paris, which is something I don't really have any desire to do anywhere else. It's also why I have a desire to go there by myself at some point, since I highly doubt anyone else will want to go see all the things I do. I want to go to the 5th arrondissement and to the Roman parts of Paris to see the history. I want to go to the Moulin Rouge, if only to say I've been there. I want to go to the Lost and Found Museum because it sounds like a wonderfully crazy thing to have a museum of. I want to go to the Panthéon to get a picture and to prove to my parents that yes, it does exist and I'm not thinking of a place in Rome. The drawback to all this is that while it's all good and well me saying this, I don't know whether I'd feel comfortable going away on my own, as it were. While I went wandering around New York on my own a fair bit in January, I always sort of knew that Jonny was there too, which felt like a good security blanket. I'd also never be able to tell my parents I did this, because they would either A: lynch me, or B: lock me up so I couldn't get to Paris. Maybe when I'm a little older and a little more confident I'll do it. I'm fully aware it's something I need to do though, it's just a case of doing it. Ironically, being in Paris right now would probably help clear my head and this mood, but...eh. Que sera sera.
Finally, New York City. NYC is a glorious place. That's pretty much the only thing I can say about it, since everything else about New York is something that someone else has already said. As much as I loved going to Iceland, and while I still think that it's my favourite country as a whole, my trip to New York earlier this year is without a doubt my favourite holiday ever. Walking around Manhattan at night was one of the best experiences in my life, even if it was ridiculously cold and I felt like my face was going to fall off. It wasn't just going to Times Square or to the Empire State, it was discovering all the awesome other places that I'd never heard of. Going to the Time Warner Centre and finding the Glee Shirt. Heading to the Village and buying my Marc Jacobs shoes/belt. Going to the top of Rockefeller Plaza and just seeing this fabulous city from above. Of course, doing all this with my best friend only added to that - hell, I wouldn't have even been able to get to New York were it not for Jonny. Two of my long lasting memories from that trip are the two of us walking down 5th Avenue and going in to every designer shop along the way, as well as realising we were in front of the Condé Nast building and wondering if we went early in the morning, we'd get the chance to see Anna Wintour. Yeah, New York really did bring out the flaming gay side of me, but, meh. I think the city would expect nothing less.
If I were to wake up one morning in any of those three places, I think it would be a very good morning. There's other places I really want to go visit - I want to go to Rhode Island for some inexplicable reason, other than "I want to go". I want to go to California and San Francisco at some point. I want to go to Tokyo or Sapporo. I want to go to Botswana. I want to go to Pyongyang, for crying out loud. Those last two are probably much less likely to ever happen, but a boy can have them on his list. But if I got given the option of going anywhere right there and then, it would be one of the three I've talked about. Happy times. :D
There are three places I love more so than anywhere else in the world. New York City, Paris, and Cala En Porter. You'll have heard of the other two, but chances are that you'll never have heard of the latter, so I guess that's where I should start. Cala En Porter is a town on the island of Menorca, which for those of you still not in the know, is part of Spain (it's a Balearic, along with Majorca, Ibiza, and...the fourth one). It's also where my family part-own a villa, so I've spent quite a few holidays there. Oddly, (Manchester and Leeds withstanding, of course) it's the one place I've ever felt like I was comfortably "at home". Whenever I go there, it doesn't seem like anything's changed and you can just slot right back in to normal life. I know people there - I know where everything is, I can walk around to the Spar just like I can to Sainsbury's. I don't know whether it's because we actually own the villa or not, but that place just seems like it's part of me.
It's also memorable for me because of the events of my summer holiday in 2008. For those of you who don't already know this, that was the point I finally decided to come out (well, make if official at least) to everyone who was on the trip, i.e.: all the Worsley people. While I could go in to length about the hi-hi-hilarious event that was my coming out, everyone's probably heard it by now and we don't need to talk about it anymore. If you wanna know about it, ask me, I've managed to make it slightly more concise than it used to be. But it's really because of that holiday that I feel so much whenever I go back to Menorca. It meant a lot to me to finally do that and I'd planned to do it in on that holiday for about 6 months, mainly because I felt it was a safe enough environment to be able to do it. I also think it was that holiday that made me grow up quite a bit too because I sort of felt like I was "in charge" since it was my villa and all, so it all kind of meant a lot to me. Even if I did undergo something of a nervous breakdown for 72 hours or so.
My real "happy place", though, is Paris. I'm like a kid in a toy store whenever I'm in Paris. The place is literally the most stunning, inspirational and frankly joyous place I know (well, Disney's probably happier, but you're not going to get that much inspiration from squealing like a 3 year old and running to hug Tigger...). This, of course, is slightly annoying in that I'd wish my happy place was somewhere in the UK. My plan at one point a couple of months ago had been that I'd be in Paris right about now, since the Eurostar was dirt cheap and I could technically get fairly cheap deals on some nice enough hostels. Finding people to go with wasn't as easy and thanks to a variety of complications it never materialised, but I still want to go at some point during this year. Paris is kind of wonderful in the sense that it's home to the only art gallery I've never been completely bored by, even if the Mona Lisa isn't all it's cracked up to be in person. That's how good a mood the city puts me in: I can stand an art gallery. Seriously, that takes a lot. I'm forever annoyed though when I go to Paris, mainly because I inevitably end up travelling with my parents and my brother, who demand we go on an open top bus and never get off it, so we're stuck just seeing places from afar.
I just have this burning desire to really explore Paris, which is something I don't really have any desire to do anywhere else. It's also why I have a desire to go there by myself at some point, since I highly doubt anyone else will want to go see all the things I do. I want to go to the 5th arrondissement and to the Roman parts of Paris to see the history. I want to go to the Moulin Rouge, if only to say I've been there. I want to go to the Lost and Found Museum because it sounds like a wonderfully crazy thing to have a museum of. I want to go to the Panthéon to get a picture and to prove to my parents that yes, it does exist and I'm not thinking of a place in Rome. The drawback to all this is that while it's all good and well me saying this, I don't know whether I'd feel comfortable going away on my own, as it were. While I went wandering around New York on my own a fair bit in January, I always sort of knew that Jonny was there too, which felt like a good security blanket. I'd also never be able to tell my parents I did this, because they would either A: lynch me, or B: lock me up so I couldn't get to Paris. Maybe when I'm a little older and a little more confident I'll do it. I'm fully aware it's something I need to do though, it's just a case of doing it. Ironically, being in Paris right now would probably help clear my head and this mood, but...eh. Que sera sera.
Finally, New York City. NYC is a glorious place. That's pretty much the only thing I can say about it, since everything else about New York is something that someone else has already said. As much as I loved going to Iceland, and while I still think that it's my favourite country as a whole, my trip to New York earlier this year is without a doubt my favourite holiday ever. Walking around Manhattan at night was one of the best experiences in my life, even if it was ridiculously cold and I felt like my face was going to fall off. It wasn't just going to Times Square or to the Empire State, it was discovering all the awesome other places that I'd never heard of. Going to the Time Warner Centre and finding the Glee Shirt. Heading to the Village and buying my Marc Jacobs shoes/belt. Going to the top of Rockefeller Plaza and just seeing this fabulous city from above. Of course, doing all this with my best friend only added to that - hell, I wouldn't have even been able to get to New York were it not for Jonny. Two of my long lasting memories from that trip are the two of us walking down 5th Avenue and going in to every designer shop along the way, as well as realising we were in front of the Condé Nast building and wondering if we went early in the morning, we'd get the chance to see Anna Wintour. Yeah, New York really did bring out the flaming gay side of me, but, meh. I think the city would expect nothing less.
If I were to wake up one morning in any of those three places, I think it would be a very good morning. There's other places I really want to go visit - I want to go to Rhode Island for some inexplicable reason, other than "I want to go". I want to go to California and San Francisco at some point. I want to go to Tokyo or Sapporo. I want to go to Botswana. I want to go to Pyongyang, for crying out loud. Those last two are probably much less likely to ever happen, but a boy can have them on his list. But if I got given the option of going anywhere right there and then, it would be one of the three I've talked about. Happy times. :D
06/06/2010
Defending the Lady...
As the previous blog appears to have been cast in to the cyber graveyard (thanks, Google!), I figure that I might as well attempt to kickstart another one. I'll even try to update this one more than twice in its duration, how about that? Anyway, this first post is actually something that I always planned to do on the old blog, but never got around to writing. Needless to say, whatever mood I've been in for the past few weeks now isn't going away any time soon, so I figure that trying to break it by writing stuff might help. I suppose I should warn you all now, however, that this post is about none other than the one biggest fanboy-ism that I have:
GaGa. Of course it was going to be her (even if the title didn't give it away). Needless to say, anyone who knows me even in the slightest will know that above all else, I love GaGa. My obsession with Miss Stefani Germanotta is bordering on unhealthy at times, mainly because it results in people attacking me for supporting her as much as I do (not that I'm going to go naming any names...yet...). I think part of the reason I love GaGa as much as I do is because I found her almost by accident, and about a month before everyone else in the UK had first heard Just Dance. The BBC's "Sound 0f 2009" poll released their shortlist in December of 2008, which you can see here; actually, looking at that list, it's kind of interesting to see that a great number of those artists and bands have had quite a large amount of success. Anyway, I was immediately sure that Florence and the Machine had it won (as every critic etc. loved Florence like mad at the time), which annoyed me greatly since I kinda hated her work at that time. That's something I no longer agree with, since I count a great deal of songs on Lungs as being very, very strong. That's something for another post, though. Anyway, I looked through all the profiles and immediately kind of...stopped when I came to GaGa's. Needless to say, the phrases "New York party princess" and "She has also written songs for Britney Spears" were all it took for me to listen to Just Dance. And with that, the obsession began. About a day later I'd downloaded The Fame and within a week I knew all the lyrics off by heart.
I don't know what it is about GaGa's music that is so appealing to me. I just...love it. The fact that she's so different and unique only strikes more chords with me - everything just works for me. When I found out that she didn't even make the top 5 of that "Sound of..." poll, I flipped a little, to say the least. What did make me laugh was that two days after Little Boots was announced as number one in that poll, Just Dance entered the charts at #3, quickly storming to the top a week later. In terms of trying to work out the root of the obsession and why it's gone on for so long, I guess it's a combination of things. It helps, of course, that I love the music so much, but there's more to it than that. The fact that I "discovered" her before everyone else did probably means I had more of an affinity when she became successful, because I felt like I'd jumped the gun on everyone else. Her personality, the quirky randomness, it worked for me. The fact we share the same birthday helps, too (you have no idea the amount of squealing and clapping that went on when I found that out). Overall, it's just...there, this love for GaGa. Which means that when people criticise her, I do tend to go a little bit mad and start defending her with gusto. Of course, I don't just go a bit mad when I'm defending her:
Case in point. The fact I spent about three nights working on the GaGa shirt says it all (R.I.P GaGa shirt, by the by).
This isn't to say I don't find GaGa perfect. People tend to be surprised when I say that there are GaGa songs I don't like. Of course, I can count them on one hand; Eh Eh is just horrible, I'm afraid to say, and I can only ever listen to it in the Pet Shop Boys' remixed form. Then there's Starstruck, which is just a bit bleh (I'm looking at you for this, Flo-Rida). Some songs on The Fame were a bit samey-same (Money Honey and The Fame itself, although I still like them). Ironically, I don't even really like Just Dance that much these days, mainly because it doesn't really sound like a GaGa track. The only Fame Monster song I don't like is Monster, because it just doesn't go anywhere. But for all of those songs, there are the ones that virtually no-one will have heard: Fashion (featured in Confessions of a Shopaholic, then butchered by Heidi Montag), Vanity (performed in The Monster Ball Tour, to my delight), No Floods, Honest Eyes, Second Time Around...the list goes on and on. In fact, No Floods is probably one of my favourite songs, if only because it helped me get through a particularly tough time last year, where I pretty much spent every night listening to it, along with Halo and Run. So, yeah, it's pretty special to me.
I also hate it when people say things like "she can't write songs/she can't sing/she mimes". Because...seriously, no. Alright, yes, I'll admit it: Poker Face is a lot of "muh-muh-muh-mah" and repetition. Telephone is a bit like that, too. But that's sort of what makes them great. I've yet to be in a club where, the second that Bad Romance comes on, nobody starts to sing along with the "ohhhhhhhh..." at the start, quickly followed by "Ra, ra, ah ah ah" (I'd post the rest, but you all know it anyway, and you know you do). She can't sing? Go ahead and listen to that No Floods video above, or the Honest Eyes one. She sings live all the time, as the Honest Eyes video proves, but there's plenty of other examples of this. GaGa is a performer, and she does what she does amazingly. The videos for Paparazzi, Bad Romance and Telephone are awesome...aaaaand now I'm going in to uber fanboy mode. My point is, no matter how much people may say they hate GaGa, I've yet to find anyone who doesn't like at least one of her songs. As much as people may wish to hurl violence and insults upon her, she's here to stay and that's something I will be happy about for a long, long time.
I have a few other things I want to write about, although the one problem I do have is the fact that trying to open up to just one person is an uphill struggle for me that I can't really face half the time, let alone doing it via a blog for everyone to see. Plus, the fact that I generally have three-four different groups of people I know doesn't really help that, since something one group of people may know the other won't. Still, you only live once, so...we shall see.
Oh, also: Miley Cyrus, Can't Be Tamed. Sort of an awesome song, when it really, really shouldn't be.
GaGa. Of course it was going to be her (even if the title didn't give it away). Needless to say, anyone who knows me even in the slightest will know that above all else, I love GaGa. My obsession with Miss Stefani Germanotta is bordering on unhealthy at times, mainly because it results in people attacking me for supporting her as much as I do (not that I'm going to go naming any names...yet...). I think part of the reason I love GaGa as much as I do is because I found her almost by accident, and about a month before everyone else in the UK had first heard Just Dance. The BBC's "Sound 0f 2009" poll released their shortlist in December of 2008, which you can see here; actually, looking at that list, it's kind of interesting to see that a great number of those artists and bands have had quite a large amount of success. Anyway, I was immediately sure that Florence and the Machine had it won (as every critic etc. loved Florence like mad at the time), which annoyed me greatly since I kinda hated her work at that time. That's something I no longer agree with, since I count a great deal of songs on Lungs as being very, very strong. That's something for another post, though. Anyway, I looked through all the profiles and immediately kind of...stopped when I came to GaGa's. Needless to say, the phrases "New York party princess" and "She has also written songs for Britney Spears" were all it took for me to listen to Just Dance. And with that, the obsession began. About a day later I'd downloaded The Fame and within a week I knew all the lyrics off by heart.
I don't know what it is about GaGa's music that is so appealing to me. I just...love it. The fact that she's so different and unique only strikes more chords with me - everything just works for me. When I found out that she didn't even make the top 5 of that "Sound of..." poll, I flipped a little, to say the least. What did make me laugh was that two days after Little Boots was announced as number one in that poll, Just Dance entered the charts at #3, quickly storming to the top a week later. In terms of trying to work out the root of the obsession and why it's gone on for so long, I guess it's a combination of things. It helps, of course, that I love the music so much, but there's more to it than that. The fact that I "discovered" her before everyone else did probably means I had more of an affinity when she became successful, because I felt like I'd jumped the gun on everyone else. Her personality, the quirky randomness, it worked for me. The fact we share the same birthday helps, too (you have no idea the amount of squealing and clapping that went on when I found that out). Overall, it's just...there, this love for GaGa. Which means that when people criticise her, I do tend to go a little bit mad and start defending her with gusto. Of course, I don't just go a bit mad when I'm defending her:
Case in point. The fact I spent about three nights working on the GaGa shirt says it all (R.I.P GaGa shirt, by the by).
This isn't to say I don't find GaGa perfect. People tend to be surprised when I say that there are GaGa songs I don't like. Of course, I can count them on one hand; Eh Eh is just horrible, I'm afraid to say, and I can only ever listen to it in the Pet Shop Boys' remixed form. Then there's Starstruck, which is just a bit bleh (I'm looking at you for this, Flo-Rida). Some songs on The Fame were a bit samey-same (Money Honey and The Fame itself, although I still like them). Ironically, I don't even really like Just Dance that much these days, mainly because it doesn't really sound like a GaGa track. The only Fame Monster song I don't like is Monster, because it just doesn't go anywhere. But for all of those songs, there are the ones that virtually no-one will have heard: Fashion (featured in Confessions of a Shopaholic, then butchered by Heidi Montag), Vanity (performed in The Monster Ball Tour, to my delight), No Floods, Honest Eyes, Second Time Around...the list goes on and on. In fact, No Floods is probably one of my favourite songs, if only because it helped me get through a particularly tough time last year, where I pretty much spent every night listening to it, along with Halo and Run. So, yeah, it's pretty special to me.
I also hate it when people say things like "she can't write songs/she can't sing/she mimes". Because...seriously, no. Alright, yes, I'll admit it: Poker Face is a lot of "muh-muh-muh-mah" and repetition. Telephone is a bit like that, too. But that's sort of what makes them great. I've yet to be in a club where, the second that Bad Romance comes on, nobody starts to sing along with the "ohhhhhhhh..." at the start, quickly followed by "Ra, ra, ah ah ah" (I'd post the rest, but you all know it anyway, and you know you do). She can't sing? Go ahead and listen to that No Floods video above, or the Honest Eyes one. She sings live all the time, as the Honest Eyes video proves, but there's plenty of other examples of this. GaGa is a performer, and she does what she does amazingly. The videos for Paparazzi, Bad Romance and Telephone are awesome...aaaaand now I'm going in to uber fanboy mode. My point is, no matter how much people may say they hate GaGa, I've yet to find anyone who doesn't like at least one of her songs. As much as people may wish to hurl violence and insults upon her, she's here to stay and that's something I will be happy about for a long, long time.
I have a few other things I want to write about, although the one problem I do have is the fact that trying to open up to just one person is an uphill struggle for me that I can't really face half the time, let alone doing it via a blog for everyone to see. Plus, the fact that I generally have three-four different groups of people I know doesn't really help that, since something one group of people may know the other won't. Still, you only live once, so...we shall see.
Oh, also: Miley Cyrus, Can't Be Tamed. Sort of an awesome song, when it really, really shouldn't be.
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