My Guilty Pleasures...regarding music, that is.

Before you read on...don't even think about denying the fact that you have at least one guilty pleasure song!  No music-lover is thaaat perfect!
One of my helpful friends, Wikipedia, defines a guilty pleasure as "something one enjoys and considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it. The guilt involved is sometimes simply fear of others discovering one's lowbrow or otherwise embarrassing tastes".

Some examples of guilty pleasures that I found are:
- Re-gifting: Giving away an odd or unwanted gift that someone gave to you, as a new gift.
- Reading OK or Heat magazine.
- Stealing blankets off of the airplane or from hotels.
- Watching Pokemon and dragon ball when you're over the age of 18.

But back to the music side of things.  I think that any 1990s baby will admit that any time that a Spice Girl song comes on, they cannot help, but sing the lyrics.  Whether this is screeching them out loud or whispering them in their head, because their own conscience is plaguing them.

Other common guilty pleasure songs are:
- Anything to do with metro-sexual boys with tenor voice-types, singing songs about love...Westlife, Backstreet Boys, Nsync, Blue etc...
- Journey - Don't stop believin'
- Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles
- Belinda Carlisle - Heaven is a place on earth
- Britney Spears
- Boston - More than a feeling
- The Ketchup Song
- Smash Mouth - All Star
- Simply Red - Something got me started

Noooow for the horrifically embarrassing part:
My guilty pleasure songs are.....................both Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber's new albums :( :( :(
Believe me, I keep asking myself why too.  But playing them just generally puts me in a good mood.  And I just may have all of the Jonas Brothers albums...hey, I have a younger sister - it's a legitimate excuse!  Good thing, this isn't too public..it's just the internet...

Dedication to my Pappa Samuel

Last week Thursday, my dad was diagnosed with lymphoma; blood marrow cancer.  He has been going for various tests since the beginning of the Easter holidays, but was told in December 2012, that he merely has tennis elbow.  Therefore, bringing the word "cancer" into the equation, has been a shock for everyone.  My Pappa Samuel is honestly the most generous, caring and wise person that I know.  It seems typical for me to say this as his daughter, but plenty of strangers, friends and family have been stunned at the amount of altruism he withholds. He will be going on chemotherapy next week and although he is nervous about the intensity of this kind of treatment on his body; I believe that his strength and optimism will pull him through.

These lyrics from Mumford and Son's single "Hold on to what you believe", I think are helpful in this situation.  God is my refuge in every situation and  these lyrics encourage me to continue to strive through, even in the toughest of times.  These lyrics echo a particular verse from the bible, encouraging us, as human beings to not try to understand every situation, but rather trust that God has His reasons :)

"But hold on to what you believe in the light. When the darkness has robbed you of all your sight. So hold on to what you believed in the light"

                                         

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding"     - Proverbs 3:5

My Dad's favourite band is U2.  I've chosen to dedicate one of his favourite songs of theirs to him: "With or Without You".  This song's lyrics do not exactly describe how I feel about the situation, I most certainly cannot live without my Pappa Samuel, but it is a lovely song to cover.  

Mumford and Sons - Hold on to what you believe

Alternative Trip

I was introduced to this genre of music on the weekend.  It is called "alternative trip" and the percussion is amazing! It's really melodious and just lovely to listen to.  Here it is on SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/alternativetrip/misanthrop-aqua-luminus-iii-2

The life of an amateur musician...

My best friend, Gaby, has her 21st coming up in May and since this is a birthday that is celebrated to a certain higher degree, compared to other birthdays, she has requested that I make her a CD of recordings (very bad ones) of me singing covers and I have consequently been working on it since the December holidays, 2012.  The recordings are completed using my crappy laptop microphone and the very basic computer program, Audacity.  In other words, most of them are muffled, the plectrum is hitting against my guitar and it sounds as if I'm singing into a cloud.  BUT, I am trying my best to give her at least one good song that she won't mind listening to :)

My latest recording is a cover of Rihanna's Stay.  I love this song, and I am usually one to complain about the sound of Rihanna's voice.  So, I'm not the biggest fan, but this song is one of those that you inhale as soon as it starts playing, a response to music that I have spoken about in my previous post.  I played this one on piano, instead of guitar, as it is in the song.  I used chords from ultimate guitar - http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/r/rihanna/stay_crd.htm, but I prefer to transpose it down once, as it is better suited to my voice :)  It's such a great feeling playing this song on piano and singing it...I had just been recovering from tonsillitis, so it's not perfect, but I'm too lazy to re-record :P

So, here it is - If you're wondering, I have no idea how to attach a sound clip, only a video clip, so I have to create a video in windows movie maker with some random picture and have the song playing in the background...

Five songs that have crept into my life

Below are five songs that have crept into my life over the years.  I've tried to choose five that are of fairly different genres so that it doesn't get too boring ¯

Most of these are ones that I've never managed to get sick of.  They consist of those kind of songs that as soon as it starts playing, you literally inhale it and taste it on your tongue.  Sounds cheesy, but that's the only way that I know how to describe it because that is what I physically do as soon as one of them begin to play. 

² Song Number One: 'Dancing Shoes' - Arctic Monkeys

I absolutely love this band.  I was introduced to them in grade 10 by a friend, who was the drummer of our youth band.  He had brilliant taste in music and put this song on one of the CDs that he made for me. I have a major thing for anything British so even listening to the main singer talk is good enough for me.  The way that this man sings, in his accent, brings such happiness to my life. The lyrics of their songs are a whole different story ("Get on your dancing shoes, you sexy little swine" - haha brilliant), but all-in-all a band that I would kill to see live.

² Song Number Two: 'SUGAAAR' - System of a Down

I listen to this band for the obvious reason;  it really helps me to calm down when I'm in a super angry mood.  I cannot say that I enjoy songs that are just pure screaming, but System is really not like that. You just want to laugh out loud when listening to it, because it's just all over the place.  Tolerate the screaming for 20 seconds in, it's at this part of the song that just makes me want to pull my arms and legs in and jump around like a Pogo stick...it's a cool music video too, little Lego men :D

² Song Number Three: 'Goin in' - Birdy nam nam (Skrillex remix)

I've never been a fan of the kind of music that doesn't make use of real instruments, but this one has to be an exception.  It just makes you feel good. 

² Song Number Four: 'Secret Crowds' - Angels and Airwaves

When I was young, I had probably at least fifty pictures of Blink 182 in my room.  I was obsessed with them and it broke my little heart when they broke up.  "Feeling this" has been my ringtone for the past five years or so and it has not changed once.  I never used to like Angels & Airwaves since they were a result of my favourite band breaking up, but I actually prefer them to Blink, today.  Secret Crowds has suuuch an amazing beginning and it's just a beautiful song! You have to listen to it super loud!

² Song Number Five: 'Feels like the first time' - Foreigner

Name one person who does not like this song! Just one. If you manage to find someone, that person is just silly and you should chuck them.  Simply, a great song.