June Playlist

Hello!

It is absolutely crazy that July starts on Thursday, like seriously?! I just embraced June for all its worth and we’re moving on to another month fast as lightning! I have to say, June was pretty good. The temperatures have been fairly high lately but I have figured out a system to hang out with our cats in the evenings. I think they enjoy it just as much as I do because they are super lazy around 5-7pm and they all want to love and I’m here for it! I’ve also found out that my cat Stormy isn’t the only one who enjoys belly rubs: Oscar and Nelson loves it too!

For music though, I have sort of shifted from like this dark pop aesthetic I’ve been in since the middle of March, to suddenly for the last couple of weeks, all I want is rock music. I’ve been listening to Sirius XM Octane like crazy and I’ve heard a lot of really good music on there to the point I have been sharing some of my favorites as part of my “Song Of The Day” Instagram stories in the evenings. And then recently, I decided to use my iPod again and I’ve been bringing back the good old school Kelly Clarkson and rediscovering symphonic metal as a whole, so I’ve been keeping things interesting, that’s for sure!

As for the monthly playlist, especially for this post, I really tried to shorten it but honestly there are a lot of tunes I was thoroughly obsessed with that I couldn’t take them away, although they are included in the Spotify playlist. I ended up creating a Top 30 because of my inability to choose my ultimate favorites for June.

Gettin’ Even by Seasons After
Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran
Macaroni Salad by Niia
Muscleville by Kai Wachi
WYGD by Empara Mi
Peaches (Remix) by Justin Bieber featuring Usher, Ludacris & Snoop Dogg
Dark Side by Blind Channel
Ruthless by Nonpoint

Remedy by Savage After Midnight
Pure Evil by Like A Storm
The Devil by BANKS
Girls by Zella Day

A Girl Like You by Machine Gun Kelly x Travis Barker
Time Warp by Apashe featuring Sami Chaouki
I Care by Paul Hernandez
Parachute by Saint Chaos
Believer by Lea Michele
Your Betrayal by Bullet For My Valentine
Warrior by Atreyu featuring Travis Barker
Only Love Can Save Me Now by The Pretty Reckless
Deal With It by Ashnikko featuring Kelis
Papi by Isabela Merced
Drivers License by Olivia Rodrigo
You Thought Wrong by Kelly Clarkson featuring Tamyra Gray
Astronaut In The Ocean by Masked Wolf
Talkin’ Bout by Loui featuring Saweetie
Right Now by Fire From The Gods
Didn’t Know Love by Celine Dion
Adios by EVERGLOW
MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) by Lil Nas X

I know I might be a little early making this announcement but I have already started keeping track of various songs to include in my Summer 2021 playlist in September. There are some that wouldn’t surprise you at all, but they are a couple of special tunes that I think will make themselves known in the next three months. Have you already discovered your summer anthem for the year yet?

There have been some albums and EPs that I’ve listened to lately, that I thought I would share with you today. If you still enjoy the occasional dubstep genre, you should look into Kai Waschi as they have released a brand new EP a few weeks ago called “MUSCLEVILLE” and even though it only contains five tracks, it is really good! I don’t listen to a lot of dubstep and/or trap music anymore but I keep Kai around for those ‘once in a blue moon’ kind of days. The other artist you should consider is Tommee Profitt, although Tommee isn’t the main artist, he did produce every song on the album, so he is listed first before any of the guest singers. I’ve been thinking of doing a review of the new album: Cinematic Songs Vol. 7 but I already have a tight schedule for July so we will have to see what happens.

What were you listening in June?

January Playlist

Hello!

Despite the fact January rarely releases bangers that will echo until the middle of the summer, I have found lots of interesting tunes! The day I don’t find anything that makes me happy, you should worry about me; just as a heads up, okay?

I am always pulled into this nostalgia vibe towards the end of December, and once January comes around, I am fully dedicated to keep it going until the early days of spring. I have never understood why I get like this, and it literally happens like clockwork so it doesn’t matter whatever genre I have been listening to the most, my brain will use it to make me want to go back to certain playlists or iPod, which has been REALLY a lifesaver lately! If you didn’t know, I haven’t updated my iPod in about three to four years, so I want to say the cut off year is possibly 2014. For my brain, this is the most recent but fits that box I need to be in during the colder months that I don’t really have a problem with it.

Here is the top songs for January. If you want to look into the rest of the Spotify playlist, click here.

Save Me From Myself by Vertical Horizon
Vita Nova by Halocene
Someone Like You by Adele
Bitter by Evie Irie
Every Time You Leave by I Prevail featuring Delaney Jane
Another Life by Any Given Sin
Take Me Away by Ayron Jones
Adrenaline by Zero 9:36
All My Life by Attack Attack
Intercorrupted by Ra

Decode by Cole Rolland featuring Lauren Babic
IDOL by Lauren Babic
DONE. by The Band Perry
It’s Not U It’s Me by Bea Miller featuring 6LACK
Ready Set by Vo Williams
Scars [En Espanol] by Papa Roach
Numb by Nick Jonas featuring Angel Haze
Golden by Harry Styles
Therefore I Am by Billie Eilish
The Devil’s Own by Five Finger Death Punch

Before I go, I would love to know what you were listening to this month so here are some of my questions for you. Am I the only one who is basically forced into the memory dumb but weirdly enough, enjoy it just the same? If you are a Spotify user like me, what are your Top 5 playlists that Spotify created for you? If you don’t like Spotify, what other music streaming apps do you use instead? Does anybody out there still use their iPods?

Hope you have enjoyed this post and the questions too. I can’t wait to find out what I become obsessed with in February!

April Playlist

Howdy!

This month was a little weird. I was forced into a detox after our internet carrier wouldn’t turn on our Wi-Fi until the 13th, which when we realized it wasn’t working at all was the 3rd, meant I had to go without it for about ten days. I was pissed, but I had to let it go because it was out of my and parents control.

I was going to surprise you with a couple of random music reviews this month, but since this happened I had to throw that idea out of the window. I also want to point out that I was without my Spotify for about nine days, so I was mainly listening to music on our music channels and iPod, but the majority of the songs included in this post are made up of everything that I heard on TV.

Here are my Top 20 songs for this month!

A New Day Has Come by Celine Dion
Adore You by Harry Styles
Girls Night Out by Debbie Gibson
Exhale by Plumb
Alive by Daughtry
Unforgettable by Godsmack
In The Dark by Bring Me The Horizon
The Box by Roddy Ricch
No Judgement by Niall Horan
Dancing On My Own by Calum Scott
Slide by H.E.R. featuring YG
God Only Knows by For Kings & Country featuring Echosmith
Peter Pan by Kelsea Ballarini
Boom by Krigare
Darkness by XVI
SOS by Elizaveta
I Love Me by Demi Lovato
Rooting For You by Alessia Cara
I Can Do This by Plumb
Dead In The Water by SPELLES

I wanted to talk to you about some of my favorite channels on Sirius XM. Technically, we get two different selection of music channels on my TVs, but I tend to listen Sirius a little bit more because they have people and other artists hosting shows or playlists. I have been really loving The Blend the most right now. It plays a lot of pop music but what I enjoy about the channel is that it doesn’t just air what is popular right now, they have artists that I know my mom use to listen to when my sister and I were younger, so there is some 80’s through 00’s light pop you’ll hear and if you listen to the station a lot like me, you will surprise yourself on what you end up liking for a few times!

There are two others I tend to switch back and forth a lot during the weekends, and they are The Pulse and The Velvet. The Pulse has always been a favorite of mine since the first time we got the package! They do have a cut off point though, they play any pop-rock music from 2000s to now. Although this seems rather short, I tend to enjoy it more because I have rediscovered old favorites like Train, who’s lead vocalist Pat Monaghan has he’s own spot perfectly titled “Train Tracks” and I have heard a lot of music I have never heard before and that’s been an exciting feature for me!

The Velvet is a totally different vibe, even though they too, play a lot of pop music too, but everybody on that channel is pure. There is not autotuned musicians or harsh screams that I tend to hear on various other stations. So, singers like Demi Lovato, Kelly Clarkson, James Arthur, etc are always a favorite to hear on there. It is very soothing when it is gloomy outside.

All of these types of music have been big inspirations to create my newest and favorite playlist right now: The Happy Playlist! I update it quite a bit but it has been really good on my everyday mindset and mood. I know I have talked about it in last couple of months, but I know if I feel out of it I can click shuffle and any one of those songs can give me one heck of a boost of confidence or energy! Everybody needs to do this, create a large playlist of songs that you know make you happy for whatever reason, so you can have it at your side at all times! Although, when I went through my detox I had to change it up a bit, but thankfully I have these Sirius XM channels to help me get through those days!

Do you have a happy playlist? If you said yes, what are your top five favorites? What were listening to during the month of April?

snowflake

 

Shuffle The Music Tag – Extended

Untitled

Howdy!

So today, I originally had another post coming, but I couldn’t find the words to do it, so I scraped it and remembered that my friend Tasha had put this tag on her blog back in late November. I kept thinking about it, and the more that I tried to force myself to discuss the events in the other post, the more I just wanted to do this instead!

I am adding to it though. It says to talk about “the first fifteen songs” in your music library, but I technically have two (iPod and Spotify) and I thought if it wasn’t too much trouble I’d talk about the variety of both libraries of music I tend to listen to everyday! I have decided to start with my iPod songs first and they were taken from my “Recently Played” list  that had over 57 songs where the ones from Spotify were on my “Starred” which consists of 1,441 songs!

Rules for this tag are below:

Mention the creator of the tag and link to their blog.
Thank the person that nominated you for this tag and link to their blog as well!
Shuffle your entire music library (no matter how old songs are) and talk about the first 15 songs that come up (anything like why they are there, if they signify something, any story, why you like them, etc)
Mention the songs as well as the artists
Tag 7 people or more to do this tag and please let them know!

Save Me From Myself by Vertical Horizon

I have always had the problem of falling in love with songs after hearing it on the radio, but the DJ never says what exactly the title of the song or who it’s by; I’ve had this happen way too many times in my life and weirdly enough it happened quite a bit in the years 2006-2011 and yes, this was one of those songs! Unfortunately, I don’t know how I ended up finding it.

Brothers Under The Sun by Bryan Adams

I love soundtracks! In the recent years, I’ve noticed I’m getting more into the orchestral tracks than the actual songs by the artists or bands. If you read my recent non-Disney movie post, you will know about my love about the film Spirit. I discussed about what I thought about Bryan Adams working on the entire soundtrack and a little bit about Hans Zimmer’s work to it too!

A Prophecy Of The Worlds To Fall by Xandria

Ahh, if anybody wants to know what symphonic metal music is, you just need to listen to this song. It’s dramatic and epic! It’s not your average heavy metal music, that’s for sure!

Murder by Within Temptation

People say WT has become more mainstream because they’re finally being played on American rock radio stations. I’m an American and I absolutely love their music! It makes me sad when I see that, because I don’t see the change in the sound of their music. They’re not as heavy as Epica or Xandria, but obviously I don’t care!

Blood by In This Moment

Roughly six months after getting into Linkin Park. I started getting more into Skillet, Hollywood Undead, In This Moment, and Lacuna Coil. So in the beginning of my rock ‘n’ roll phase, these were five bands that really made me open my eyes and I’m happy to say ITM were the first female fronted bands I got into at that time.

Dark Horse by Katy Perry featuring 2Chainz

I only like this song for the bass. That’s all!

Under Control by Ellie Goulding

I love Ellie Goulding’s music. However, I’ve always had a hard time listening to a full album. I didn’t dive into Halcyon until she was about to release the deluxe edition and that’s when I actually listening to her music hardcore!

Here’s To Us by Halestorm

What’s so weird about this song is that it’s the perfect song to play at the end of the night with your friends. That’s the vibe I always get everytime I listen to it!

Dangerous by Within Temptation featuring Howard Jones

I know, I know! I listen to a lot of Within Temptation music. What else is new?!

Going Under by Evanescense

I talk about the year 2009 being my awakening to rock music, when really it was 2002! Evanescene’s first album “Fallen” came out in April and their music was being played while I was in the hospital, so I was hearing “Bring Me To Life” a lot on the radio, but the memory is of that Christmas. I asked for the album from Santa and we were in the living room at my grandparent’s house and I didn’t feel good, but I unwrapped the gift and immediately tossed it back because the cover scared the crap out of me and then I threw up all over my cousin’s brand new shoes!

I Want My Tears Back by Nightwish

Recently my dad was playing around my speaker and this was the last song to play on my iPod, so he got to hear it for the first time. He likes Irish/Celtic sounds just as much as I do, and he noticed the pipes right away and he seemed to like the big jam-like session in the middle of the song. It’s seriously my favorite section of the song, the going back and forth sounds of both the pipes and Eppu on guitars. It’s so awesome!

The Essence Of Silence by Epica

More symphonic metal! I have a big selection of the genre on my iPod by the way, it’s not as big as it is on my Spotify of course but there’s still enough to get weird looks from family members and neighbors who don’t know the genre very well, but I’m always eager to help cure that.

The Haunting by Kamelot featuring Simone Simons

Most of the musicians to come out of this genre are internationally based, most are from The Netherlands, like Epica and Within Temptation, but Germany (Xandria), Finland (Nightwish), Norway and Sweden have a growing numbers of bands to dabble in the symphonic rock/metal. Crazy enough though, the band Kamelot is based out of Florida! Fun fact: The band Epica actually got their name from an album titled “Epica” by Kamelot, it came out in 2003!

Intoxicated by Lacuna Coil

Lacuna Coil was one of the last bands to enter, but I think they were the first international bands I ever got into, as they’re from Italy! When you think of Italy, or when I think of the country as a whole, I’m thinking of opera–not heavy metal! Over the years, I’ve been finding more and more of a variety of music there.

[taken from Spotify now]

By The Grace of God by Katy Perry

I really loved Katy Perry’s “Prism” album a lot! There were a lot of really great songs on it; this one being a favorite of mine for sure! I think it’s raw and very personal to Katy as you can tell she wrote it in the aftermath of her divorce with Russell Brand in 2014. I remember watching her concert DVD “Part Of Me” when it came out on DVD and they didn’t hide that whole section of her life from the cameras and I definitely felt for her when she was going through all of that pain.

One of the things that I like to do also, is think of different perspectives of popular songs. Everybody thinks songs have one meaning and it’s usually whatever the singer or writer’s going through at a certain time in their lives. I don’t believe in that outlook, so whenever I hear or sing it, I tend to look into the rougher times in my life and know that by the grace of God, I’ve somehow gotten through them very well!

The Obsessive Devotion by Epica

Epica is like a season. Spring, summer, fall, and winter. Everybody has a favorite and they usually hate one or two other seasons. For example, I like spring and fall, but can’t stand summer and winter, mostly because I’m usually stuck inside for both seasons for the extreme weather conditions.

The band itself has many, many great albums, but I’ve only liked three of them.  Unfortunately, I can’t explain my reasons for this, I’ve just never been wired to like or listen an entire album before, it’s only in the last five years that I’m learning to do try out different albums and then write out what I like or not liked about it in a form of a review for you guys.

I will admit, this is one of my favorite songs by Epica. It has that perfect balance of soft tones by Simone’s gorgeous voice and orchestra, but it has also turns into this beast and it’s raw and bitter at the same time. It’s just perfect.

Silence by Starkillers featuring Alicia Madison

I will admit, I only like the song because I liked the beat. It’s a dance track, this has always been a problem for me over the years!

Seven Nation Army by Zella Day

Apparently this a cover, originally by Jack White. I didn’t know that until much later, but I really love Zella’s peppy but smooth voice. I actually like this version better!

The Right Song by Tiesto & Oliver Heldens featuring Natalie La Rose

Everybody on this track is Dutch. So in other words, it’s the perfect song! And I mean, it’s got Tiesto in it for crying out loud!

WTF (Where They From) by Missy Elliott featuring Pharrell Williams

Don’t ask me why I have this song on my “Starred” list. You have both Missy Elliott and Pharrell Williams on a track together, I mean, you know it’s going to sound good!

Words by Daya

I’m still wondering why I like this song so much. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Daya has a great voice and the sound itself is nice too. It’s just a little dull, but yet I choose to keep it on this playlist. I told you all I was weird!

Kiss Me Goodbye by Alexandra Stan

The whole reason why I did Tune Tuesday Worldwide for 2016, was because of both Alexandra Stan and fellow Romanian singer Inna. I just love international music so much!

White Noise (R3hab Remix) by Ella Vos

Okay, I really like this song! I’ve always loved remixes but I actually got into this by another song by Ella. It was played on an episode of The Originals last year and I became a bit obsessed with it and I ended liking her voice a lot so I went through her music profile on Spotify and this happened!

Pass At Me by Timbaland featuring Pitball

Remember what I was saying about Missy Elliott and Pharrell Williams? Well, you have both Timbaland and Pitbull in this sucker. I mean, it’s a no brainer that this is going to be great too!

Click Click Boom by Saliva

Out of all the rock and heavy metal songs I have on this playlist, this one was selected. It’s fine though, I actually like the song.

Hey Baby by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Diplo featuring Deb’s Daughter

Truth is, I only like this song because Diplo’s on it. Enough said!

Circus For A Psycho by Skillet

Finally! I love the craziness of this song! It has that circus vibe but it’s a really great rock song too! The “Rise” album was one of my favorites albums by Skillet by the way!

Under The Knife by Icon For Hire

This is a rough song. The lyrics alone are very strong and yet delicate too. I love Icon For Hire and really love the way that Ariel writes the songs and how she shows how passionate she is for the fans. She likes to tell stories in the songs and she makes sure that every theme is relatable in some way, and this should have a trigger warning in the beginning for both people who have and haven’t self-harmed at some point in their lives, but that’s only my opinion. Other than that, the song is really good!

One Night Town by Ingrid Michaelson featuring Mat Kearney

In 2014, I got on a Ingrid Michaelson kick! I really loved her “Lights Out” album a lot. This is one of five favorites! She seems very home-y and comforting but yet has a sassy attitude that reminds me of my own. This is very soft and sweet. I just love it.

Now I have to tag seven other bloggers! 

Kekoas Music Blog 

Louloumuisicblog 

Fierce & Fabulous Revolution

Chasing Destino

EMILYBECCA

The Flower That Blooms 

A Mundane Life

You don’t have to do it, but thought it would be interesting to see your responses if you did anyway! Oh, and I also tag anybody else who wishes to do this too! You don’t have to be an overachiever like myself, but it was very fun to do it! 🙂

snowflake

How My Christmas Went

So it’s the day after Christmas. Sorry I didn’t blog yesterday a big post like I probably should have, but when my mom went to bed it was two hours before midnight, so a quote just seemed better and quicker to do than a big post. As the evening went on, I didn’t think my headache would let up enough for me to think about what all happened. So here is what happened yesterday and bear with me, it was a LONG day!

When it’s Christmas time, I know it’s the one day where I can get up around at five or six in the morning and not get into trouble. Well, I got up at 6:30am after only having probably three to four hours of sleep. It was awful! I always seem to do that though that’s the thing. There was the one year a few years back where I actually slept and I think my mom had to wake me up that morning. I don’t know what I did that day to be that tired to even sleep that night. I can never do that now. It seemed after a couple of hours later, as being around my family, with the shouting, laughing, and many cans of caffeine. I somehow ended up with a massive headache. The headache started off small and by the end of the morning it had gotten to the point where being around so many people made me want to scream. I tried to do what I did at Thanksgiving and not talk much and observed my surroundings. Which I did that, but with everybody walking around me and high-pitched voices and hearing somethings over and over again. It just took over and I felt like I was in a cage. For the parts where my headache wasn’t there, I had fun. The laughing helped some, but not a lot. I felt awful because I felt like I was bringing the party down and driving everybody nuts and that wasn’t my intention either.

Every year we have family come over at nana’s, but it’s usually a couple of days after Christmas. When my nana and I found out a few months ago that we were going to have pretty much the entire family come down for Christmas, we were pretty excited about it. We had planned to do a lot of things, but only have of them actually happened. We did make the jars full of candy. Even though we had planned on making them with mini candles instead. Everytime the opportunity to go to Wal-Mart and get the candles; I would forget to have somebody get a couple of bags of them. Let’s just candles came back around though later on. When my mom, nana, Blondie, and I went Christmas shopping last week, we found some of those Scentsy candle plug-ins and my nana got one for my aunt and her fiancée and my oldest cousin. While my other cousin got one for my nana and she got her the spiced rum cake. She got it plugged in that morning after unwrapping it. It smelt so heavenly! Now I want one! I don’t have anymore plug-ins in my room but I don’t care. It was the one Christmas that all of the “kids” meaning my mom’s siblings came down on the same day. I’ve seem that kitchen get pretty crowded before but yesterday was a little overwhelming.

It was very awkward to wake up at usually the same time we always wake up on Christmas day and find that there’s the sky isn’t as dark as it usually is outside. One thing we usually do at Christmas in our family, it’s been a tradition in our family that we have this race to nana’s house. I’ve talked about it before, but last year we lost. This year my family and I have bragging rights because kicked their butts. The past few months my nana’s been feeling bad that there wasn’t really anything underneath her tree this year. Well as more family members came in that house, the area around that part kept getting bigger and bigger. Every year, my grandparent’s look overwhelmed with the gifts that they receive. My poor papaw didn’t know what to think about everything, but there were three things that he didn’t like, well four things. He won the first draw of money ($5), he got a Train calendar from my cousin Chris, he got another singing animal for his collection. It is a singing beaver that actually sings a Justin Bieber song. My sister and cousin loved it I think more than he did. He also got another coffee mug that has a logo of my sister’s school on the side. Plus, he got a new Butler shirt. Everybody had something that reflects them well.

For me, besides the lovely headache I got from God. I got a new iPod since I’m pretty sure my old one is done. My dad was just messing with it earlier and now it won’t change or turn off. Thank god I got a new one. This one is very interesting because I don’t like touch screens and this is an iPod Nano. So imagine putting your toes on one of these to make it work. I’ve used Blondie’s old iPod Touch before, but I kind of vowed that I’d never get one. Well, I tried it out last night. I haven’t had an iPod at night for a couple of weeks now. It’s been hard to get through, but not impossible as you think. It’s small enough to fit between my toes, it’s not as heavy as my old one. The best thing about it? It’s purple! Other than that, I got two new shirts and two new leggings. The best thing I got though were more fuzzy socks and they’re not short either. I can get them on all by myself too. When I got home after spending probably five hours with all of my family, I went to take a nap. I still had my other socks I wore there and used my new blanket that my cousin got me. I was warm and comfortable. Our cat Oliver also loves my new blanket. He hardly ever goes on my bed anymore. He just curled himself in a ball and fell asleep on it twice. When I first my Transformers blanket that is what he did to it too. He has a blanket fetish I think.

After my long nap at home. I got up and my sister fixed my iPod and transferred all my songs from my old iPod onto my new iPod. That was difficult to get through. My mom made dinner and she decided that we were going to watch last week’s and Monday night’s episode of Major Crimes together in my room. While we were watching the last episode, we had three cats and Blondie came in there within the last five minutes of the show. She almost fell off my bed. That was funny. Yesterday was full of laughs and too many pictures. I’m still pretty tired and my headache goes back and forth like it did yesterday. One of the coolest things that happened was seeing the Hough, Ballas, Menounsos, and Riley families do the Christmas Dance Wars. It had started during Thanksgiving and they were just hilarious and fun to watch, but I think Christmas Dance Wars was just amazing.

My Christmas in tweets: