I’ve been looking forward to the holiday since July but you would never know it if you saw my room right now. I only put out my plaid pumpkins around my window like last year, and mom managed to hang up the wreath that Rumer did nothing but bark at throughout the month of August. Thankfully Rumer doesn’t have a glue about it so we’ve been enjoying the quiet there. I’d still like to get another one for Christmas/winter with lights on it but I fear that’ll just provoke her so I’ll have to find something else…
Since we’re discussing festive music, I thought I’d let you know that I have updated my ultimate Halloween playlist I created about two years ago. It still has all of the classics but I have also tried to save anything I share on my Insta too, just in case you can’t check those out because you don’t have an account. If you’d like to take a listen to my favorites lately, click here I would also like to add that I did not forget about my promise about including my September playlist too! .
Here are my Top 25 songs for October, and if you are curious to see what else I got into, here is your final link of the post.
This Fire Inside by NerdOur featuring Halocene Invincible by Saysh x Anderson Rocio Legend by Holy Wars Get Better by Leslie Mosier This Town by ELLA EX Queen by Hidden Citizens featuring Ranya Ain’t My Fault by Zara Larsson Let Me Love You by Love and Death featuring Lacey Sturm Whose Side Are You On by Tommee Profitt featuring Ruelle Parachaute by Saint Chaos Rebel by Pep Squad God Only Knowns by for KING & COUNTRY featuring Echosmith Show Yourself by Idina Menzel and Evan Rachel Wood Down by The Birthday Massacre Wicked Game by Violet Orlandi Crawl Back In by Dead By Sunrise Everybody Hurts by Avril Lavigne Somebody Else by VERITE Does He Love You by Reba McEntire featuring Dolly Parton Dead Inside by Nita Struass featuring David Draiman Emily by James Arthur Friday by Jeris Johnson featuring Trippie Redd No Rest For The Wicked by Lykke Li How Soon Is Noe by AG x Dressage Gravedigger by MXMS
One thing I have been really enjoying is sharing my “Halloween Inspired” theme of ‘Song of the Day’ on Instagram’s stories in the evenings. It is the only thing I was able to keep up with throughout the entire month as the others failed fairly quickly!
I try to change it up every other day with various backgrounds and of course the music too. We started off with Ice Nine Kills’ new track featuring Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach “Hip To Be Scared” as I felt like it was a great way to start off the spooky season. The band itself is really interesting, they are definitely a metalcore type of band but like to muddle with other subgenres like my ultimate favorite: symphonic metal. I love anyone who is different from the rest and what I love about this band is that, they focus on horror films. All of the elements of those amazing, cult-like, movies like AmericanPsycho, Halloween, etc. They recently released their newest album: “Welcome to Horrorwood: The Silver Scream 2” which is totally awesome, you should definitely check it out before the month is over.
Since I kind of messed up my blogging schedule for this month, I decided that it was more important for this post to go out than the regular monthly playlist. I hope you’re all fine with this arrangement, and don’t worry I’ll include the Spotify link onto next month’s post, okay?
It’s funny, last summer while we were just getting out of our lockdown, the music being released throughout the summer was good, and I remember appreciating the effort to be huge among artists and bands. I mean, it was odd that the majority of the continent was still running through their stay-at-home regiments but were still able to bring out these bangers for everyone to enjoy. And now coming out of this year’s summer, I don’t feel as thrilled and I don’t know why. I think it might have something to do with the full moon and retrograde though so just ignore this whole paragraph!
One thing that I think both made me really happy and surprised the living hell out of me this summer, was how much rock music I was loving this summer! I still had the popular pop tunes , but I was all about rock music and that rarely happens! My TV was mostly glued to Sirius XM’s Octane station, they play a lot of current and 2000’s rock and heavy metal music so I was able to create my own soundtrack than other people. I think it helped that with everybody being allowed to go back on tour again, bands were releasing more and more songs and I literally just absorbed as much as I could in the past seven months because you know I’ve been working on this playlist since the end of April!
Here is my Top 25 songs of the summer! If you want to check out the whole playlist, click here.
Drunk (and I Don’t Want To Go Home) by Elle King featuring Miranda Lambert Girls by Zella Day Peaches by Justin Bieber featuring Usher, Ludacris and Snoop Dogg If You Love Her by Forest Blakk Forget Me Too by Machine Gun Kelly featuring Halsey Summer In June by Ava Muscleville by Kai Wachi Wait A Minute My Girl by Volbeat The Devil by BANKS Only Love Can Save Me Now by The Pretty Reckless Kiss My (Uh Oh) by Anne-Marie featuring Little Mix She’s Fire by Diane Warren featuring G-Eazy and Santana Lil Bit by Nelly featuring Florida Georgia Line Choke by The Warning Justified by Kacey Musgraves Wherever I May Roam by J Balvin and Metallica Hip To Be Scared by Ice Nine Kills featuring Jacoby Shaddix MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) by Lil Nas X Dark Side by Blind Channel Deal With It by Ashnikko featuring Kelis When Demons Come To Life by Halocene featuring Lauren Babic Arcade by Duncan Laurence Up by Cardi B Cover Me In Sunshine by P!nk and Willow Sage Hart
If you have created your summer anthem playlist, I would love to know what kind of music was fueling you in the last few months. Have you discovered new artists and bands? What are you keeping for later releases? Please put it all in the comments for me. Thank you.
There are times where I take advantage of things and since August ends at the start of a brand new week, I rook it as a sign!
August in general was an odd month. We got a new puppy that has been running our house like crazy! I got a new TV, which meant I wasn’t really reading much and spending a good chunk of time between watching my favorite Disney films and Criminal Minds late at night. And then to top it all off, Nolan was diagnosed with COVID a few weeks ago. Thankfully, he is feeling much better but it’s been slightly stressful but full of enjoyment for everyone in my household lately.
Honestly, my music tastes kind of reflect everything that happened this month, so I wasn’t too focused on one genre, but earlier in the month, I decided to do something different and arrange all of my Liked songs to Title and listen to each one and I have been enjoying this a lot, because I’m not stuck in on a loop of the same songs, sometimes I do want to change it up, and I am loving this switch a lot!.
Here are my Top 20 songs for this month. If you want to check out the full list on Spotify , click here.
In Another Life by Crown The Empire featuring Courtney LaPlante Urinal Rodeo by Rev Theory featuring Heidi Shepherd Survivor by Pop Evil Last Dance by Butcher Babies Kiss My (Uh Oh) by Anne-Marie x Little Mix Show Yourself by Idina Menzel and Evan Rachel Wood Bleed It Out by Lauren Babic featuring Halocene Kill This Love by Social Repose Run It by DJ Snake featuring Rick Ross & Rich Brian Hallelujah by Underoath Stronger by The Phantoms featuring Black Violin Do Not Disturb by Halestorm A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes by Ilene Woods Hard To Kill by Beth Crowley Harley by Letters From The Fire It Won’t Kill Ya by The Chainsmokers featuring Louane Choke by The Warning Monsters by All Time Low featuring Demi Lovato & blackbear Risk It All by Ella Henderson Visiting Hours by Ed Sheeran
I am really excited to get my summer 2021 playlist up for all of you next month. Hopefully the last of bangers will release before the post like last year but you can never quite tell when it comes to music these days!
What were you listening to in August?Have you already picked out your anthem for this summer? Let me know in the comments!
The music that came out in July was on another level.
I’m not sure if the Olympics in Tokyo were responsible for the increase of bangers but I am living for it anyways!
There were moments where I wanted to listen to every genre I could get my toes on, and then I back track it with just individual artists and I would be listening to their albums in two days, for example, one evening I started craving Linkin Park and I ended up listening to my favorite albums and I didn’t stop until the next afternoon and I was even looking up my favorite YouTube videos of them, and for like four days, I felt like I was in heaven. And then I realized that the date of Chester’s death was coming up and I became very sad quickly… but it was still great to get back into my favorite songs and sing them at the top of my lungs again.
Another band that I think was having a great month is Halocene. They are an unsigned band in Arizona and only have three members: Addie (vocals), Brad (backup vocals and guitar), and Joe (drummer). that love to do covers of songs in various genres. Personally, I tend to fall in love with their covers of rock and heavy metal songs. Addie does a terrific job of handling her voice against some of these darker and low vocals. The band itself released three covers and they were “Zombie” by The Cranberries/Bad Wolves, “Throne” by Bring Me The Horizon (featuring Ai Mori) and “In The End” by Linkin Park (featuring NerdOut). These are the ones on their YouTube channel but they also have another BMTH cover on Ai Mori’s channel and that song is, “Can You Feel My Heart” but I didn’t enjoy it as much and still drives me nuts!
They also released a brand new original song, called “When Demons Come To Life” and it is awesome! It has Lauren Babic and I really enjoyed the fact that she is singing on the majority of this song, because lots of people know she’s a damn good screamer but I think everybody forgets that she has this soft, child like voice too and it really works wonders against Addie’s vocals too. The music video is very creepy as they show like an asylum and it really draws you into the meaning of the lyrics and everything just works so good! They tend to do a lot of videos and they’re all different and exciting in their own ways but this has to be my favorite because it fits so well with the song and there are not many music videos like that.
I think it’s finally time to tell you my Top 25 songs are for July. If you want to check out the entire Spotify playlist, click here.
Writing’s On The Wall by Yale Out Of The Blue Hurt by Christian Reindt featuring Lloren Gravity by Sara Bareilles Realm Of Dreams by J2 Rani Cypher by Raja Kumari featuring Dee MC, SIRI Twisted by Carrie Underwood Remember by Leah Confessional by Janet Devlin Weight Of Everything by Ill Factor featuring Katie Garfield Take You Dancing by Jason Dersulo Infected by Starset Harleys In Hawaii by Katy Perry Fallin’ (Adrenaline) by Why Don’t We If It Makes You Happy by Sheryl Crow Say You Love Me by Jessie Ware The Messenger by Linkin Park Harley by Letters From The Fire All In by 2WEi featuring Marvin Brooks Die With Me by Gemini Syndrome Holy Roller by Spiritbox Galway Girl by MALINDA Hard To Kill by Beth Crowley She’s Fire by Diane Warren featuring G-Eazy & Santana Drinks by Cyn Savage (bitmastr remix) by Bahari
I said this the other day on my Instagram but I love how different my music tastes are on daily basis. They are NEVER the same to the next and honestly, it makes things even more exciting because I absolutely love sharing what I am listening and loving lately with people. I mean, I wouldn’t be doing these posts for my personal enjoyment–although I have in the past!–without influencing somebody else to look outside of their comfort zone. I like a bit of everything and obliviously I’m not afraid to show it!
Now it is your turn, what were you into this month?
When Tommee Profitt comes out with something new, especially an album, you know I have to come out of hiatus for it. Fortunately, this isn’t the only review I am doing this summer. There is a big possibility you will get another when I come back for the end of July.
I didn’t even know it was coming out until about four days before it was released. As of the 20th of June, I still hadn’t listened to it because I kept going back and forth whether I wanted to blog about it, like as a proper album review, but since I hadn’t done one of these in so long that I literally almost vetoed it altogether. Thankfully, I changed my mind because I am in need of a cinematic binge, what about you?
So, let’s recap before we go too far into this post. Tommee started launching these clusters back in 2017. It doesn’t seem that long ago, but it might have something to do with the fact I never talked about volume six–I still don’t understand why I never did anything with it but I will say, it is still an album that isn’t as popular compared to the others for me. After that release, he took a mini break and worked with Fleurie (who frequently lends her voice and lyrics on past works) with their ‘Game of Thrones’ project “Gloria Regali” and then he devoted his time with Christian rapper NF on “The Search” (2019) and “CLOUDS MIXTAPE” (2021), but now he’s back with this bad boy, and I think we’re ready to get into it now.
The first track, “Who Will Save Us” actually features Fleurie, which honestly doesn’t surprise me. Tommee is known to work with both veterans in the cinematic world and some newbies too! I really liked the mild sounding of the introduction, it collides into Fleurie’s voice really well and even when the song explodes with this fierce power, neither one of these aspects are lost in the chaos. My only bad thing about is, it’s pretty short and I think I would have liked it more if it was a little longer and surprised me a little more too. Next we move on to, “Sinners & Saints” and this was the song that made me think we could be getting some new music by Tommee but I did not think an album would follow suit! I adore Beacon Light and I always feel happy and sort of lighter while listening to his songs and this one wasn’t any different. The one thing I wasn’t expecting was Moilba Mustapha and that country vibe coming through in the choruses. It is really good and definitely hits differently!
The artist Stanaj has a gorgeous voice! Personally, I am still obsessed with their track “Love Me” so I was thoroughly ecstatic to see them on here working with Tommee. “I Will Be Your Hero” really cuts you deeply with that slow beginning with just Stanaj’s soft vocals and piano in the background. You always know the song is going to be good if the piano is the main instrument–at least for me it always is! This song is so full of emotions and raw; it’s almost sexy in a way. Our fourth song is “Be Careful” with Laney Jones. I’m pretty sure Laney has been on the other albums but don’t hold me against that because I could be wrong. Anyways, I am in love with the music box lullaby start because it gives it a sweetly dark vibe and thankfully we glide into that feeling for the entire track. I need more of these type of songs honestly. I am surprised it was playing during the promos for the new Conjuring film that came out earlier last month.
As much as I didn’t want it the previous to end, we move to “Reign” with Anna Graceman. Now I will say, I don’t recognize Anna’s name nor her voice, but I like it. She has a soulful element that I didn’t think I needed until I heard it for this song. The track is very pop oriented but with her type of voice, it kind of gives off this bluesy vibe that isn’t overbearing by any means, but it is there as she hits those high notes towards the end. One thing I definitely approve of these albums–well, technically, I approve of a lot of things, but this is a favorite of mine!–s that he will include one or two instrumentals and with this installment, we get two of them. We begin with “Nocturnal Opus” and it definitely gives off that feeling it was created either late at night or after you’ve been up wayy over your limit. However, I really enjoy the eerie sound of the choir in the background. The entire track is spooky and wonderful. It ties in beautiful with “Be Careful” although they are two songs apart from each other.
“Powerful” is the one that I’ve been looking forward to the most as it has two of my favorites: Sam Tinnesz and Ruelle. These artists are very well-known in the cinematic pop world, as Ruelle has worked with the TV series Shadowhunters and Sam Tinnesz is basically everywhere now! I hear them all the time and it always makes so happy to see them getting all of this attention. The song itself is pretty mild but I honestly enjoy this seductive balance between Sam and Ruelle’s voices. They are both quite soft and it was nice to hear a beat match their octaves in this way. I had to listen to this one about three times to actually relish in it for a while. However, I had to go on and “Frontlines” was a nice sequel. It has another guest artist that has worked with Tommee before, Jessie Early. She reminds me of Ruelle but with an extra punch, I think Ruelle is very airy, dreamy sound whereas Jessie has a darker edge and is perfect fit on these fast paced tracks. I think my overall favorite element of this one are the string section near the end. They really make the song better!
The eighth record is called “Wake Up” and we have Xeah and this is so beautiful! I really adored the simple introduction, where its just their voice in that low, almost monotone sound and nothing else. We get a few lines like that but then it explodes and it is really strong and suspenseful in every way. The most interesting thing is, Xeah doesn’t have a lot of lyrics so the rest is instrumental, and it is super hypnotic. I thought this was the coolest one on the album, until I heard the next one. “Lament From The Grave” features Stanaj again, and I don’t want language Stanaj is singing but I love it! It kind of gave me like Hans Zimmer vibes because I’ve heard several tracks that are similar, so it was an interesting and new thing for not only me, but Tommee too, because we haven’t heard anything like this before. It sounds exotic and heartwarming at the same time though.
We are nearing the end of our time together; I hope you’re still with me.
I am such a sucker for anything with a little bit of moxie in it. “Welcome to my world” is definitely one of those types of songs. The artist included in this one is :LYRA, and I don’t quite know if they have been on previous numbers or not, but I like their voice. I feel like this could be great playing on the first episode of “Riverdale” new season this fall or perhaps the reboot of “Gossip Girl” It has a gripping but flirty sound and it is so good! Next is our final instrumental, “The Day Before” and I don’t know about you, but anything with these three words will have a sad element to it. You may not hear it at first but it’s there. I think it was really good, not at all crazy but perfectly balanced to showcase both a lighter and sort of panic atmosphere and it really works well with the final track, which is “Tragic” with Fleurie. It is a beautiful broken type of song and I really like these different sounds of bells going on in the background. It was the perfect ending.
I was honestly a little worried after I started this post, because I wasn’t sure I could do it anymore. I feel like I’m not the best person to review albums because I’m not great at describing things–I feel like I’m worse at discussing music. So, I took a big risk at jumping in with a Tommee Profitt produced album but I did it. I may never understand why I didn’t talk about volume seven but this one was really impressive! It was definitely needed after we went through in 2020, so I would rate it as six out of ten stars altogether.
Have you listened to “Cinematic Songs (Vol 7)” by Tommee Profitt yet? If you have, what song(s) was your favorite? What about the guest singers too?
Got Meghan's Blog 