May Playlist

Hello!

Welcome back to another monthly playlist! We are nearing the summer months and even though the big festivals might not happen this year, it doesn’t mean that music won’t stop. I think it’s very important to say this out loud because for a lot of people out there, myself included, are always looking for the next big song that is sure to become their summer anthem. I think I might have found mine already but I’m not quite sure about everybody else’s tastes this year.

For me, May was definitely a heavy metal kind of month. At the beginning, I was listening to Sirius XM Octane and every week they help promote and play new songs from undiscovered talent all over the world. I have included two songs that I heard and immediately fell in love with on the spot. The first “Popular Monster” by Falling In Reverse and I think the main reason why I enjoy it so much is because it sounds like a Linkin Park song. I love how bands are changing up their styles with every record but I have started hearing a lot of older bands experimenting within their genre and really elevating what each is suppose to sound like, and I like how the legacy is the band is living on in that way!

The second song I recently heard is by a band called Dream State. They are a female fronted band based in the UK. Their new track called “Primrose” is so good and it came from their first album Primrose Path which came out in January. To me, it sounds like a mixture of In This Moment, Flyleaf (with Lacey Strum as vocals!) and The Pretty Reckless. If you haven’t heard the song or the full album yet, you need to do that soon! After discovering this band, I realized it was time to create another playlist on my Spotify dedicated to all and any new female fronted bands’ music and trust me when I say, it is glorious! You can click here to check out that playlist now!

Here are the rest of my Top 20 songs mentioned in the main May playlist!

Damn by LIVVIA
Why Do You Love Me by Charlotte Lawrence
Up All Night by Rachel Crow
Breathin by Perlo
Sick Individual by Halestorm
Sunday Best by Surfaces
Diamonds by Megan Thee Stallion featuring Normani
Ain’t It Fun by Paramore
Rainbow by Kacey Musgraves
Eye Of The Tiger by Tommee Profitt x FJORA
Riich by Grace Mitchell
Claws by Charli XCX
You Better Run by Unions
Be Kind by Marshmello featuring Halsey
If The World Was Ending by JP Saxe featuring Julia Michaels
You Say by Lauren Diagle
The In-Between by In This Moment
Devil Pray by Madonna
Break by Eyes Set To Kill
Come For Me by New Years Day

Something that I have been doing a lot lately is actually listening to more albums. I always feel kind of guilty that I am not posting reviews of them, but I am proud of the fact that I can finally listen to a full album in one sitting and love it! My younger self would be somewhat horrified because I never did that until I was in high school. Speaking of which, I celebrate 10 years of being a high school graduate this month and I think I might do a blog post about my Top 10 songs I loved in the year 2010 in June. Oh, by the way, I was talking about my summer anthem at the top, but I forgot to mention that I even had one back in 2010 too. Can you guess what song it was? I doubt anybody will be able to get it right, but who knows somebody might surprise me!

If you want to look into the rest of this month’s playlist, click here and you will directed back to the page. Hope everyone has enjoyed this post!

What were you listening to this May?

Music Monday | Missy Elliott

Howdy!

When I was thinking about doing the series, I know I wanted to keep it diverse, not because my love of music is all of the place, but it is very important to say that there are women music producers out there. In fact, I decided to talk about two of them that I knew were important to my life and musical journey. However, if you know and love of any other women producers out there, please tell me about them in the comments. I would love to learn more about why you adore them, and of course check out their music too!

A couple of years ago, Missy Elliott was awarded by MTV’s VMAs (Video Music Awards) with the Lifetime Achievement award. Back when MTV did play hours and hours (boy, do I miss those days!) of music videos, you probably saw one or if you were really lucky two Missy Elliott videos within 20-30 minutes of each other. I’d say from 1998 to 2004 is when she was just creating all kinds of stuff. A lot of them included dancing, but she was very known for her crazy antics and style in those days. They all looked fun every single time they appeared on your television screen. I’m sad to say I haven’t seen any of her previous videos, but remembering her others, I know she would continue going down that way for as long as she is allowed.

Missy is most known for her songs and friendship with Timbaland and Aaliyah, but I think it’s important to say that she has worked with all kinds of acts throughout the years! In 2004, when the R&B artist Ciara appeared, especially after watching her first music video for “Goodies” you probably hoped that she’d work with Missy one day. Dancing played a big part in the two artists, but it also just seemed like a great combination because Ciara has that same soft voice that Aaliyah was known for–even though nobody could ever be as good as her–you still hoped that they would work together. So, by the time “1, 2, Step” came out on the radio, it was like the music gods were really hearing our prayers and then it happened again in 2004 with Missy’s track “Lose Control” with Fatman Scoop. It was an awesome sequel to the story of these two big female singers.

Since we’re on the subject of girl power, I think we should discuss the remake of Patti LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade” of the film Moulin Rouge in early 2002. Instead of having one singer do the entire song, she produced and worked with four powerhouses of the popular genres of that time. You had the R&B artist Mya to start off and then we move on to Pink, who at the time was a mixture of pop-R&B at the time. Brooklyn’s own Queen rapper Lil’ Kim lended a nice section and gave the song an added flare, and finally Christina Aguilera graced us at the end. I still think this is where she began weaning herself out of the cookie cutter bubblegum pop music. The song itself went on to win lots of awards but I think a lot of people either don’t know and/or forget that Missy Elliott was a huge part of making this happen. I mean, think of it as like the first time The Avengers assembled. Yes, I just did that and I’m not even sorry about it either!

Are you a fan of Missy Elliott? Do you have a favorite music video from over the years? Is there any other artists that you think she should consider working or maybe not collaborating with next? Please give me your thoughts about that down in the comments.

Music Monday | Timbaland

Last month I started this new series; essincally talking about the two people who were at the heart of my decision of wanting to go off to college for Audio Recoedings ten years ago. The first was Dr. Dre and I discussed my love for him and the influences between him, Eminem and 50 Cent that made me want to explore the world of hip hop when I was a teenager. A week later, I talked about Rick Rubin and how much I respected him for not sticking to one genre, he experiments with various genres and musicans. The work he has done with Linkin Park really struck a cord with me because it made me realize that it was perfectly fine to love all kinds of music.

This time we really start at square one. I know I should have started it out this way, but in a way both people were the beginning although there were many years between them. I was introduced to rap music when I was like four or five years old, so early 90’s so for the next couple of months I will take you through the other music producers that have kept me entertained and inspired throughout my life.

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As you can see above in the banner, May is going to be about Timbaland and Missy Elloitt. So, we are moving on to the later part of the 1990’s and easily into the early 2000’s.

Timbaland is a very unique indivdiual. He has been able to be around for a lot of the ups and downs in the music insturdy. He has worked with a lot of various people, some of them have put him at the forefront of their music for a time. He and Missy Elloitt have worked together for a very long time. He has written and produced a lot of her music. He has even been featured in her wacky music videos too! These two had a great time in the late 90’s with R&B artist Aaliyah. They quickly became the dynamic thrio in a way, because they just dominated the charts. Unfortunately, when she died in 2002, of course it was sad. It still makes me upset everytime they make a comment about her on her birthday or anniversary of her death.

As you go into the 2000’s though, you see him working with newly solo boy band member Justin Timberlake on his first record “Justified” and honestly, I don’t think it mattered that he was the favorite of N’Sync, I just think that the two of them worked so well together was insane! In 2005, they came to work with Nelly Furtado and those next three years were really interesting because almost every track that was released I was totally into, and it was just like a steady stream and I kept falling into it everytime. However, I don’t think nothing could have prepared us for the introduction of OneRepublic in 2008. Once the song “Apologize” came out we were all gone. I know I wanted more and thankfully, we didn’t have to wait that long until the band released their second track “Stop and Stare” a few months later.

By 2009, I wasn’t really watching what was going on with Timbaland. Although, when Justin Timberlake released his second album, I took notice because I hoped that they teamed up again, which they did and everything was awesome, I started growing out of both pop and R&B, as this was the time I was officially introduced to Linkin Park and I immediately went rock bottom. However, I recently found out that a song I have been enjoying lately that was remixed by Timbaland. I’m pretty sure you have heard of it. The original track has Dolly Parton, which is awesome too, but I love Of King & Country’s version of “Only God Knows” with Echosmith is amazing! I think it’s a interesting track because with both singers and their styles, it allows the song to be played in two different radio airways: country and pop.

I am curious to see how farther Timbaland can push the boundaries in music. How many other collabrations he can create with new and older acts. It will be interesting if he can get back to leading the charts in R&B and/or pop again like he has done in the past. It’ll be fun to see what else he has up his sleeves in the next year, I mean think about this, summer is quickly appoarching so he could surprise us all with a new track that could be your new anthem. You never know these days, but you know I’ll be keeping my ears and eyes open to the music.

Are you a fan of Timbaland’s music? What decade do you think he hit his peak? Which team do you side with as being the best too?

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?

 

March Playlist

Hello!

Welcome back to another monthly playlist! I hope you are doing good, and finding your isolation comforting and possibly a little fun here and there.

I started this month on the right foot, as for the last four years, March has become more of a sadder time for my family and I since my papaw’s death. I try not to bring it into my playlist but it’s like my brain likes to have softer sounds around. The first week was nothing but Ingrid Michaelson, Plumb and a little of Dido mixed in there too. If you were to see the collection of songs I put into my Spotify playlist, the first four songs are all in gray/white so I’ve been secretly calling it the “gray” playlist.

Towards the middle of the month though, I found upbeat tunes and wanted to listen to some of my favorite albums, ones that I knew I liked all the way through and this brought me back into my rock phase for a little bit. I listened Halestorm, Icon For Hire, and Within Temptation. I also realized I still had a three hours worth of old school hip hop music videos I could be watching on my DVR, and I started adding some of my favorite tracks like “I Do!” by Toya, “Right Thurr” (Remix) by Chringy featuring Trina and Jeremaine Dupri, and “Snap Yo Fingers” by Youngbloodz featuring Lil Jon, Sean Paul, & E-40.

How about I just give you my Top 20 songs instead of talking about the process? It might be less boring for you too!

Open Hands by Ingrid Michaelson featuring Trent Dabbs
Chocolate & Ice Cream by Plumb
I Choose You by Sara Bareilles
You Will Become by Glen Hansard
Fire Breather by Laurel
Beautiful With You by Halestorm
Don’t Think I’m Not by Kandi
Queen by Loren Gray
Good In Goodbye by Madison Beer
Say So by Doja Cat
Baby, I’m Back by Baby Bash featuring Akon
A Mili by Lil Wayne
Carry On by Ashanti
AM To PM by Christina Milian
Imagine by Ariana Grande
Our Last Gloomy Dance by Diabulus in Musica
All Is Found by Evan Rachel Wood
Zipper by Jason Derulo
Sluil a Run by Ella Roberts
Nobody Wants To Be Alone by Christian Reindl featuring Atrel

I hardly ever play favorites when it comes to my own playlists–especially the monthly ones, but this one just feels different compared to the others. It’s calmer but you can sense the shift on where I was emotionally; for example I associate the month of March with my papaw of course, March Madness, and listening to lots of Celtic Woman. I have my mom to thank for that because a couple of weeks before my papaw died, she found PBS was airing the newest Celtic Woman concert (Destiny) and hearing them sing always gives me a sense of peace.

This month I was allowed to watch some of my favorite Disney movies, but honestly I just wanted to watch Frozen II on Disney+ and now that I have, I am sort of taking advantage of the opportunity and watching classics like Bambi, Alice In Wonderland and even the newest live action film: Aladdin. By the time, this post goes live I’d probably watched the rest! Back to Frozen though, I absolutely loved it! The wait was so worth it, and yes. I am as obsessed with the soundtrack like I am with the first one. I have already learned both “All Is Found” and “Show Yourself” like a pro! I did not know that Evan Rachel Wood could sing so good!

If you would like to check out my Spotify playlist, click here and you’ll hopefully be directed back to my profile. If not, please let me know so it can be corrected!

What are you listening to this month?