April Playlist

Hello my friends!

In my last post, I talked about how I went to visit family at the beginning of the month for my nana’s birthday, and usually I am very good at keeping track of the tunes we listen to while we’re in the car, but this time I was in the backseat with my mom and nephew, so I couldn’t hear and I may have taken a nap both times, and I was only able to remember five songs altogether.

Besides the trip, I had another great event happen. One of my favorite alternative R&B artist BANKS released her fourth album “Serpentina” and I have been trying to help spread the word about it but keep forgetting to do it, so I have decided to start on a brand-new series on here for the summer. I really miss doing my Tune Tuesday posts, and I thought it would be great idea to bring it back in some way with an artist highlight. It will be a single blog post about the artist or band in question, it will include some information about how I came across them, an individual playlist of my favorite tracks and where they will be headed next on tour. If I can get through three months, I’ll consider extended it into the fall. I don’t want to get in too over my head, so we’ll see how it goes.

How about I share my Top 25 songs of this month now. Check out the full playlist on Spotify here.

I Stand Alone by Godsmack
Fergalicious by Fergie and will.i.am
Like My Father by Jax
Ex I Never Had by LANY
Complete Mess by 5 Seconds Of Summer
Before I Ever Met You by BANKS
Numb Little Bug by Em Beihold
She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5
Meteorite by BANKS
In The Air Tonight by In This Moment
Money by The Warning
Planet Zero by Shinedown
Plastic Heart by Fame on Fire
Family by Badflower
Always Watching by Papa Roach
My Way by Limp Bizkit
Change on the Rise by Avi Kaplan
SOLD OUT by HARDY
So Called Life by Three Days Grace
Zombified by Falling In Reverse
Rest In Peace by Dorothy
Halcyon by Ellie Goulding
I Still Burn by Fozzy
Never Gonna Learn by Asking Alexandria
A Little Bit Off by Five Finger Death Punch

What were you listening to in April?

Ultimate Fall Playlist

Hello!

September is always a favorite time for me. We are in the middle of two seasons: the end of summer and start of autumn. If you didn’t know, fall is my absolute favorite with spring closing in–mainly because after a blistering cold winter, I crave warmer weather once March comes around.

A lot of people don’t like this time of the year. I can understand their reasons though, because stores tend to bring out various holiday decorations out way too early. I’m looking at you Christmas! Anyways, this month symbolizes a lot of things for me. The most important is pumpkins!

My need to decorate pumpkins as my favorite characters or paint lyrics on the side of it becomes very strong during the early weeks of the month. I do have some plans for them, especially to cement the tradition to my little nephew into enjoying the release of creativity as well! However, you will have to wait for those incoming posts, as I will be talking about my favorite music to listen to, in the wake of the changing colors and weather.

I feel like many people would assume listening to sad music would be perfect for this time. Honestly, it’s not a bad idea! We tend to get a lot of rain between September to the end of November, so you’re not that off the mark.

For my ultimate fall playlist, I have a mixture of both sad and upbeat tunes to enjoy in the next three months. So, I hope you enjoy what I have listed below.

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Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars
Gemini Feed by Banks
Come Undone by My Darkest Days
Photograph by Nickelback
Bloodstream by Ed Sheeran
Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood
Bad Romance by Halestorm
When You Break by Bear’s Den
Hard Times by Paramore
All Around by Flyleaf
The Bleeding by Five Finger Death Punch
Monster by Skillet
She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5
Disturbia by Rhianna
Dust To Dust by The Civil Wars
Broken by Seether featuring Amy Lee
Barefoot In The Park by James Blake featuring Rosalia
Why Do You Love Me by Charlotte Lawrence
Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You by Cary Brothers
Blood by In This Moment
All These Years by Camila Cabello
Paint It Black by Ciara
Thorne by Bring Me The Horizon
Badlands by Smoke Season
My Name Is Human by Highly Suspect
In The Darkness by Dead By Sunrise
Here by Alessia Cara

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The one thing I wasn’t planning on was the amount of rock music I’d want to include the actual list. It seemed strange at first, but there are a lot of heavy metal songs that go perfectly with fall! Although I allowed this to happen, I did try to keep myself open to other genres too. If you don’t like rock music, there are some alternative, pop, and R&B songs in the whole playlist.

Honestly, my thought process was anything that reminds why I love about fall so much! So, there are of songs that make me think of going to football, homecoming, Halloween, high school in general. It’s always strange that May always makes me feel thankful that I am out of school, but once fall comes around I automatically want to absorb every bit of it over again. And the fact that lots of schools over the world have cancelled all fall sports, that overwhelming feeling has made me want to release it more to the world.

If you would love to check out the rest of the songs, please click this link and it’ll take you to where you need to go and listen. I hope you enjoy the entire selection.

What is your ultimate song that describes autumn perfectly? If you have more than one, that is fine, I’d like to see what makes you, you in these colder and dark months.

Summer Playlist

Hello!

It is officially time to discuss what I enjoyed listening to this summer!

This summer was obviously way different than the others, but for me I thought the music that came out was unlike what I was expecting and I say this in the nicest way possible too! I felt as though we had several songs bring back a little bit of an 80’s flare, we had the BLM movement going on, and then there was me, more focused on the past than present tense and so my list is a bit smaller than it has in the last few years.

I don’t know if you will agree with me on this, but the music definitely reflected the times but then I am reminded by something that came to me one day.

The song was released back in March or April, I don’t really remember the actual month, but pop artists Sam Smith and Demi Lovato put out a track called “I’m Ready” which was clearly to be out before or during the Summer Olympics but since COVID-19 quickly ruined that event earlier in the year, I think we were subbed other songs as well. So, it will be very interesting to see the amount of music that was supposed to come out this year instead and I will try my best to keep track on the data for that type of motivational songs in 2021.

Here are my Top 10 songs for summer 2020!

hot girl bummer by Blackbear
Sunday Best by Surfaces
Blinding Lights by The Weeknd
ROCKSTAR by DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch
Be Kind by Marshmello featuring Halsey
Rain On Me by Lady Gaga featuring Ariana Grande
How You Like That by Blackpink
Toosie Slide by Drake
Bang! by AJR
I Hope by Gabby Barrett featuring Charlie Puth

This was probably the easiest list I’ve ever come up with since starting these posts in general! If you would like to check out the rest of the songs, please click here to listen to the others.

What were you listening to this summer?

EP Review: “Deeper Things” by Paul Hernandez

Hello!

The day I published the review of PHAVORS debut EP, I also received a message on Twitter asking if I was open to review another artist’s recent release. Christian rapper Paul Hernandez told me about his brand new EP called “Deeper Things” which I thought was interesting, considering the time we’re living in now everybody is allowing themselves to feel deep feelings. I haven’t listened to anything yet, so I’m happy to finally start writing what I feel and think to each track.

We start with the title track “Deeper Things” and the first thing I thought of was this is a nice beat! Despite the fact that I don’t review a lot of rap music, I have been known to be very picky on the sound that echoes out of my speakers. I liked it for what it was, it had groove and a nice melody. Nice way to begin this journey! The second is “Mañana” which means “morning”. I really loved the light and slow introduction and it leads into a bop with a worship vibe going on. I feel like it would be a great motivational or workout song to pump you through your day. The one thing I wasn’t expecting was towards the end of it, the beat slows back down and you hear Paul singing and a noticeable guitar laced bridge. I think that was what made me enjoy it even more!

Our third song is “Little Bit” and again, we have a sweet beginning; the tempo stays the same throughout the whole thing. You can clearly hear Paul talking and in the choruses, I kept thinking I was hearing a feminine voice in the background. The one person he sounds like is Khalid, they have the same soulful tone that I love and the lyrics are really good too. It would be great for these new high school graduates, as they enter the world on their own. It’s one of those feel good songs at the end of summer! I think I might add it to my summer playlist in September too.

“Runaway” is next and this is another good end-of-the-summer tune. It’s nice and chill, and reminds me of late afternoons, which was so odd because I was doing this review at five o’clock on a Friday. There’s not many times were everything lines up right at the same time, so I knew it had to be fate! The last track “Till You Found Me” and it is a true Christian type of song but for those like me, the meaning isn’t too in your face. I enjoyed the electric guitar in the background when he was rapping, for a while it was just those two sounds coming through and then all of a sudden, there’s a damn trumpet! It totally threw me for a loop, but I thought it was an interesting addition. It was an awesome end.

I think my favorites were “Mañana” and “Little Bit,” mainly because they were both easy-going and made me think of positive things, not that the others don’t have that quality, I was just into them more for some reason. If you need a late summer addition to your music library, I definitely suggest you check out Paul’s stuff. It will bring a little sparkle to your day.

Have you heard of Paul Hernandez before this review? If this is your first time, what tracks were your favorites?

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.