I’m sorry about last Friday, I tried my hardest to come up with a post but nothing would work so I thought it was a good idea to scrap it altogether and focus on this week’s content for you instead.
February was full of various music.
I am still surprised because usually it can be pretty boring but there were a lot of new albums and singles during the early parts of the month so that really helped start off the second month of 2021 off on the right foot.
Hard rock and heavy metal were the genres I was interested the most. Honestly I think I just craved anything that would stir me mentally and emotionally. I thought I would be depressed for the first two weeks because of Valentine’s Day; I wasn’t shockingly but I still wanted it like a security blanket. Thankfully, I was using all of my resources to keep those genres steady and in the end, I think I surprised myself on how my taste for heavy metal has improved even more and I was looking for the gruesome and unique music in a while.
Here are the Top 25 songs of the month. If you would like to check out the rest of the playlist, click here.
Trouble’s Coming by Royal Blood Living The Dream by Five Finger Death Punch Everything We Need by A Day To Remember Mercy by Ayron Jones You’re Going Down by Sick Puppies This Is Gonna Hurt by Sixx:A.M. I’d Rather See Your Heart Explode by Slaves 25 by The Pretty Reckless Use My Voice by Evanescence Last Resort (Reloaded) by Jeris Johnson x Papa Roach Dark Love by Sullivan King featuring Aaron Gillespie Monsters by All Time Low featuring blackbear & Demi Lovato Talk To Me by Apocalyptica featuring Lzzy Hale Love Bites (So Do I) by Halestorm Love Is Madness by Thirty Seconds To Mars featuring Halsey Finally Free by Stitched Up Heart Yorktown by Butcher Babies Crawl by Breaking Benjamin Come For Me by New Years Day Scarlet Cross by Black Veil Brides Right Now by Fire From The Gods In My Hands by Zero 9:35 Your Misery by Archetypes Collide Just Like Me by Dragged Under All My Life by Attack! Attack!
One thing that I am starting to notice and I’m really sorry I am just seeing it now, is that whenever I focus my attention on a specific genre like with this post, I automatically list a bunch of songs outside of that genre… I feel like I need to make a point of giving you a playlist written out like above of whatever I’d said in the beginning I have been into lately. Hopefully I will remember this when it comes time to do March’s playlist, however, knowing my luck I will probably be back to listening to various music like normally!
What were you listening to this month? Send me your recommendations!
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.
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?
Sadly, I don’t listen to a lot of GTA and at this point I’m probably going to regret saying that out loud but I don’t. I mainly wanted to review this song purely to talk about the evolution of one’s music. I hope you will forgive me! Skrillex hasn’t been doing very much remixes this year. He’s been doing producing more with different artists and of course he’s been on tour and working with Diplo on Jack Ü. So the fact that he’s managed to do one remix (unless I’ve missed something and there’s more) this year I’m perfectly fine with it.
I was a dummy, the day this remix was out to the world aka YouTube and Spotify, I decided it would be a great idea to read the comments below the video to get a read on what everybody thought about it. One thing that I noticed in everybody’s comments were that “it sounds like old Skrillex” there were quite a few that disagreed and said that it wasn’t and they hated it because of that reason. Personally, I don’t think it sounds like he’s older stuff. Well, in certain areas, yes it does but it sounds a bit different too! I think as both a person and musician, your tastes and sound evolves with you, I think that’s what has been going with Skrillex. He’s growing and changing as a musician and since you can’t impress everybody some people are not liking the change as much as others!
I’ll say this first, I haven’t exactly heard the original version of this track and I probably won’t because I hardly ever listen to the original after I’ve listened to the remix. I’m sorry! Luckily for me, knowing what to look for in Skrillex’s music for four years now it’s not that hard what parts he’s added into it. The distorted vocals make it soft. I love the introduction, very slow and mysterious. That’s what drew me into the track in the beginning and I’m not lying either! Within the first minute the mood kind of shifts and gets more complex, it’s very interesting! I have a difficult time keeping myself together whenever this song plays on my Spotify, I tend to want to handbang and I can’t do that at the moment because my neck has been giving me problems lately. I love the remix a lot. I wish it was longer, but then again I always say that, don’t I?
What do you think of this remix? What are your thoughts of whether it’s a singer, band, or in this case a DJ evolution with their own music?
I am very infamous at finding songs on the radio and never figuring out what it was called or who the artist was either. It sucks! I say “infamous” because I’ve always had this problem even as a kid. Here’s the sad part about it, once I got two songs confused with three different singers. Stevie Nicks, Reba McEntire, and Celine Dion. It was the worst because my mom couldn’t get me to stop arguing about them. I was very wrong and I didn’t want to admit to it. Thankfully, she doesn’t remember this at all so I’m good!
I use to listen to the radio a lot, before we got our Sirius XM channels on our TV where they’re generous enough to include the artist name and song title while it’s on. Well, majority of time they do! The radio on my iPod nano has it where you can find out the same thing while you’re listening to the song. My love for the radio is back, not like it really went away, but this makes it a lot better!
The first time I ever liked a song but didn’t know who is was by was when I was in elementary school. At the end of the school year, the fifth graders graduated and always got a video of their time in the last year before heading to middle school. This song was literally the “go to” song and every year I would learn it more and more by only hearing it that one time out of the year. I went through this maybe four times before I graduated from fifth grade. After that, I never heard i again until maybe 2008 when I had my TV on a local channel on my TV and the announcer had played the song and was nice enough to tell the whole world or just me the lingering question. It was called “Graduation” by Vitmin C. The song came out in 2000, so that means I went through seven years of not knowing a thing but the chorus. The second time this happened I remembered hearing the song somewhere and I just loved it! I only heard it once of course! I really liked the freaking song and when I couldn’t find it again I was really mad, but like everything else I couldn’t do anything about it! We didn’t have internet or Spotify back then so finding songs was a bit of a bitch! I found the song in 2007 and didn’t find it again until 2011. The song and get ready for this was “Falling Down” Duran Duran. The beat is really great and it did feature Justin Timberlake too!
However, this post isn’t about all of the songs that I’ve lost. This is about the song that was basically fading from my memory, which I have to say is very scary! I’ve been listening to all types of music since I was about seven years old. In school, you’re forced to read books in class–out loud–I was never comfortable with reading in class at all. It didn’t matter if I was reading to the class or I was hearing it through the tape. When we were out of school my mom and nana would try their best to get my sister and I to get books from the library and my sister LOVED to read. I loved the fact that they let you rent CDs for a week!! I had a good selection to choose from, they had two different shelves with six rows of albums and oh my goodness for a young music lover, this was my dream! However at this time I was still not able to listen to a full album on my own yet. I use to rent the CD of mixed songs in the genre of dance. At first I only liked it for two songs and as I listened to it more and more I kept liking other songs too.
I remember the last time I rented the CD because I was still playing on PlayStation 2. Shut up, this was like 2004! After I came home from having my surgeries playing the games made me less upset about not seeing my friends and favorite nurses! Anyways, I remember playing Crash and I was listening to this CD and a couple others. The third track on this album was my jam! Like, it was so good that I managed to memorize the words and medley of it. And then we stopped going to the library. I still knew how the song went at the time, but overtime it was slowly fading. After a few years I began to really miss it. Two years ago, they shut down the library and built a new one. It finally opened last year but they didn’t have the CDs out for rental when we went there. I was bummed! Since I always find new music every week I’m “replacing” other favorites of mine. Whenever you hear a song you use to love though, you’re instantly into it again and you have to remind yourself to buy it on iTunes.
Now that there is YouTube and Spotify, I actually have less of a chance of not knowing the song or artist if I can get myself to memorize a line or two. My biggest accomplishment was using the record button on our DVRs to my advantage! I still have a song in mine that I need to find the answers to it. This past February, when I got into listening to Diplo’s music I was originally wanting to find this song specifically. I tried looking it up on both Google and Spotify, but the only thing I remembered of the CD were the colors of case itself. I knew it was hot pink, lime green, and black lettering. I also knew it was a bunch of early 2000’s dance tracks. I couldn’t describe the song, hell I have trouble doing that on here!! I went through Spotify’s collection of early dance (mostly) trance tracks. Whenever I found one on there I put it on a playlist, but I wasn’t finding the right one. That’s when I started listening to BPM on my TV as an every day thing and getting into others DJs along the way!
The second to last week of September, I woke up to having the picture of the CD title in my head! It was an improvement from the last time! I sat up and put up Google to try my luck one more time. I put in the words “totally” and “dance” into the box and at first I found an album I use to rent, not the one I wanted but we were getting there. So I rearranged the words again before giving up and then… I found it. Totally Dance. Hot pink and lime green cover and title. Right songs in the same arrangement I remembered them in! There were remixes of Dream and Pink’s hit songs at the time. This was the time when the biggest dance song came out: Darude’s “Sandstorm” and lastly the only DJ that was on it that STILL makes music now was Tiesto! That stuff doesn’t really matter though, all I wanted to know what was the third track’s name and artist. It was “Look At Us” by Sarina Paris the Beam & Yanou mix. No wonder why I had such a difficult time finding it! I hadn’t heard from either person since finding this song years ago! I was soooo happy that I had found it finally, but they didn’t have this exact remix on Spotify just the original version of the track. I could deal with that!
Now that I have found this song, I haven’t listened to it as much as I had hoped. Maybe it’s because it’s not in the same way I remembered hearing it as a kid. I don’t know. It could also be from the fact that I have been finding more newer songs that have recently been released. I’m glad the song is no longer lingering deep inside my head. Have you ever had a song that you used to listen to all the time but then lost it?
I have always loved remixes. Sometimes the remixes are better than the original versions. Of course it’s all my personal opinion. I can’t even tell how it started and probably when I was in grade school when I was first listening to dance music. I kept it a secret from my peers because nobody was ever listening to the genre as much unless they went to a school dance and at that time we rarely had those! I was hearing a lot more remixes than original stuff that were playing on TV and movies. I still love to hear remixes! I asked on Facebook and Twitter for everybody’s suggestions on what is (in their opinion) the best or favorite remixes ever! Now the first one I got right out of the gate was something that was played constantly on the radio. It’s a good song, but I wanted something that I’ve never heard of and in comes Kirstie from Kimamely Beauty. She gave me so many suggestions that I figured I’d include into this post too! I’ll give some of my favorites, how I found them and some other interesting facts.
I remember finding this song and the one below on accident. Back when their last album came out, a local radio station always had Saturday night specials of local DJs doing mixes outside of my hometown. So both and a couple more listed were found through one of these nights either coming home from a school function etc. I always loved them!
This one will always put me in a good mood! Love it!
Forever apologizing for the picture it puts up first! This one is another that was on the radio late at night, every time I hear it I actually turn it up! Of course, it was never released to the public, much like the one below!
First off, sorry for the bad quality of the video! I found this once when it played on MTV in the mornings. It was NEVER released the way it sounds in this video which sucks because to me, this is how the whole point of a remix is changing the sound of the song. It sort of has parts of one of Fabolous’ songs called “Breathe” in certain areas, but this one of the best remixes if it sounds like this!
I found this remix through Spotify I think! This song came out in 2012 and it was the first time I ever heard both Diplo and Grandtheft. This was the start of the Diplo craze even before it started!
Hey! We’re in 2015 parts now!! I love, love, love this remix! In a way, everything is the same from the original. Kaskade was smart to keep a lot in with his remix, but I feel there’s a lot of differences too! It’s more upbeat and seems longer too! I heard this on Sirius XM BPM a few months ago. I actually heard this before the original and then I realized they both sounded the same and I didn’t have to choose which one I liked better.
Diplo and Grandtheft make a good team! I haven’t heard the original verison of this song because of this remix! They released this on SoundCloud and I think it took me like an hour to cave and hear it! Pretty badass!
I heard this only once on Sirius XM BPM and I remember rewinding my TV twice because I couldn’t… I’m just fucking speechless! I only use the F word when I truly love a song and this is just great! This has got to be one of the best remixes EVER!
This was literally a last minute addition! I’ve watched too many JackÜ performances on YouTube and this has become a new favorite of mine. Always puts me in a good mood too!
Whenever I tweet about music suggestions, there’s like a 50/50 percent chance I will ever get a reply back from anyone. It’s sad, but true! Thankfully Kirstie tweeted me back! I found a common thing with her suggestions, she gave couple by Gordon City, MK, and Friend Within remixes. I don’t think I’ve heard of any one of them before so we’re already getting off on a good start! She seems to like the more chill, house remixes. She gave me a really long list, but I’m only picking some of my favorites!
If you are free at 8pm EST I’m hosting the USBloggerChat on Twitter! It’s my first time ever doing this and I’m talking about MUSIC since it’s Thursday! If you can make it, that would be awesome! Can’t wait to chat with everybody! 🙂
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