March Playlist

Hello!

March has been pretty rocky, between fighting with our WiFi (again!) and not feeling mentally well throughout the last couple of weeks, I am happy to say music has been a saving grace!

I have a couple of things to talk about in this post.

Firstly, let’s go into the monthly playlist as there were so much coming out at one time! I was able to listen to albums and really get a feel into the music scene will be for 2021. I have said this before, but once March comes around, it’s like everything that came out of the hip hop and pop worlds is on everyone’s radar during the summer. It is a crazy time so you need to have your ears and eyes open at all times! The funny part about this though is, I was really into old tracks for the last half of the month…

This is your Top 20 songs that I really enjoyed listening to in March. Click here if you want to check out the entire playlist on Spotify!

Nolita Fairytale by Vanessa Carlton
Better Without You by Evanescence
Maps by Lesley Roy
Hail To The King by Halocene featuring Cole Rolland
My Head & My Heart by Ava Max
The Parting Glass by Celtic Woman
Now You Know by Icon For Hire
If I Had A Heart by Rachel Hardy
Superwoman by Alicia Keys
Power Is Power by Fear of Water
Open Your Eyes (Deep Blue Songspell) by Bea Miller
Woman by Ellie Goulding
Cry Little Sister by Vomitron featuring Anneke van Giersbergen
Guest Room by Echos
Confessional by Janet Devlin
Problema by Daddy Yankee
Call You Out by Flyleaf
Bystander by Sumo Cyco
The Ritual by Eternal Eclipse
Hate by Plush

Now we are going to move on to something that was announced back in mid-February.

One of my favorite symphonic metal bands Delain that I found in the start of my rock n roll phase back in 2010 have decided to break up essentially, It was announced through their social medias, I found out on Instagram and it was a message from Martijn Westerholt. He is the keyboardist but the founding member of the band itself, and he let all of the fans know what the future holds for Delain as a whole. If you would like to read the rest of the statement, click here.

In my little selfish way, I had wished they made this decision last year but it seems that they weren’t ready yet to say anything about it. Maybe they hoped once the new year came around, they would still be together. So, now here we are and my thoughts from the first moment I read it to today, I still don’t have anything bad to say. I know it is heartbreaking for the fans, but this happens everyday, however, what I made me excited about the decision was the band ‘Delain’ would still be here, just now with the current members. New people would be added and they will create music and relationships with all kinds of fans.

Since the announcement, I have thought of various ways the band can evolve and the one thing that comes to mind is they could go deeper into the fantasy world that has kind of become part of the symphonic metal and rock discography. I also think it would neat to see them go into the metal sphere a little bit more. I have never considered them ‘metal’ despite their best efforts, I just didn’t like it as much. All in all I am actually excited for the next edition of Delain.

What have you been listening to lately?

Music Monday | Joost van der Beork

Hello!

Even though 2009 is the year that started my journey into the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, I would have to mention that the next year was just as important to me. In 2010, as I was failing to comprehended to understand my online class of Music Theory, I was busy dipping my feet into new waters. Once I made the decision of quitting my classes altogether, I dove down deep into the world of symphonic metal.

Now what you need to understand is that I was both heavily depressed and contemplating suicide so the fact that I still remember the origin story of how I got into the starting five bands from mid-2010 to early 2012 is a miracle in itself because everything else is a complete blur to me. I strongly believe music not only kept me alive but also distracted my negative mind. I chose to select a fairly large group of people to be apart of my story.

I didn’t find out about Joost until probably late 2011, which makes sense because by then I had decided to give Disturbed and Slipknot a try after years and years of being absolutely afraid to listen to anything that could activate my inner anxiety. In the same cycle, I had found the band Epica as they were just about to release their concert “Retrospect” concert DVD/CD. Once I started going through the band’s previous albums, I quickly realized that there was a common theme, Joost van der Beork was producing a good chunk of their albums!

After that, I decided to go through his music and found out that he use to be apart of another symphonic metal band called After Forever with Mark Jenson of Epica and Floor Jenson (no, they are not related!) of Nightwish. Once the band broke up, Joost went on to go behind the scenes and produce music instead. He has worked with Epica, ReVamp (Floor’s band), Delain, Leah, MaYaN (Mark’s solo project) and many others. He has a fairly large resume of a lot of bands you might not have heard before, so I think if you have a free minute in the time to look on Spotify or YouTube and check out some of the music he helped put together. Oh, and after going through with this post, I ended up finding out that Joost is actually a current member of a band called Ex Libris, which are very good too!

Have you heard pf any Joost’s work in the past? If you have, what was the first album you listened to and possibly enjoyed the most?

Tune Tuesday: The Netherlands

As much as I’ve loved to do these ever week, there is at least one country that I’ve been waiting patiently to talk about since I started this. The Netherlands was the start of my obsession of the whole symphonic rock/metal scene thanks to the band Within Temptation. Once I got into them I started finding so many others like them and even started getting into other artists and bands from this country as well. I feel like with all I’ve read about The Netherlands, especially Amsterdam is very laid back about everything on. At least that’s my perspective of things, I could be wrong. I have been trying to rack my brain to figure out who to choose to talk about in this post. It’s hard to choose I’m not going to lie, but I’m still going with four songs as much as I’d like to add more, I can’t. Are there anymore artists/bands/DJs I should be listening to? Send them to me please!

Knight Time by Don Diablo

Angels by Within Temptation

Army Of Dolls by Delain

Canvas Of Life by Epica