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?

EP Review: “Amsterdam Trap Music Vol. 3” by Yellow Claw

I wasn’t even going to do this review. It wasn’t on my radar, but I saw it on “New Music Friday” on Spotify and decided to just go for it!

Yellow Claw are a duo of DJs coming out of The Netherlands, which is why their EP is titled “Amsterdam” Trap Music. I love YC’s music a lot! I basically spent majority of 2015 under the spell of Yellow Claw and other Dutch musicians.

I think I should admit this. I really love trap music! I’d rather listen trap instrumentals though, rather than having a female vocalist or rapper in the background, but I really like the first track of the EP! It’s called “Loudest MF” and it features Bok Nero on it. Unfortunately I don’t know if Bok is another DJ or the rapper, so I’m sorry that I’m lacking on that piece of information! One of the things I really like about it is that it doesn’t seem to stay in the melody all the way through, they change it up so it almost sounds like you’re getting two songs in one track. It’s the perfect starter! Second is “Don’t Stop” and it has Valentino Kahn, and I know trap music is usually somewhat dirty in its lyrics and most girls like to twerk to it, but I just like the genre and quite frankly this song because it’s very bass heavy and the sounds are so weird but cool at the same time. It’s unlike anything that I’m used to listening to it when it comes to dance music.

Next we have “Beastmode” and let’s be honest, that’s just the best title ever! It has Stoltenhoff on it. What’s even better is that it does sound like a beast! When the bass drops though, you kind of hear this “what’s up fuckers” and then you hear female vocals get somewhat static-y and the sound itself chills out a bit, it’s not as obnoxious and the entire track is pretty mellow! Lastly, you have “Dog Off” and as far as I know, this is just Yellow Claw on the track. One thing that I’ve loved about all four songs is that they all have a slow build and keep a steady pace throughout unless you have ones that just explode, and this is definitely in that category! Towards the end you get this subtle surprise of high-pitched sounds in your ears. I thought it was a nice touch, it was a great ending to the EP itself.

I actually really enjoyed this! I had a really tough time keeping myself from dancing, which I guess in a way, is a good thing! I also had to use my dad’s headphones and I will say they are definitely not used to that amount of bass! I think you should look into this and the other artists, if you’ve never heard of their music you really need to make sure you check them out!

Have you heard of Yellow Claw before? Or are you into trap music? Do you listen to a lot of electric dance music?

The Young Queens.

Howdy!

The night I was trying to figure out how to write my Queen Mary I vs. Lady Jane Grey post, I got sidetracked and started thinking about the future queens. Right now there are only two Queen Regent monarchs: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. After they both pass on, their sons will reign in their place and hopefully their grandsons after them but what you may not know is that there might be FIVE Queens in the coming years and I find that absolutely fascinating considering everybody would rather have a king than a queen, whether or not she is their wife or daughter.

I really don’t know how to really start this post, because I don’t want anybody to be confused but I thought it would be an interesting hope for the world that one day all five princesses will be on the throne of their native country someday.

I’m going to start with Spain. The reason why I want to discuss Leonor, Princess of Asturias (11) is because if her parents King Felipe VI and Queen consort Letizia have a son, Leonor will take a step back on the act of succession, like I explained in my first paragraph, Spain is one of the countries that is male preferred.

Spain has had a total of three queen regents, starting in 1479 Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile ruled together and their oldest daughter Joanna of Castile or as she’s known around the world: Joanna The Mad became Queen of Spain in 1504. After Fredinand VII died in 1833, his daughter Isabel II became the last Queen to rule in Spain until she had to abdicate the throne in 1868 to her son Alfonso XII despite the fact that he was not her first child, Isabel, Princess of Asturias was born in six years before him.

Leonor isn’t the only one that has a hefty line of Queen rulers. Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange is thirteen years old and is the heiress apparent of King Willem-Alexander and his wife Queen Máxima. Before her father came onto the throne, her grandmother Queen Beatrix reigned from 1980 to 2013 and she is the daughter of Queen Juliana and she herself was the daughter of the first queen of the Netherlands Queen Wilhelmina. If Catharina-Amalia does her duty, she will the country’s fourth queen.

One thing that is very similar between both Leonor, Princess of Asturias and Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange is that even if they don’t ascend to their thrones, they each have a sister to take their place. Infanta Sofia of Spain is only a year younger than her sister. Catharina-Amalia has two younger sisters Princess Alexia of the Netherlands, age 12 and Princess Ariane of the Netherlands, age 10.

This next princess will literally be the first Queen monarch in Belgium. Princess Elisabeth of Belgium is the oldest on this whole list. She will turn 16 later this month. Her parents came to the throne in the same year as the Dutch royals. King Philippe and Queen Mathilde ascended onto the throne after King Albert II abdicated in 2013. The Kingdom of Belgium was started with King Leopold I. He was originally a German prince prior moving to and ruling Belgium. He was first married to Princess Charlotte of Wales, daughter of King George IV. He was the uncle by marriage to Queen Victoria and an maternal uncle to her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

One of the similar things between these next two countries is that only one queen has ruled over them: Margaret I, who died in 1412, ruled over Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Princess Ingrid of Norway is thirteen and is the daughter of Crown Prince Haakon and his wife, Crown Princess Mette-Merit. Now our final princess is Princess Estelle of Sweden and she is the youngest as she is only five years old. Her mother is Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, who is also the heiress apparent to the Swedish throne and Estelle’s father is Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland. This hasn’t happened in Sweden before, where two future queens will take the throne back-to-back. So technically, we end this post with six future queens!

Do you find the upcoming monarchs interesting? Or are you like me and find the medieval Kings and Queens more fascinating? 

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Tune Tuesday | The Netherlands 2016

Hello!

There are a lot of different countries that I feel I may never have to worry about running out of music, England, Australia, Canada just to name a few… The Netherlands is of course, right up on that list. It’s the main reason why I started doing these posts because I wanted to continue to expand the music that I love to listen to and wanted to learn where these musicians were coming from, it just made the whole experience fun to do it like that!

The last two weeks I’ve talked about a lot of metal bands so I think we need to shake things up with some good EDM music!

Starting with Yellow Claw. Yes please! I remember in mid-November 2014, I was in the middle of my 1D obsession and then I heard this crazy beat and I couldn’t stop myself from dancing to it every time I heard it on the radio! You know which song I’m talking about, or at least you should. It was “Till It Hurts” featuring a fellow Dutch artist Ayden! Dear god, this song was my jam! Hell, it still is! Since then, I try not to discriminate the group. They are really good! A little bit of house and trap, it’s just fantastic!

Another one we have to talk about is Julian Jordan. I still consider him a “newbie” mostly because I don’t necessarily hear his music on a daily basis. I’m pretty sure he’s been out and about since Martin Garrix, so he isn’t a “newbie” at all. He’s been at it for a while! He is pretty good too, just starting to find his sound and have others enjoy it too!

Just because I said I will never run out of Dutch music, doesn’t mean I won’t look up new ones that you guys think I should check out! So send me some my way!