Even though I’ve been expanding my taste in dance music, I still love and will always continue to listen to alternative/indie rock music.  

This song came up on my Pandora and I fell in love with it instantly.  The only thing wrong with it is that it is only 2.5 minutes long :(  I also hate the name Tegan but that’s kind of irrelevant to the wonderfulness of this song.  Guess that means I just have to listen to it on repeat (which I would probably do anyway even it were 8 minutes long haha).  I also really like the album cover with the felt hearts:

Walking with a Ghost - Tegan & Sara

Another song I came across that I really like is North by North by Faded Paper Figures.  My first thought was that it was by Death Cab for Cutie or the Postal Service, and I don’t usually like their music (which is surprising since both of those are always recommended to Coldplay fans) but I love this song.

North by North - Faded Paper Figures  

It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged (since I have no life right now) so now that midterms are over, I think it’s definitely time for another post!  My musical taste has expanded and I now love dance/techno music.

1. Miracle (Toca Me) - Fragma*
2. Audio, Video, Disco - Justice*
3. White Lies - Paul van Dyk ft. Jessica Sutta*
4. Come Fly Away - Benny Benassi*
5. Benny Benassi - Come Fly Away (Adam K & Soha remix)*
6. Guns & Horses - Ellie Goulding
7. Figure it Out - David Aude ft. Isha Coco*
8. La Roux ‘In For The Kill’ - Skrillex remix  
9. I Remember by deadmau5 & Kaskade*
10. La Roux Bulletproof (Dave Aude’s Cherry Mix)*  
11. David Tavare feat. 2 Eivissa - Hot Summer Night*  
12. David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland - Commander (Ralphi Rosario Club Mix)
13. Deadmau5 ft Kaskade - Move for me
14. Bob Sinclar - World, Hold On
15. Chris Shiva - Children of the Time (Indigo Remix)*
16. Black & Blue - Miike Snow*
17. Samantha James - Waves of Change (Kaskade Remix)

I’ve listened to the songs on Coldplay’s new album Mylo Xyloto which is to be released on October 24th and I must say that I’m fairly disappointed with it.  Unfortunately it seems that they’ve continued too much in their Viva La Vida direction (not that I don’t like Viva La Vida, I think it’s great) and seem to have lost the elements of their signature sound.  However, they do have one amazing song on it called “Paradise” which saves the whole album.  This song could appeal to just about anyone.  I suppose it is necessary for them to explore other musical directions but hopefully someday they’ll return to their original style.

Paradise by Coldplay

I’ve had a pleasantly surprising few days of awesome music discovery since my sad parting with Seattle’s SEA 89.5 dance music radio.  Since I doubt I’ll have time/remember to post about each music discovery separately, I’ve decided to make this a combo post.

First up on the menu is Noel Gallagher’s “If I Had a Gun”.  He was one of the main members of Oasis (i.e. one of my favorite bands ever) and I love EVERYTHING about his new song “If I Had a Gun” (well, maybe everything except the title.  I hate guns).  The first time I heard it I was trying my best to hum along and it went everywhere I wanted it to go, if that makes sense (probably doesn’t, and that’s not what she said).

If I Had a Gun by Noel Gallagher

Next up is Garbage.  No, not as in the stuff that you throw out when you don’t want it, but rather the terrific Scottish-American band called Garbage.  While most people would be reluctant to take their parents’ advice on music, my mom does have good taste in music and she recommended Garbage to me.  She connects more with the music of the younger generation and hates pretty much anything from the 60s and 70s.  Could be to do with the fact that she was born right on the divider between the baby boomers and generation X.  Anyways, so I’ve already heard and love their song “I’m Only Happy When it Rains” (love it for multiple reasons: 1) it’s about rain 2) it’s just an awesome song).  So then my mom had recently been looking up other Garbage songs and she found quite a few good ones and recommended them to me.  My favorites so far are “Milk” (which doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with milk) and “It’s All Over but the Crying” (pretty self-explanatory as to what that’s about).  ”Push It” and “The Trick is to Keep Breathing” are also good.

Milk by Garbage 

It’s All Over but the Crying by Garbage

Push It by Garbage

The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Garbage

Last and certainly not least is a discovery I made during my last week in Washington state.  Here’s how it happened:

So I opened up my iTunes and that fabulous Genius toolbar on the right recommended songs to me as usual.  It recommended a band called Run From Cover since I like Lady Danville.  I looked them up and listened to a few of their songs (they were good).  On their website they had some quote from somewhere that says “RFC’s (Run From Cover’s) album Burning Bridges ’recalls Keane at their most tender, with the melodic ease of Travis, the raw emotion of Elbow and the brilliant glow of Coldplay’….”  Well, since I LOVE Keane, Travis, and Coldplay with all of my heart I decided that I definitely needed to listen to this band called Elbow.

I opened up Grooveshark and after consulting Wikipedia to find out what some of their most popular songs were, I listened to a few and loved them.  They remind me a bit of Genesis (the prog rock Peter Gabriel days, not the weird 80s pop stuff).  (Note: just read that they were influenced by Genesis and Radiohead so that makes sense!)  They definitely have that “raw emotion” that the Run From Cover website quote was talking about.  One interesting song I found was a cover of Destiny Child’s “Independent Woman” which seems like an interesting choice for a band like Elbow to cover but I actually really like it.  I didn’t realize it was a cover until they got to the part where they say “Girl I didn’t know you could get down like that, Charlie how’d your angels get down like that?” and then I recognized the song and thought “Wtf?!? (except, the actual words, not just the letters)”.  Still love it and here are some of their own songs that I love too.

Independent Woman (cover) by Elbow  

The Stops by Elbow

Lippy Kids by Elbow

Great Expectations by Elbow

Well I think that’s enough for now because that’s probably a lot to take in at once.  If you like any of these and want recommendations for more songs, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to give you some more links if I have them :)  

This summer I discovered that I actually really like dance/electro/techno/whatever you-want-to-call-it music.  I’ve liked Seal for a while but that’s about as far as I’ve previously ventured into this genre.  My roommate Kristin and I started listening to what we called the “weird techno station” on our way to work and eventually it started to grow on us.

Two of my particular favorites from that station are “Cinema” by Benny Bennassi and “Starry Eyed” by Ellie Goulding (which I’ve only heard on the radio once and told Kristin to look up what it was because “I think I’m going to love this song” haha).  I’m excited to find that I like this kind of music because I need to have another genre I really like other than the “Coldplay genre” :P

Party Rock Anthem has been another of my favorites for a little while now too.  (If only LMFAO were playing at Bruin Bash this year instead of a couple years ago when I hadn’t even heard of them…)  Could I possibly be starting to like popular music? *gasp*  Well, maybe certain songs.  There will always be mainstream crap like “Super Bass” by “artists” like Nicky Minaj that will continue to make me not want to listen to the radio in order to preserve my ears.  However, maybe now I can be open to the idea that not all of it is awful and maybe at parties from now on I might actually be able to sing along to some of the songs?  Well I guess we’ll see about that… 

Starry Eyed by Ellie Goulding

Cinema by Benny Bennassi

So You Think You Can Dance has a knack for finding and showcasing unique and wonderful songs in the dances (although on the other hand they nearly always get untalented mainstream artists to perform…I mean lip sync…live).  Last week the group number featured a beautiful song by Lia Ices who I hadn’t heard of before.  The video for the song features a ballerina which makes me happy too :)

It’s a pretty different song but it captured my attention.  It makes me feel relaxed and if I lay down and closed my eyes I would feel soothingly calm (if that is even a word) and have a smile of contentment on my face.  A YouTube comment said that Lia has “A lovely haunting voice that gives [you] goosebumps yet is strangely comforting” and I couldn’t explain it better.  There may be a lot (make that A LOT) of terrible, unintelligent, offensive, and/or grammatically catastrophic comments on YouTube, but occasionally there are the few that post something worth reading and I love finding those.

Just found out that Lia is performing at the Troubadour with The Sea and Cake (I like their song The Crossing Line which I found on Pandora…going to have to listen to some more of their stuff though!) on December 6th.  Anyone want to go? It’s cheap haha (only $15 and the Troubadour is sweet!).  It’s during finals week but I have a few days between my finals so I’m definitely seriously considering it :)  

Just realized that I’ll be 21 by then too!

Grown Unknown by Lia Ices 

Coldplay released a couple new songs this week on their EP Every Teardrop is a Waterfall. One of their songs is called “Moving to Mars” and it brings me back to some of my favorites from their older works.  It has a definite Pink Floyd sound to it and sounds like my favorite parts of Coldplay and Pink Floyd mixed together to create some hauntingly beautiful sounds. I was a little concerned that soon they might start to lose their traditional Coldplay sound but now I am no longer worried :)

Moving to Mars by Coldplay

It’s hard to match the feeling of listening to the first few seconds of a song and knowing that you’re going to love the rest of it.  I discovered the song “Tourist” by Athlete first thing this morning when iTunes’ Genius feature recommended it to me based on the fact that I like “I Ran Away” by Coldplay.  Very glad that I decided to listen to it!  I feel like I’ve been on a roll for discovering new music that I like lately and I hope it continues.  Well, I guess this song isn’t exactly “new” since it was released in 2005 which makes it practically ancient history as far as the music industry is concerned, but personally it doesn’t matter to me when it came out if I like it.

I love the subtle guitar sounds in the background that add on to the main melody so perfectly.  Overall, this is exactly the kind of song that I like.  It starts out slow with a beautiful chord progression and then builds gradually while maintaining the same set of chords with an explosion of emotion somewhere in the middle.  There is a part in the background that reminds me a lot of “I Ran Away” in the middle/end of the song where he says “Just wanna be with you / My baby / I’m counting up the cost of time”.  I don’t know what it is about those background details that make such a difference to me, but they can make or break a song in my opinion.

So, what is it about?  I have no idea as usual.  Maybe I’ll bother with really attempting to understand to what the lyrics mean once I’ve heard it about 100 times or so.  Pretty sure it’s about a guy who just misses his girlfriend though which is cute.

Now it’s time to go and listen to some more of their songs…and I should probably do some studying for finals too.

Tourist by Athlete 

For the first time ever I went over my 40-hour-a-month Pandora listening limit, so I re-discovered Grooveshark which I haven’t used since last summer.  Grooveshark is great since you can listen to anything you want but I generally use Pandora instead since it picks music for me.  I’m sure Grooveshark has some feature somewhat like that but I haven’t used it enough to discover it yet.

I’m not quite sure what I think of the album cover:

I think it’s the writing that’s a bit weird and that’s quite a shiny guitar!  Love her intense “don’t mess with me” facial expression though.

Anyways…I decided to listen to some more music by KT Tunstall since I’ve only heard one of her albums before.  I found another two of her albums and loved every single song on Drastic Fantastic, especially “If Only”.  I can’t stop listening to it!  Two other favorites are “Funnyman”, “White Bird”, and “Hold On”.  KT Tunstall’s music always has such wonderful melodies and each song is full of energy and emotion.  They make me want to just get up and dance or sing along with intensity and passion (if only I had her voice!).  The faster ones are great for listening to when I’m at the gym because I get really pumped up and keep up my energy.  I probably look like some kind of weirdo when I occasionally mouth the words as I’m on the elliptical or if any of the choreographing I do in my head somehow sneaks out from being just in my head.  I guess everyone looks weird on the elliptical anyway so it doesn’t make that much difference haha.       

If Only by KT Tunstall

Yesterday was a great day for two reasons: 1) My iPod Touch arrived and 2) Coldplay released a new song!  At first I wasn’t sure what I thought of the song, especially at the beginning with all the “I turn the music up”s which make it sound like every mainstream song released these days, but once the guitar kicked in around 50 seconds or so, it started to sound more like the Coldplay I know and love.  It seems to be a continuation of their Viva la Vida style which is definitely not a bad thing as long as they don’t lose their signature sound.  This song is definitely more of a pop song than their self-proclaimed style, “heavy soft rock”. 

Many people are complaining that the song was copied from a song called “I Go To Rio” by Peter Allen, but it clearly states in the YouTube description that “the song contains compositional elements of “I Go To Rio” by Peter Allen (1976), written by Peter Allen and Adrienne Anderson”.

I don’t really have a clue what this song is about but I quite like it (and the album art is really pretty and colorful). 

I doubt it will become one of my favorite Coldplay songs but it is something different and suggests that they are taking their music in a different direction.  This is also something that could be played at a party and danced to which is exciting but I hope that not all of their songs turn out like that from now on, but a few here and there is fine.  If they don’t take their music in a new direction, people will complain that they’re not being innovative; if they do, then the longtime fans will complain, so they can’t really win.  As long as we don’t completely lose the “heavy soft rock” that they’re known for, then I’m content.  It’s a happy, upbeat song and a joy to listen to.

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall by Coldplay