Examination of Taste

We owe the development of our taste in music mostly to our environment (although studies show that it can also be inherited.) My father and I are both junkies of the field; he has a vast collection of albums  that I grew up listening to - The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beach Boys (in fact they are among my favorite bands), Kenny G, and even Sting - which explains why I love soft rock so much.

Another genre I spent my plastic years on is house music. My older half-brother often held parties here at home (when he was still living here. He had interesting friends who gave him interesting "stuff.") Apparently this genre stuck hard, as I am still a big fan of house music right now. My affinity for 80's new wave pop/electropop comes from my intense appreciation of the 90's house movement.

My brother's playlist included songs from Milky, Gyskard, Sunset Daze, and (YES) Daft Punk. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Miguel de Homem-Christo became the award-winning duo in 1993, a year before I was born, so I like to think that they are my soul-band.

I downloaded their new album, Random Access Memories, yesterday from the web but I am most likely going to buy a copy should I find one in the local music shops. The album sounds like the entirety of Daft Punk, with songs that remind me of the music from their earlier albums but that are still modernized enough to sound like they have grown up and matured for the better.

#

Trivia: Bangalter and de Homem-Christo were in a band called Darlin' with Phoenix's Laurent Brancowitz! In fact, they have remained good friends over the years. At Phoenix's Madison Square Garden show, they made a short guest appearance during the encore.

Read More

Favorites!

A playlist of (what I think are) the best songs from my favorite artists/bands.

Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know

Florence and the Machine - I'm Not Calling You A Liar

Vampire Weekend - Run

The Drums - Down by the Water

Phoenix - 1901

Foster the People - Houdini

St. Lucia - All Eyes On You

M83 - Midnight City

CHVRCHES - The Mother We Share

Paramore - Turn It Off

Passion Pit - Take A Walk

The xx - Islands

Ellie Goulding - Atlantis

Lana del Rey - Radio

Adele - Right As Rain

The Beach Boys - Don't Worry, Baby

Up Dharma Down - Indak

Rico Blanco - Neon Lights

Read More

I Just Swiped My V-card

I kid, but here are better news:

Foster the People is coming to Manila this October. Of course I couldn't make it. The first half of October has already been mapped out: long exams, presentations, pre- and post-lab reports, finals. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to spend the night of the 6th without being too emotional. Maturity, maturity.

Ticket sales began last September 13, so if you think you can still cajole your butt into getting those VIP seats you'd better do so now.

Read More

Almost There

Are you excited for TDCC's Beacon too? Tell me you love me because I have exclusive (Ha ha, not really, but thank you, anonymous Youtube uploaders) demo versions of songs from the new album!



If you can still remember the album trailer, this is the song that plays near the end. First few lines and it got me already.



"This is Moon" was performed live sometime in 2011. It's in the track list for Beacon, but they renamed it as "Settle".

And here is a little verbal action from the boys, a comparison between their debut album, Tourist History, and Beacon.



By the way, if you missed my obsessive fan rants, Two Door Cinema Club is my all-time favorite band.

Read More

He's Still Here!

Remember Pegasus Bridge, the totally awesome band I wrote a post about (and that disbanded exactly a year ago)? Their vocalist Edward Turner is still active in the music industry! (Well, I think all the band members are trying to make it out there somehow. It's just that Edward Turner is too much of a great lyricist to let go of.)

He has been doing his own projects for the past year:



"I lay a place where you eat.
I keep a space where you sleep.
It's all the same in your room,
but not you.
Sitting in the places we'd talk,
walking every walk we would walk,
and in the places you were
I think I saw that ghost you saw.

You'r really gonna hate me now
but you will see I set you free.

And there's a shelf where you keep your stuff.
A bottom step where we once made love,
and there are words we don't say enough
like, 'Hey, what're you doing tonight?
We can share a bottle of wine if you'd like,'
but time takes its toll when we fight
and now we're just things that don't move in the night.

You're really gonna hate me now
but you will see I set you free.

Well, did you mean it?
And if you didn't, why did you say it?


You're really gonna hate me now
but you will see I set you free.
It's still a little weird with you here on the mantelpiece.
I can't imagine anyone else

but don't tell me there's no place like home.

Well, did you mean it?
And if you didn't, why did you say it?

I know, I know, I know it's rough.
Sometime, sometime, sometime, we'll work.
I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
I lied, I lied, I lied enough."

I'm picky when it comes to sentimental songs (sometimes I just don't like them, period) but this one is just sublime. So honest it gives me goosebumps.

Raw music video of "When I Call"


And an interview for one gig:



He's such a sweet guy; one of the few artists you can really call an "artist" because he sincerely loves what he's doing. He doesn't sacrifice his music to get famous.

Read More

The Other Messier 83

M83 is a French synth-rock/pop (or basically, electronic) band started by a guy named Anthony Gonzales in 2001. Their music is really starting to warm up to me (my favorite of theirs so far is Midnight City). M83 is the short term for Messier 83, a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Hydra, which is fifteen million light-years from us.

"How fast we burn
How fast we cry
The more we learn
The more we die
The more we learn
The more we cry
How fast we burn
How fast we die
I hear the planet crying now
I hear the planet crying now"

Teen Angst (a single from 2005) is one of their earliest songs. I like to think of this as a part of the puberty stage of their career, considering the title (very superficial interpretation. Kill me now) and how the song actually sounds. Now their music contains less muffled voices! Hooray.


Reunion is their latest single (tidbit: It's the sequel to Midnight City.)




I love how their music gives the listener a sense of freedom -- exactly what the frustrated youth today need.

Read More

This Weather

"Take me as I am. I don't have much to bring; I'm still a living thing."

Pretty much sums up how I've been feeling this week. Remember the Math exam I wrote a blog post about? Yes, that one. I never got to use those tips. I am too sanctimonious for my own good. 

Read More

Before Classes

I refuse to trudge back to university, which is forty kilometers from the city, today because I learned formal classes start a week after the opening. I'm lazing around my bedroom right now; it's been raining all week and I just can't help rolling on my airbed. (Yes, I sleep on an airbed. It's heaven without St. Peter and his Keys of Heaven. You should try it.)

I compiled some good tracks for my own selfish consumption this afternoon. I have a lot of summer write ups to finish (the publication of our yearbook is being put on hold because I haven't finished the class prophecy yet. I'm sorry, batch mates). Somehow I ended up rediscovering Burberry's ultra-efficient stash of acoustic song versions played live, some in unfriendly weather conditions.



They're adorable boys, to be honest. The vocalist sings well, too, even when his vocal chords were probably  getting minced back there.



This is the first Burberry acoustic video I watched. Two years ago, I think. I love this band so much but they broke up last year.



Life in Film! Those percussion slippers are genius.



Not really my type of music but her voice is so cute!

Read More

Mellow

The days are mellow. Too mellow.



And my dreams have been taunting me with figments of what I want to happen.

Right now I just want to go to the moon. Probably stay there for a week or two.

Read More

Pah-Gah-Nee-Nee

When I was young, docile, and significantly more ambitious than I am right now, I dreamed of becoming a violin virtuoso. I am a bit afraid because one of these days my younger self will come via time machine and slap my facial features into nothingness considering I haven't achieved her goal. This post serves as an apology (she might read this.)

Read More

Dun Dun Dun Drum line!

I learned about The Drums from a friend (who practically recommended a fourth of what is on my playlist). They're an indie pop band from New York signed under Moshi Moshi/Island in the U.K., Universal in Australia, and Frenchkiss in the U.S. (Technically, that doesn't make them "indie", per se, but their music expresses the usual sound of indie music anyway.) Most of the vocals include falsetto, which is very advantageous for me. My high-pitched (sometimes annoying) voice doesn't need to adjust itself the same way it does when I'm singing along to Metro Station.



This is actually one of my favorite songs in their latest album, Portamento.



When I said the vocalist is big on high notes, I wasn't kidding.

Read More

Bon Iver on the First Day of the Year

Happy New Year, chaps!



"And at once I thought I was not magnificent, strayed above the highway aisle; jagged vacance, thick with ice, I could see for miles, miles, miles."


Beautiful lyrics. Whoever said all the good musicians are gone is prolly enjoying his/her words a la king right now.

Read More

Birdy

. . . because people have been busy the whole week. We deserve rest for the mind.

Happy December, by the way. My friends are coming home in two weeks. I can't wait.

Read More

The Anatomy of a Fan Girl

It really is better to define something theoretical or intangible when you've experienced both its sides. Browsing my archive of posts written a year ago brings you to incongruous entries about K-pop. Needless to say, I was a fan of K-pop. A fan girl. A screamer and stalker brought to a safe level. An adversary of saving money and of my stingy self. I guess I still am when the moment requires it, like today when one of my friends generously and lovingly bought me a ticket to Super Junior's Super Show 3 3D screening.

Read More

Pegasus Bridge has Fallen Down

I was in the middle of downloading new songs two hours ago and I was going through some bands in YouTube when I suddenly remembered Pegasus Bridge. It's not a well-known band-- in fact I know about them only because a friend used to plug his iPod into the classroom speakers and play their songs back in high school. I learned to love their music over the summer when I had nothing to do except pig out and be sentimental.

Read More

I Call Them "Classics"

I must have eaten a unicorn leg or something yesterday because I suddenly had urges for anything and everything related to what people term as "classic." I bought a copy of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and while it isn't exactly as ancient as Grandma's schnoz (it's a real world! I'm quite surprised) nor was it written in fluttery English sentences, I figured it is still a classic. It is a welter of unsophisticated yet widely-acknowledged themes, mostly focusing on teenage angst, something I am evidently familiar with but simultaneously heedless of. I'm only until the eighth chapter as of now, since I don't like reading books in one go. It gives me a headache.

Read More

Music Update: Lady Gaga releases new single Born This Way!

It doesn’t matter if you love him,
Or capital H-I-M
Just put your paws up
’cause you were born this way, baby

My mama told me when I was young
We are all born superstars

She rolled my hair and put my lipstick on
In the glass of her boudoir

“There’s nothin wrong with lovin who you are”
She said, “’cause he made you perfect, babe”

“So hold your head up girl and you’ll go far,
Listen to me when I say”

I’m beautiful in my way
’cause god makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way

Don’t hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you’re set
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way

Ooo there ain’t no other way
Baby I was born this way
Baby I was born this way
Ooo there ain’t no other way
Baby I was born-
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way

Don’t be a drag – just be a queen
Don’t be a drag – just be a queen
Don’t be a drag – just be a queen
Don’t be!

Give yourself prudence
And love your friends
Subway kid, rejoice your truth

In the religion of the insecure
I must be myself, respect my youth

A different lover is not a sin
Believe capital h-i-m (hey hey hey)
I love my life I love this record and
Mi amore vole fe yah (love needs faith)

#

Read More

Music Update: Mozella

It's a fairly simple song but it's somehow implanted itself into my subconscious. If you're in need of an immunization against angst-ridden love, you can abuse the replay button and imagine the appropriate scenes.


(The lyrics aren't that memorable but I'm posting them anyway.)


More of You


So it goes without saying that I'm hooked on you
And by now I'm out of my mind with this self-abuse
I guess should have looked out for myself
I guess that I could of found someone else
But I never met anyone who's loving made me so damn crazy

Every little thing that you do
Every single word you say
Every time you're looking away
You got me begging for more of you, more of you
Every time I'm ready to go
Every time I think I'm back in control
Something gets a hold of my soul
And I be begging for more of you, more of you

(I'm begging for more of you, mmm, I'm begging for more of you)

You're a door I can't close when I'm running late
When I see you I know that I'm tempting fate
I guess that I should move on with my life
Cause the state that I'm in is just not right
But I never met anyone who's loving made me so damn crazy

Every little thing that you do
Every single word you say
Every time you're looking away
You got me begging for more of you, more of you
Every time I'm ready to go
Every time I think I'm back in control
Something gets a hold of my soul
And I be begging for more of you, more of you

Now I don't know where to go
Should I put an end to this show
But it's out of my hand (out of my hand)
Cause I'm at your command (at your command)
So what else can I do but get some more of you

Read More

Music Update!

Paramore.net just announced an exclusive release of the band's newest music video, Playing God, and hell yeah, I found it in YouTube. (Consider this a pre-premiere special!)

The MV was shot at Hayley Williams' house at Tennessee. Awesome, yeah?



It's not a video that stands out from its predecessors (Brick by Boring Brick is definitely a frontrunner) but Hayley's costume is just so adorable you can't help but ogle at her.

Playing God has amazing lyrics and is also a fan favorite. If you haven't listened to it yet, watch the video now!

Read More

Free Pass to A Night of Euphoria

Before I officially write my entry, I'd like to thank my friends Ayanne, Roezel, Joop, Sri and Benedict for the company/food (although I was the one who tagged along) and the free pass (thank you Joop!) to Ely Buendia's mini-concert last night. And I thank them with as much sincerity as the amount of energy it normally takes me to finish five laps around the oval.

Read More