#I actually found a lot of my music at that age from last.fm

[psychoticwillgraham]

just a small snapshot of my old teen playlist

[avo-kat]

this is my diary btw so im gonna write whatever

me rambling abt music i listened to

i used to love the metal band wintersun. ive basically listened to the album wintersun thru grade 9 and 10. because back then mp3 players had little space and mine only fit that one album. i listened to it daily for hours. for two years. yeah lol

i liked venom too i guess...

oh my fav emo band was the used. love love love. it really got me thru my worst teenage depression. i just listened to the album up and down for hours singing along whenever i was alone. so much sad

i listened to green day too, just that american idiot album. i was broke af as a teen and only had a handful of albums. my moms boss actually burned me a copy of american idiot! i was sooo happy that she did that. my mom used to clean ppls homes and i went with her a few times to help her and this lady had a really nice place and a big music ...anlage (lol) station? and she had green day and stuff and i told my mom how surprised i was that a middle aged lady was so cool. my mom told her next time and she burned me some cds :D so cool

my parents were usually v dismissive of me being goth and listening to metal music so this really meant a lot

in fact, my dad once said i was a psychopath and crazy and not right in the head! haha. now im grown up and dont call him. suck it, loser. thats what u got for abusing ur kid.

anyway, what else did i listen to? i had a last.fm account and listened to a lot of music but now i can barely recall. some japanese rock artists def. some handpicked metal songs that were popular that i got from youtube.

wait does my lastfm acct still exist lol

oh indeed! found it. well one of them. i had like two or three idk. lets see. theres scrobbles from 2007, 2008 and 2014 lol

there we go!!!! lets see :D

wintersun - like i said. emilie autumn ooooh of course. still got her stuff on my phone. her songs were my main inspiration for my first ever OC.

then theres a few metal bands i remember liking but i wasnt like suuuper into them.

yes i like panic!at the disco. u may bully me.

some kpop. eisregen isnt that a racist? (i say, knowing full well a lot of metal band dudes were racist). only listened to like 3 songs of those.

kate nash, yeah, my girl! i think thats from later. all her songs are super, she first started with very tv britpop, but relatable. foundation is a perf song. and over time she released more songs but she did develop a lot musically, going a bit more rock at times. super awesome. i was at one of her concerts this year. amazing experience. i love her.

k.i.z. okay. yeah. thats a german hiphop band. their thing is satire, i guess. how should i explain it. meh. i dont listen to them anymore because i started feeling uncomfortable with how they do things. they do a lot of social commentary, but they also used a lot of slurs, in like, ironic ways. that was perf acceptable back then.

she!!!! my 8bit music era!!!! 8bit music is super cool. still have a lot of it on my phone but i dont listen to it much. it gets a bit boring over time

death cab for cutie... how could i forget. what sarah said is one of the bangers in my depression playlist.

janelle was a recent discovery.

theres some more kpop, some more metal down there. nirvana - of course. i binged them. i felt so much heartbreak when i "discovered" them and learned their background. i listened to them a lot lot.

theres daft punk, of course, some japanese artists, utada hikaru, dir en greys, mucc, gackt, malice mizer, ayumi hamasaki. all cool. yuna ito... whos that? ohh she was reira in nana. i listened to mika nakashima too!! that manga was really formative. oh she still makes music

oh damn instead of cleaning im sitting here talking abt myself

[eldritchsurveys]

642.

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? >> I’ve definitely had moments where I wondered about it, but I can’t really take solipsism all that seriously. 2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? >> Assuming 1 is “not at all”, then 1. I wasn’t even afraid of it as a child. The dark was where my stories came to life. 3. The person you would never want to meet? >> *shrug* 4. What is your favorite word? >> I can’t think of one right now. 5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be? >> I’m not sure. Something like a sequoia, maybe.

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? >> I don’t look in the mirror in the morning, usually. Nothing I do in the morning requires a mirror. I can go for days without bothering to take more than a cursory glance in a mirror. 7. What shirt are you wearing? >> A black one with a Warcraft logo on it. 8. What do you label yourself as? >> It depends on what aspect of my identity I’m being asked to define... and to whom. 9. Bright room or dark room? >> Oh, a dark room, if I had to choose between these two. But a dim room is the most preferable -- a little soft ambient light eases the eyestrain that I would get from looking at a screen in the dark. 10. What were you doing at midnight last night? >> Reading, most likely. 11. Favorite age you’ve been so far? >> --- 12. Who told you they loved you last? >> Sparrow. 13. Your worst enemy? >> --- 14. What is your current desktop picture? >> At the moment, it’s concept artwork from the video game Tyranny. My background changes every ten minutes or so. 15. Do you like someone? >> There are people I like, sure. 16. The last song you listened to? >> According to Last.fm, Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds. 17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? >> I mean, what for? That seems like a pointlessly silly thing to do.

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? >> --- 19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? >> I have no desire to keep slaves. I sometimes think it’d be nice to have a service boy, though. Just, you know, since we’re on the subject. 20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional) >> --- 21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? >> --- 22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? >> No. 23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? >> Nothing. 24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. >> Er... 25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? >> I’d just hang onto it until I needed it for something. 26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? >> You lost me at “you have to leave immediately”. I’m in my jammies in bed, dude, I’m not going anywhere. 27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be? >> Oh, Pernod or Lucid Absinthe, without question. 28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? >> Okay, I’m a pretty cool dude and all but I do not have the ability to singlehandedly run a society. That is not at all a smart move. Can I just build a summer home on the island or something, like, damn. 29. What is your favorite expletive? >> What isn’t my favourite expletive. 30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? >> Yawn. 31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? >> From what I’ve learnt about memory and the way brains are wired, this is probably impossible anyway (or, at least, possible but it will fuck your brain up). But even if it were possible without horrible repercussions, I don’t want it. 32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! >> Oh no, I’ve been found out-- 33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? >> I’d really rather not. Death would understand. 34. What was your last dream about? >> Well, by now I don’t remember. 36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? >> Little over a dozen times. 37. Have you ever built a snowman? >> No. I never quite got the hang of it. 38. What is the color of your socks? >> I’m not wearing socks. 39. What type of music do you like? >> The audible kind. 40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? >> There’s something about sunrises that I love just a little more than sunsets. I’m not sure what it is yet. But it’s definitely something. 41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? >> On those rare occasions I feel like drinking a milkshake, I stick to vanilla. Or cookies and cream. 42. What football team do you support? >> — 43. Do you have any scars? >> I have a skillion scars. 44. What do you want to be when you graduate? >> — 45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? >> Mehhhh. 46. Are you reliable? >> I have the capacity to be. 47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? >> I don’t want to do this. It’s another hypothetical situation that fucks with my perception of time and the universe. 48. Do you hold grudges? >> Not often. 49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? >> Ooh, I’d like to know what would happen if you crossbred a capybara and an elephant. I’m so serious. 50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? >> I’m not too sure. I used to live in New York – conversations that’d be considered unusual elsewhere are often considered usual ones there. But a lot of the conversations I’ve had with Claire Elliott Fields would probably take all the cakes. I’ve never met anyone else like her in my life. 51. Are you a good liar? >> I have the capacity to be. 52. How long could you go without talking? >> I could go days and days without speaking a single word to anyone except inworlders. I did used to have a lot more nonverbal days due to stress and overload, but nowadays it’s not as likely. I do still prefer to have long stretches of comfortably not speaking, though. Speaking can be very taxing. 53. What has been you worst haircut/style? >> I don’t know. 54. Have you ever baked your own cake? >> No. 55. Can you do any accents other than your own? >> Probably not as accurately as one would like. 56. What do you like on your toast? >> Butter and cinnamon, or butter and jelly. Or butter and peanut butter. Listen, butter has to be involved somewhere, that’s the only rule. 57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of? >> Something in my “things to practice drawing” folder. Probably a face. 58. What would be you dream car? >> --- 59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. >> I sing in there sometimes. I don’t think anything I do in the shower is unusual, aside from the fact that I prefer it to be dark/dim and I don’t want to be able to see any surfaces. Also, the shower (the bathroom in general) in this apartment makes me feel claustrophobic, and I guess leaving the door open and freaking out when the shower curtain touches me is unusual... 60. Do you believe in aliens? >> I think aliens are a reasonable possibility. Especially when you let go of the idea that they have to be humanoid. 61. Do you often read your horoscope? >> No. 62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? >> V. 63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? >> I like dragons. 64. What do you think about babies? >> Most of the time I think they’re amusing, gross, loud, endearing, entertaining, and exhausting. You know. Kind of like their adult counterparts--

[jamesv-t]

The comic book series Phonogram, in which the basic concept is music-is-magic (and if you love music you really should check it out - start with The Singles Club, and use the glossary if you’re not familiar with mid 2000s British indie music), puts forward the idea of the Curse Song. The song that, no matter how chipper and upbeat it is, brings forth a memory that drops like a stone to the pit of your stomach and starts to kick its way out.

“It’s worth stressing that a curse record is a different thing to the true angry break-up obsessive record. Putting on anything by Nick Cave, drinking a lot of whiskey while scowling is actually a healing thing. Not nice for anyone else to be around you as you coat yourself with blood and sin, but actually a utilitarian thing for self-repair, an aesthetically-inversed version of white wine, smeared mascara and bawling “I Will Survive”. A curse record is the opposite. A curse song will, in a real way, open up old wounds, tearing the stitches you’re trying to make hold. A curse song should be avoided at all costs. 

Lately I’ve been going through a pile of old mix CDs I made when I was younger. Some are labelled, some anonymous (the one labelled Best Of 2003 was a chuckle - I might stick it up on here for people to laugh at) but each CD has had at least one track that made me think “cor, I haven’t heard this in ages!” which promptly got stuck on a Spotify playlist created for the very purpose of nostalgia. Also, a surprisingly high amount of Evanescence considering I’ve scrobbled them on Last.fm nine times since 2005. It’s been an enjoyable jaunt down memory lane, until I stuck one on from the tail end of March 2004, forgetting exactly where I was in my life at that time.

Curse song? The whole damn disc was full of the fuckers. 

That’s the thing about music. It’s time travel. An eight bar intro can rip you from the present day and hurl you, screaming, back to a time you’d left behind. Oh, you’d got over it. You’d moved on, after a long and difficult healing process. Built a life, found your ideal partner, created a new you. The happiness you have now? No barrier to the flood of memories. 

Music can be magic, or it can be murder.

[clayray3290]

Clayray Closeout 2016

Oops, I was too busy celebrating New Year to post about these. I’ve tracked my music tastes using Last.fm for ages and had posted about my top tracks each year for the past 5 years, so here we go again. But first!

Music - Artists

Glass Animals

Beyoncé // Britney Spears

Secret

Civil Twilight

Jeon Hyosung

Tegan and Sara

Heather Maloney

Jesse & Joy

Sonamoo

I got really into Glass Animals this year. I had first heard them back in 2013, but their most recent album How To Be a Human Being (which you will soon see is very high on my albums list this year) really snagged my interest. I saw them live in September and was in the Top 1% of listeners on Spotify this year, so yeah, I was in deep. Not only do they make fantastic music, they are adorable British boys and I also just love how the album was such a fully engrossing creative project for them with other offshoots in different media.

I also saw Civil Twilight and Heather Maloney live, which is why they’re so high on the list. I almost went to see Jesse & Joy this year, but didn’t end up getting to go, but their album from late 2015 was great. In addition, I saw Aaron Tveit in concert, but considering that a lot of his music is ensemble work from musicals, they don’t scrobble as him individually, so he’s not on this list. There was a lot of Aaron Tveit this year, lol. I went to New York a bunch this year with my new roommate, and so after seeing him in concert, we went to NYC for a gala thing that he was also at. And I spoke to him!

Secret hit their 7th anniversary and then Sunhwa left the group, so there has been a lot of reminiscing about the last seven years and also, in a way, mourning the loss of the OT4. As Admin of Secret4Times, obviously this hit me pretty hard. But, looking forward to what’s next in store for Secret, and also for solo efforts. Hyosung’s solo album this year was excellent, landing her at #5 on this list. I actually am usually slightly biased towards Jieun, but her solo album came out later this year and actually I found it weaker than her previous albums (though I love I Wanna Fall In Love) so you don’t see her here.

Other music trends with me that aren’t necessarily reflected here: Went to the World Figure Skating Championships this past year and was there for the ShibSibs’ heartachingly beautiful Fix You in person and words can’t even express how much the emotion of it just filled me up. Also, what with Sing Street (which will you see on the Albums list below) and Stranger Things, there was a lot of 80′s in my life. I also went to the opera twice this year, The Merry Widow and Carmen, so I have felt quite cultured.

Music - Albums

Beyoncé - Lemonade

Glass Animals - How To Be a Human Being

Jeon Hyosung - Colored

Sonamoo - I Like U Too Much

Tegan and Sara - Love You To Death // Sing Street - Sing Street (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Royal Pirates - 3.3

Yuna - Chapters

Rooney - Washed Away

Glen Hansard - Music from the Motion Picture Once

Look, of course Lemonade is #1. Obviously. What more is there to say.

Most of these albums are recent releases by artists that I have been a fan of for a while. I have generally liked Tegan and Sara, but this album is just chock full of great, incredibly catchy songs. Many of the other tracks on that album almost made my top tracks list. On kinda the other end of the spectrum, I really enjoyed Yuna’s and Rooney’s albums, but it is more of a general wash of appreciation, rather than certain standout tracks.

I’d been a fan of Royal Pirates since their rock covers of Super Junior days, but to be honest, many of their actual releases up until this hadn’t quite made it into my heart. This album, though, finally crossed over that threshold for me.

This year I watched a lot of movie musicals. I’m generally a fan of musicals and a fan of movies, so there ya go. You can see the Glen Hansard ones - Sing Street and Once - both made this list because they had the advantage of being viewed earlier in the year. But I also watched Grease Live (TV not film in a way but whatevs), The Song (LOL does this count? This Christian kinda-musical drama was a fun watch with Sarah), 2gether (Also not exactly counting, but I’m being broad in my categorizing here), The Music Man (a rewatch obviously), Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, The Last Five Years, La La Land, Sweeney Todd, and my Christmas rewatch of In the Good Old Summertime. I did listen to more 2gether and if La La Land had been out earlier, I would definitely have more listens to that soundtrack. Speaking of movies...

Movies

Now I don’t watch movies multiple times like I listen to music over and over again, so this is a subjective ranking and not numbers-based. I’m also only going to do Top 5 because I watch far fewer current movies as they are released than listen to music and also because I am tired lol.

La La Land I saw La La Land in a free preview and it is so so delightful. Another one of those movies that I came out of thinking, this is the culmination of everything that Clara loves. Except if I think about it more in-depth and critically, I get mad about the problematic mansplaining, white-splaining Ryan Gosling character (Shouldn’t have read that article), but as an experience, it just inspired wide-eyed splendor. Damien Chazelle went to Harvard, y’know, and I didn’t know this until recently, but he was in Chester French, and I’m friends with D.A. Wallach from Chester French on Facebook so I’m basically like two degrees away. Also I know someone from college who was like the assistant to one of the producers of this! So a lot of Harvard-ness around this, I guess.

Ghostbusters I didn’t see Ghostbusters in theatres, which I regret, but I saw it on a plane recently and it was so so great. Badass ladies were great, the humor was great, the theme song is forever great.

Zootopia I care a lot about children’s media and Zootopia deftly demonstrates how children’s media is so significant and meaningful for everyone. I thought it was going to be a cute animated movie and it was, but it delivered nuance and message in that cute animated package.

Train to Busan I watched Train to Busan only like a week ago with my family over the holidays. It’s an excellent zombie movie with some emotional heft to it, thanks to the always great Gong Yoo, and also I just marveled at the visual effects of the zombies just piling on top of each other.

The Handmaiden For some reason, I had gone into The Handmaiden thinking it was a Victorian lesbian vampire thriller. There are no vampires involved, and I honestly waited the entire time for them and was baffled. I went by myself to a screening at the Brattle and it was one of those things where I was like, is it weirder if I go by myself or is it weirder to ask someone to go with me? But anyway, it’s a lushly beautiful movie and I’m glad I got to see it.

Television

Signal This was actually really really tough between the top three shows. Signal won out in the end because of its tight plotting and emotional impact. It is def not a happy show, by any means, (really. NOT a happy show) but it is certainly engrossing and amazingly well-crafted.

Speechless The power of this show, on the other hand, is how light and happy it is. Micah Fowler is so sassy and the show overall is supremely funny.

Insecure As I said, it was really really tough to decide about placement for these top three shows. I had watched a little bit of Awkward Black Girl so I knew that Issa Rae was great, but this show is even greater than expected. The stories are so real and the performances are excellent.

The Good Place I don’t know how this happened but I guess I’m more into comedy now? I’m usually more of a drama kind of gal, bonus points if there is death involved. I guess this show does involve death, though, and it also has Kristen Bell so that works out? This show indulges in a little more silliness, which I appreciate.

The Wine Show Not a scripted show, but this show earns this place because it is just a ridiculous thing that it exists. Literally it’s just about Matthew Goode and Matthew Rhys sitting around and talking about wine. Well, they go on like missions or whatever, but that’s basically it. I found out about this earlier in the year, I think, I remember talking about it at the airport on our way to some tour stop, and then after Harvard-Yale, started watching it a bit with Raafi and Zuzanna. I’m all about educational television made entertainment, so this is great.

The above list is of new shows that premiered in 2016, but there were also some other fantastic shows that I watched in 2016.

I got really really into the Norwegian show Skam over the holidays. I had been meaning to watch it for a while, because it is a teen drama! Exactly the kind of show I like! I marathoned it all during the break. The second season is the weakest (I have my qualms about the trite plot devices and it made me like Noora less than I did, which made me very sad), but the first and third seasons are excellent. The protagonist of the first season, Eva, developed so real-ly and it was this development that gave what the best teen dramas offer. I love the Russ Group Girl Squad, and so in a way was a bit sad that S3 didn’t focus on them quite as much, but Isak’s story was done so so well.

Also in 2016, I started watching Alias, Fresh Meat, Superstore, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend... And I watched the French show Les Revenants which is SO SO GOOD. Another big TV thing for me this year was The Bachelor franchise. I had somehow gone 26 years without ever watching anything in the franchise, despite my unabashed enjoyment of dating shows, and I got sucked in this year. Like really sucked in.

I also finished my Veronica Mars rewatch as my gym TV show and for a hot second tried to watch The Wire as my next gym TV show. That was a bad idea. I have since switched over to Gilmore Girls. I haven’t finished that rewatch yet, so obviously hadn’t finished before watching the revival series.

Alrighty, I have now egotistically reflected on my tastes of the year. Onto the next!