Heaven - liv

 

Heaven - liv

Just the perfect song for when you're awake at 4 AM for the 10th  consecutive day.

In my feelings - Lana del Rey

Countdown to 2019: -1 (but, well... Happy 2019!)

In my feelings - Lana del Rey

This last song comes in late (but it's still 2018 somewhere), and it's actually from 2017, so it's already 2 years old, but who cares! It took me a while to approach Lana's most recent album, but there were some hidden gems that I really came to appreciate in the past months. This song in particular really resonated with me for some events that happened in this 2018. I have been unapologetic for feeling all my (fu*king) feelings (like Lana), coming out of a relationship with communication problems in which I was the one who expressed all the feelings (maybe even too much), and especially realising I am living in a city surrounded by people who do not show (and claim not even to feel) their emotions, a fact which is starting to make me not feel at home in Hong Kong... Cultural differences are undeniable, and I left Italy as a "not-very-affectionate" person to end up in Hong Kong feeling like an emotional spinning top. I tried to find the middle way, but unsuccessfully so far, and I decided to indeed be feeling all my fuc*king feelings. Good ones, bad ones, I'd rather be alive than feel like a straight line on an ECG, even if being alive means facing problems, absoring negative events and emotions, and being emotionally unstable. I'm feeling all my fu*king feelings, and I'll keep doing so in 2019 too for sure. I wish you all a new year full of feelings (hopefully mostly good ones, but don't underestimate the bad ones, because they offer a much needed reference point for us to feel happy in other times) and of course of great music!

Cheers!

Hurts to liv - liv

Hurts to liv - liv

You know, when you are guilty of something you often get that feeling that makes you try to stay away from everything related to your guilt and makes things even worse. It's not like it was/is my duty to post on this blog, but what happened to it, or better, what didn't happen to it (i.e. me not posting anymore) makes me feel bad, a little bit because of what it represented for me, a little bit for the (few) people that I hope I reached out to and entertained with my stories and especially "my" songs. Unfortunately all good things come to an end, and so it is for blogs. I tried to carry 'A song or two per day' on and on as much as I could, but at one point I lost the necessary motivation to carve 10-20 minutes (almost) every day to devote to it. Be it for (finally, yay!) being involved in a serious relationship, be it because the new school is eating out most of my "free time", be it... I don't know what other reasons, but it just happened that I slowly stopped posting. One thing I can reassure you about is that I haven't lost my passion for music, even if I haven't found a way to keep sharing it here! Rather, this 2017 has been a great year for new music, I am so excited about many of the new albums and songs that have been released! I have been (with my special one) at Lollapalooza Paris, seen a bunch of very nice gigs! Life goes on, I have been having a rough month: school gets more and more stressing, and however much I like doing a PhD and the road it is projecting me to, I often stop to wonder whether it's really worth the insane amount of stress and huge effort I am putting into it. Special one went to study abroad for a couple years, which makes things incredibly harder, so I'm having a bit of a tough time, hoping for things to be better in the future. Let's say I am in investment mode...! Music becomes even more important at these times, as it really is the one thing that brings me forward sometimes. So here I am, back on the blog. I just wanted to let you know I'm alive and well, notwithstanding the hardships of life, and that... well, you never know! I might pop up here every now and then and share something, if I find it in myself to write something else that is not academic thoughts..! I'll leave you with a brand new songs released by liv, the "super-group" founded last year by Lykke Li and a bunch of other Swedish famous singers and musicians. The song seems to come at a perfect time for me, so I hope it can help those of you who are also having it a bit rough lately! Wish you the best!!

Oh woman oh man - London Grammar

Oh woman oh man - London Grammar

I have been silent for a long time, but don't worry, the blog is not dead, not yet at least! My life is apparently getting busier and busier, and while this is most probably a good thing, as it means that I have a lot of things going on and good ways to spend my time, I can't help feeling a little disappointed that I barely ever find the time and energies to post here, especially given the amount of great music that is being released this year!! But here I am, after a very very busy period, I am trying to get a breath for a few days before diving again into work. I need to share with you the latest song shared by London Grammar off their upcoming album 'Truth is a beautiful thing', out in a few weeks, as it's probably my favourite among the four they released so far! I hope you enjoy it too and have a great week!!

You got the love (live remix) - The XX feat. Florence Welch

You got the love (remix live) - The XX feat. Florence Welch

The first encounter I've had with The XX was in 2010 or 2011 when I approached their remix of one of my favourite songs ever, i.e. 'You got the love' by Florence + the Machine, and I was disgusted by that. That kept me far from them for a couple more years, when in 2013 I finally got close to them thanks to some friends' suggestions, and of course I could only regret letting so much time pass by without their music! Still, that 'You got the love' never met my taste, and I couldn't but be amazed about how two of my favourite bands could get together and create something that I found so hateful. The same feeling transferred through to my viewing of their live remix during the recent Night + Day event The XX organised in Brixton. Still, for how much the song didn't please me, their collaboration on the stage was magic, especially how Florence could remix her voice live even better than a DJ could do in a studio...! And that drew me to listen to the song again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And, well... I guess you understood by now what happened afterwards!

"You know it's real! I know, I know, You know it's real! Eh eh eh eh eh eh"

Feed my fire - Amy MacDonald

Feed my fire - Amy MacDonald

4 albums behind her, Amy's musical strength (and maybe also her weakness) is for sure coherence: her sound hasn't changed much in 10 years of career, and, I'll never get tired of repeating it, with the current state of the pop music industry, finding somebody who is true to her sound and didn't sell her music to "cheap beats" is always appreciable. Of course people might criticise her, as her songs sound similar to each other, and I don't think that's deniable, but it doesn't prevent me from appreciating all her work, including the newly released 'Under stars', out of which this is one of my first favourites!

Big picture - London Grammar

Big picture - London Grammar

Almost another week has gone by without me posting, and this time of my life is a really really busy one...! I will just spare a few minutes to share with you another song that London Grammar released (a while ago now) in anticipation of their forthcoming sophomore album. I must say I like 'Big picture' better than the previous "Rooting for you", and the video is also very beautiful! I hope you enjoy it and I also wish all of us a pleasant weekend!

Seasons run - The XX

After listening to the first few songs of the new XX album, I felt disappointed and a bit frustrated by the fact that they had sold themselves to the cheap, mainstream electronic beats, guided by Jamie and his experimentation. I missed the intimate atmospheres created by their former songs, and luckily I found them again starting from the middle of the album ('Performance' saved my opinion of it during the first listen, it dragged me out of the deep waters I had fallen into). Now I have made my peace with the whole of it and I am starting to appreciate it as a whole, but I still love more the tracks that carry a stronger "The XX" signature. This bonus track is one of them and is quickly becoming a new favourite of mine!! (PS: Click on the image caption for a link to the song)

Seasons run - The XX

Rooting for you (live) - London Grammar

Rooting for you - London Grammar

2017 started with a musical boom, which took me almost a month to post, but finally here I am! London Grammar are about to release a new album in the coming weeks, and they previewed this song recorded live, which I also had the pleasure to listen to at Clockeflap a couple months ago. I still need to get into it completely, but I like the style, which is very London Grammar still, even more minimal if possible, so I'm very curious to listen to the rest of the new materials that are coming!!!
Now I'm getting ready for the next new year, which is gonna be in just a couple of days: Hong Kong and the whole of South East Asia are getting ready for the lunar new year, and so am I!

Dream on - Amy MacDonald

Dream on - Amy MacDonald

After a disappointing 2016, 2017 kicked off with a good start already. One of the reasons is Amy, who is coming out with a new album this year. Maybe over the years she failed to remain relevant to the international/European pop/rock scene, especially by failing to keep up with her huge debut 'This is the life', but one thing I really appreciate about her is that she hasn't changed her music recipe much over her first 10 years of career, remaining loyal to her folk-rock classic ballad style. One could say that her songs all sound alike, and I could buy that argument. I wouldn't go as far as saying this is a bad thing though, especially at a time like this when pop has become very much "electronified" and synthesised, with a lot of singers (and songs) sounding exactly like each other because of auto-tuning and heavy production. I am always happy when I realise that artists I like keep on doing what made me like them. Go on like this Amy!

#yearinmusic A song or two per day - Best song and album of 2016

2016 has been a pretty good year for me under many points of view, but A song or two per day has not been one of them, and the two things are probably related: I have been having such a good time that I found it hard to find the time and (mental) energies to sit down and write blog entries constantly, which ended up in me posting very rarely. The music point of view is another one in which 2016 lacked with respect to its predecessors, which is maybe another reason why I didn't post as much. These two reasons are also the ones why I procrastinated the posting of my 2016 music summary, as I am pretty much at a loss in finding a best song and best album released this year...

Best song 2016: Line of fire - Junip

Best song: Line of fire - Junip

Given that 2016 has mostly been the outcome of life decisions made in the past years, with a lot of change that took place thanks to triggering moments that had happened in the years before, I am actually quite ok with choosing a song that was actually released 3 years before as my 2016 Best song pick. Junip and José Gonzalez have been hugely meaningful for me in the last couple of years, probably the most influential new music discovery I made lately and 'Line of fire' in particular has been a soundtrack of many big moments of 2016, mostly the ones related to me moving to Hong Kong. "What would you say if you had to leave today? Leave everything behind even though for once, you're shining."

Best album 2016: Shura - Nothing's real

Best album: Shura - Nothing's real

2016 has been quite a disappointment for me mostly because some of my favourite artists released albums that were not nearly up to my expectations or to the level of what they have been releasing before. The biggest one of these disappointments has been PJ Harvey's 'The hope six demolition project': PJ made us wait 5 years for new music, and all the expectations built in this time crushed against an album I personally find weak and pretty much pointless, the only low of her career together with 'White chalk'. On a similar note I can place the new releases by OneRepublic, KT Tunstall and, to a lesser extent, Sia. Their albums have not been all bad and feature some quite awesome songs, but overall lack a consistency that would allow me to classify them as great albums. I have been tempted to pick Sia's 'This is acting' as my favourite album released in 2016, as notwithstanding its not being nearly as good as '1000 forms of fear', it's a quite good album, but in the end I decided to go for something that I discovered towards the end of the year, here in Hong Kong: I found out about Shura thanks to Clockenflap, the music festival I attended in Hong Kong this past November, and I fell in love with her debut album quite quickly. It will not go on to enter my music olympus, but it's a good representation of my life in this past year: new, enjoyable and linked to Hong Kong!

After a hectic, full and great 2016, which has been mostly about consolidation under the music point of view, I hope 2017 will take me back to previously unseen heights with some new, great music! And I also hope I'll be able to post a bit more consistently on the blog (even if I have a hard time believing myself)...!

Happy 2017!