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!
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!
Moonlight shadow - Mike Oldfield feat. Maggie Reilly
I'm gonna kick off sundayrevival 2017 with an 80s favourite of many of you out there, a song that I suppose most of you will know and many of you would have no problem in singing at a karaoke night, rather...! Even if it's almost 10 years older than I am, I know it quite well too and have known it for quite a long time, even if I only re-discovered it very recently. It's the oldest addition to my first 2017 playlist, so I thought you might wanna go back in time a little too! Enjoy!
Recently YouTube started recommending Japanese music for me, so today I spent my paper-reading time with a peculiar soundtrack of traditional, experimental rock and jazzy Japanese music. The first song that they recommended to me, though, is this one I'm posting tonight, the one that bought me into going on and listening to their advice! I then found out that this jazzy/folk weird genre that generated in Japan well before I was born, is known as Kayōkyoku. You never cease of learning new, interesting things! I'm really curious to see where this 2017 will take me from here!
Clockenflap has finally begun after a pretty busy week for me, so I wish I had a couple more days to recover in preparation of it, but you know... life goes its own way! Last night I enjoyed Sigur ros, even if I practically didn't know their music. The concert has been powerful and enjoyable, so it's been worth it. Today is the main dish for me, the main reason why I bought the ticket: Jose Gonzalez and London Grammar are awaited on the stage, and I can't wait any longer! I'm about to get out and enjoy, will tell you how it goes later, hoping it won't rain (too much)!!
The end of a never-ending day comes, you find yourself hanging on to it because you don't know how to spend the last few hours left before sleep, too tired to do anything productive, too busy to guiltlessly waste your time on anything non-productive, you find yourself eating a kebab kindly offered by your colleague you have been helping over the day, on a bench in the uni campus, staring at the black sky, the blacker sea and the people who still walk around in significant numbers at 9 PM past, then the bus comes, takes you home, down the hill, glaring at the flashy skyscrapers, one of which is your home... it's almost romantic how daily life rolls out when you're dead tired!
After a couple of signal 3 typhooning, I've already grown tired of the freakin' rain (as if I ever liked it before...), but well... I have to try and stay positive! Things are going a bit more smoothly now, which is good, but I am also starting to see how this whole PhD thing works, with peak stress periods and then down periods, so I guess it's gonna be twice as hard to keep myself the "right amount of busy" at all times! Anyway, no big news under the musical point of view either. Lately I've been mostly listening back to my best playlisted songs of 2016 and, well... I guess that this one is gonna join the club soon!
I got to know him thanks to the Walter Mitty soundtrack, so it kind of made sense since the beginning that I would end up posting this at one point, didn't it? Well, anyway here it is! He's been probably the most influential musicians on my musical tastes in the last months/year, and I still have to get to the real beef of his solo career. He is also coming to Hong Kong for a festival in November, which I reeeeally hope I'm gonna attend! For the time being, I can just wish you all a great weekend!
My first real week of lectures has come to an end and it's been... well, not really what I expected nor what I came all the way here for. I guess I'll just have to grow my way around not being a regular student anymore and just being able to get rid of these quite useless burdens with the minimum effort possible so as to focus as much energy as possible on the real reason why I am here. Anyway that's kind of part of the whole process of learning and evolving, which I'm supposed to go through methinks. Still haven't decided how I'm gonna fill up my weekend, but given that I've come to the end of the Flash's and Arrow's past seasons, I'm gonna try and focus on useful things like cleaning up and/or exploring the city (weather permitting). Now let's just enjoy some José González to end this Friday night on a high note.
I have proclaimed my love for Junip's music quite a few times on this blog, and now I have moved to the solo work of the soul of the band, Mr. José González. I feel that this song is very Junip-like and of course I couldn't not like since the first listen. Plus, the storm is a concept that has been quite present in my life lately, which is the reason why I'm sharing this song with you now! Things here in Hong Kong are starting to fall into place step by step, but the adjustment process is not over yet (if there ever existed something like adjustment)! I am starting to create my daily routine and to identify my reference spots though, which is an incredibly important part of the settlement process for me, so things are definitely going in the right direction! Tomorrow and the day after I will have two lunch gatherings here in uni, and then the lectures will begin, so I guess that the intro-time is coming to an end. I hope I'm ready to start this new challenging adventure, sure enough I'm more ready than I was 2 weeks ago!
Hi guys, sorry for the long absence but this past couple of weeks have been among the most intense of my life! Settling in here in Hong Kong has been tougher than I expected and I think 3 (long) blog posts wouldn't be enough to tell you all about it, so I'll just sum it up for you and try to get back to a more regular posting in the near future (Internet connection availability permitting). First of all, it's been great that my aunt came here with me during my first few days, it's been good to have some help and support, as things haven't been as smooth as the other times I've been abroad. Loads of things to do, documents to process and vicious circles of documents needed to do this and that, but I am slowly getting it ok. The house I had found before coming here is not the best, the living conditions are not something I can put up with for more than a temporary amount of time, so we had to look for an alternative (and more expensive) solution, which I - thanks goodness - found. We then had to go and buy the furniture for it and I will have to look for a flatmate, but first of all I still have to settle in, so for the next few days I'm still staying in the room I had previously found. Hong Kong itself hasn't been nice with us in the first few days: a lot of gray, a lot of rain, a lot of oppressive environments... then little by little we have found sweeter spots and the weather has also improved, showing us a nicer side of the city! The university seems nice: the campus is super cool, people give me the impression of being nice and helpful, even if it's not gonna be a piece of cake to get everything done, starting with the logistical point of view and going on with the academic one. Simply put, it's gonna take a lotta love (or we won't get too far)! I'll be back with more updates soon, I hope you have enjoyed your summer holidays and are ready to get back on track! I think I am!
I guess a lot of you guys are on holiday or are about to go, so I can take this excuse for my poor posting constancy of these last weeks, claiming that I am on holiday too and that you surely have better things to do than stay here and read my blabbering. Here I am now anyway, sharing with you a song that has been stuck on my mind in the very last few days! I know I'm posting a lot of Neil Young (and Zayn) lately, but I guess it pretty much sums up what music has been the soundtrack of my summer 2016 so far! Hope you can enjoy it too!
One of the songs I expected Neil Young (and his current band) to play during his Milan concert was this great tune featured on his sophomore solo album (the first one he made in partnership with Crazy Horse to be precise). Unfortunately the tune was not on the final setlist, but I was still amazed to see them play 4 or 5 longer songs (each one between 7 and 10 minutes long) straight in the second half of the set. Unfortunately for me, most of them were from more recent albums that I hadn't got the chance to listen to yet, but I can't complain too much about the setlist, the first half has been amazing!
Hello my dears, sorry for being away once again, I am trying to enjoy my summer time at best and I've been having some trouble accessing the Internet at home too (and not only that, also Pokemon GO has been a big deal of trouble, but more on that some other time). Today I came to Padua to visit my dear wife and we took a trip to the sea (if you can call it that). Last night I've been to Neil Young (+ Promise of the Real) concert in Milan and I've enjoyed it quite a bit, it's been 3 hours straight of music and it felt like he was 26 years old and I was the one in his 70s, not the opposite! The band came back for an encore and quite surprisingly they played this song, which I've been having on my mind for quite a while for no reason (call it destiny or coincidence), so I'm sharing it with you now!
It's been a tough weekend, as I expected, but also a very giving one, once again following my expectations! Given that I'm soon gonna go away for quite a while, I am trying to do my best and create opportunities to spend time with the people that matter to me and cherish it. Today I have not been feeling 100% well, it's probably just the humid heat and the need to recover some energies after such few demanding days! But don't worry, I'm still here!
I am a weird one, and that's not news, you will know it if you have stumbled on my ranting up here in the past. I embrace my weirdness, as it's one of the traits of my personality I like the most, and I am about to do exactly this now! I am giving you this song as my own personal summer hit. I know that pretty much no one has given a damn about what KT has been doing in the last... 10 years? Maybe a little less so? Well, I am not no one, and I kept on following her. She actually recorded and released quite a few cool things in the last half decade, and she isn't stopping. Yep, KT is coming out with a brand new EP and this is her new single. Which has like a little more than 100k views on YouTube. Well, you guys out there who contributed to the 100k, you already know what I am talking about. All of you who didn't, I strongly suggest you spend 3 minutes of your time finding out what's gonna surely be your favourite song for this summer 2016!!!
My goodness, I haven't been posting for 5 days straight and I didn't even realise it! I just thought I missed a couple of days... anyway, quite a few things have happened in these past few days. First of all I have to mention the most recent, i.e. Island victory over England in Euro 2016, a great and unforgettable sports moment! Then again, do I need to speak about the Game of Thrones season final? I stayed up until 6 in the morning to wait for it to be available and watch it and it's been worth every second of my time! Put in a few days enjoying the summer sun at my grandma's pool, some sightly disappointing news about my future that will require me to make an extra effort, nothing exceptionally relevant anyways. And of course summer music, which is what I'm leaving you with tonight, fresh off the boat!
I won't talk about my opinion on Nelly Furtado's latest releases as the few things I got on my hands (or better in my ears) made me believe that we totally lost her. I loved her debut singles, songs that are part of my early teenage, then lost her a little bit and starting loving her again with 'Loose' and her new mainstream success. Ok, that album was already quite "poppish", but still greatly likeable in my taste. So instead of going forth, I decided to go back and explore her earlier releases, of which I only knew a handful of the more famous songs. The first one is her 2003 sophomore 'Folklore', and this is one of my favourite songs on it!
Tere, my dear readers! I am writing to you from Tallinn, the first stop of the latest of the countless trips I've been taking in this 2016! The city (a big town) is cute and nice, but it just takes you 3 hours to see it all, the old town centre at least (and I guess there's not much else to explore). If I were to sum up this one day visit in one word, I think I'd use chillywind. I didn't expect to feel so cold (and sometimes warm at the same time), to the point that I decided to behave like a local and went on into a sauna to heat back up my bones! Coming back to the central square I found a kind of folk music festival, with people singing and dancing to local, traditional music. It's been nice and entertaining, and it helps me introduce my latest discovery, which is actually a song most of you (and me) knew already, personally I just didn't know its title nor its composer, but I can safely state that it's one of the most famous celtic ballads (?) around, at least in Europe. Give it a try if the title/composer aren't familiar to you and you might as well find yourself saying "Aaah, yeah, that one!".
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