Atlas - Coldplay

Atlas - Coldplay

A short drive back and forth to Varese downtown brought me to listen to just a few songs in my car tonight, but as I had to pick a playlist, after a random turn of the knob it stopped on the 'Catching fire OST' and there I was! I've never... well that's not true, there has been a short period in which I've been in love with this song, but I grew tired of it quite quickly. Nonetheless, not listening to it for quite some it, it was a real pleasure to hear it played in my car and I have been singing along with passion, even after my car stopped (and in turn so did the music)! So I guess you might want to give it a try too!! Carry your wooooooorld, carry your wooooooorld...!

The original high - Adam Lambert

The original high - Adam Lambert

Hey guys, tonight's been a movie night for me, actually TV series + movie! Between yesterday and today I breezed through the first seasons of MTV's highly anticipated 'The Shannara chronicles'. Being a long-time fan of the Shannara book series by Terry Brooks, I was very much curious about this TV transposition. Being the books very dense and very captivating and being MTV's series targeted mainly to teenagers, what I got was not very different from what I expected: teenage drama, polygamy, special effects and so on. All in all the result is not bad, but I can really say it is on a different level than the books. After finishing that, I moved to the final chapter of 'The Hunger Games', the second part of 'The Mockingjay'. Having read the books a couple years ago, I knew what to expect from the plot and I must say that this second part of the series last book is better than the first, densely packed with action and, for what I remember, quite truthful to the book. The ending is well crafted and left me with a positive impression of the whole movie series. But it's not only videos... don't worry, this is still a music blog and today I'm giving you the title-track of Adam Lambert's latest album, hoping you can enjoy it!

Scream my name - Tove Lo

Scream my name - Tove Lo

The soundtrack of two Hunger Games movies has played a very important role in my 2014 in music. One of them (Catching Fire's) has been a totally unexpected but incredibly pleasing and enjoyed discovery, the other one (Mockingjay's pt.1) was not a total fiasco but anyway has been the brightest example of unmet expectations (by my part) of this past year. I've told you that many times already, but you see me keep posting songs out of it, so I guess the soundtrack is not as bad as I perceive it to be, it's just that I had set the bar too high after Catching Fire. Most likely this is gonna be the last song you'll see up here out of Mockingjay pt.I OST, let's see what they're gonna do for the last movie of the saga! In the meanwhile enjoy this pretty song by Tove Lo and get ready to celebrate the new year!

Pata pata - Miriam Makeba

Pata pata - Miriam Makeba

What a tough and intense day this 23 December 2014 has been! I devoted it all (well, almost, in the afternoon I also had a quite long and weary phone interview with business case annexed) to the annual xmas dinner I have with my friends in Varese; given that we are all very busy, someone started working, some others are getting to the end of university and so on, this year it has been very hard to arrange it all, one of us couldn't be there and two other friends just met each other for a few minutes, just the time to exchange our secret santa gifts (go watch 'The perks of being a wallflower' if you don't know what I'm talking about) and take a picture all together...! Not-even-so exhausting and very rewarding, it's always a happy time of year, when we can all gather together (something that happens more and more seldom now) and rejoice each other's company! Of course this involves playing games, and the last one we just quit playing was Trivial pursuit, media edition. Out of the many impossible and crazy questions, one was about which song Miriam Makeba became famous with, and after (of course not guessing and) reading the answer, Pata pata, we all started laughing like 'what the hell?!'...! Only after a brief search on Spotify we realised we all knew the song but had no idea about the name of it or of its singer! See, that's an example of how many things you learn with Trivial pursuit...!

Dead air - Chvurches

Dead air - Chvrches

After the awesome collection of songs for the soundtrack of Catching Fire, I had very high expectations for that of the following chapter, the soundtrack curated by Lorde for the lately-released Mockingjay part I. The taste of it, with Yellow flicker beat, did live up to my expectations, but then... just before going to watch the movie I got to listen to the soundtrack and... well, it kinda sucks. Especially if compared to its predecessor. Given how much I came to love Lorde in the past year, I was expecting a work at least as good as the previous one, but I have been highly disappointed. My faith in Lorde as a composer and singer is unscathed, but as far as music tastes go... well, we're not really on the same page I think! This Dead air is one of the few songs I really came to like on that OST, so I'm quite happy to share it with you. Yet my excitement about the whole thing has very much cooled down... especially after listening to The hanging tree and realising it has not been included in the original soundtrack!

The hanging tree - Jennifer Lawrence

Three fingers kissing the mouth and being raised. Four notes whistled. One more mumbled. Mmmmmh. "I’m a princess cut from marble, smoother than a storm..."

The hanging tree - Jennifer Lawrence

Rings a bell? Well, if not... I have been to the cinema tonite to watch Hunger Games n°3, i.e. Mockingjay part 1. I'm still recovering from the experience, listening to Yellow flicker beat on repeat, trying to match Lorde's notes (and failing). But the one thing that struck me the most is this one I'm posting now. I had watched a few friends posting it on Facebook in the past days, but I didn't check it out as I didn't want to ruin the surprise for myself. And well I did. The scene with Katniss singing this song is quite amazing and powerful, probably one of the best in the whole movie (which, let's say it, is not so full of meaningful action and doesn't make much sense watched without the second part, which is going to come next year). I remembered this song from when I read the books sooner this year, but for sure it got a new power on screen. I'll post it here for you, but if you haven't watched the movie yet and are going to, I suggest you don't listen to it now, rather go watch the movie and then listen to it (on repeat).
Because if you enter the room singing Yellow flicker beat in your head, you'll come out of it singing this one. (Well, maybe both)!

Yellow flicker beat - Lorde

Yellow flicker beat - Lorde

I guess you can say I feel good again by the fact that my posting has trespassed yet again, this time not only the limit of the 24h solar day, but also of the month! Screw that, posting at this time is the best, even if it gets less interaction, it's more genuine, it's me at my most active! Well, maybe not really...! Now I'm feeling quite sleepy... but I know what to post, I've been knowing for a while and, well... it's one of these awesome times in life when all pieces of the puzzle fall into their place! I think I've been telling myself at least 3 or 4 times: "Hey, come on! You didn't even post Yellow flicker beat yet! It's well about time..." and well, today is just about time. Perfection stemmed from the fact that I have just finished (re)-watching Catching fire with my friend E, so what better moment? (Keep into account that I have created the fourth playlist since this song came to me, so it waited quite a while!)

"This is the red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart"

EDIT: Updated with official music video (which is awesoooome)!

Hunger of the pine - Alt-J

Hunger of the pine - Alt-J

The wait for their new album is getting shorter and shorter, and finally some materials is being released already! This first song was released a few weeks ago and yesterday also the video has been upped on YouTube. In the video a boy is running like crazy to escape a rain of arrows coming on to him and in the end... well, I don't wanna ruin it for you, but I must admit I still can't grasp the whole sense of it. I'll just say that it really reminds a lot of the Hunger Games trilogy environment and, interpreting it that way, there is a quite explicit reference to it in the title of the song too...! Some people were commenting on YouTube suggesting that they're trying to land on the OST of the coming movie, which might not be too wild a guess! We'll see, we'll see... in the meanwhile if you have an explanation of the video, please let me know!

Everybody wants to rule the world - Lorde

Everybody wants to rule the world -
 Lorde

Hello people, hope your easter weekend has started in the best way possible! I'm on my way to London (goodness bless wifi on buses) enjoying my trip and waiting to meet my parents after 3 months. It is finally the chance for me to review my relationship with London, a city that I've never particularly liked (even though I only spent an afternoon there) and that everybody (well, almost) has been telling me great things about. So here I am, with an open mind and trained legs ready to roam around for a few days! I hope I will be able to post daily, hopefully at night, as I didn't prepare anything for you in advance. Carpe diem, as they say!

For now, I'll just leave you with the song that just started playing on my iPod. I've actually been into the various versions of this song I know for the last couple of weeks: the original has been playing in the office, Patti Smith's is the first one I've listened to (and liked), this is the one I'm listening to the most lately, so here it is: go and find your way to rule the world!

Gale song - The Lumineers

Gale song - The Lumineers

"And there was a time when I stood in line
for love, for love, for love.
But I let you go, oh,
I let you go."

You might have noticed an abundance of Catching Fire soundtrack posts on the blog lately. You might say "Well, I've had enough!" (please doon't!). Be happy, 'cause it's (almost?) over. Well, I've practically posted almost all of them! You might as well say "Give me more! I love it!" (I'd love it!). Well, again, I'm sorry but I almost posted the whole album and I don't have many songs left. But don't worry! In the meanwhile you can enjoy this great one (and maybe one or two more will come, who knows?).
The Lumineers... weird relationship (again) between me and some music. Their genre is one I've been getting really close to, especially in the last couple of years, but the (super successful) song that got them famous, Ho hey (or whatever)... I've never come to like it. Or, at least, I've liked it, just liked it, some rare times I've listened to it, but I didn't really come to peace with it. And that's (probably) a pity, 'cos this brought me not to listen to their debut album (yet), making it a potential great loss of good music for me. But here comes Catching Fire and the fact that in it I ended up loving (much) more the songs I didn't expect to (and less the ones I was expecting). And this little thing here is no exception! It took me a little while to appreciate it fully, but I really do love the lyrics and the whole song too. You can't really get the sense of it without knowing the Hunger Games plot: Gale is the "best friend" of the protagonist, Katniss, and there is a friend/lover relationship going on between them (SPOILER I'm halfway through the third and last book and I still don't know how it's gonna end!). Gale stayed home while Katniss went to the Hunger Games and developed a friend/lover relationship with another guy, thus messing up the whole thing, like it only happens in books and movies (or maybe not). Anyway I think the lyrics and Gale's story are very touching, so don't miss this one out!

Mirror - Ellie Goulding

Mirror - Ellie Goulding

My obsession with The Hunger Games has been going on for about a month now and it's gonna keep on going for a good while still (I just started reading the last book of the trilogy, so I'm still 1/3 away from the end of the story). I must say it's really addictive...! Both the movies and the books don't let you forget about them until you're at the end, and watching the second movie halfway through the second book confused things a little bit, but now that I've finished the book I'd like to watch the movie again 'cos I think I didn't get completely some parts the first time.
Anyway, this current obsession of mine aside, the films are quite good and so are the books. And so is the soundtrack of Catching Fire (the second chapter of the trilogy). I was a bit disappointed by the fact that most of the songs are not featured in the movie nor in the ending titles, but this doesn't diminish the value of the music. This is the last song I've been obsessed with that still hasn't found its place on the blog (it's finding it now!), so it's kind of a closure for me, even if I'm still almost one book (and one movie obviously) away from the end of the series. I'll keep you updated...!

Elastic heart - Sia (ft. The Weeknd & Diplo)

Another day is passing by, very slowly, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second... well, I think you guessed already that today it seems like time is never passing by! To improve our day a little bit, I'll share another one of the Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack songs. Another one by a singer (actually a whole team of them) I have not really been into before. But here it is, enjoy this Elastic Heart!

Shooting arrows at the sky - Santigold

Hey guys! Hope your week started well, mine is ok but I'd rather be home wasting my time or, better, doing some trip. It's hard to say goodbye to weekends, as they are soo far away from one another! Anyway, back on track. Lately I've been listening to the new Hunger games film (Catching Fire methinks) soundtrack: lots of big names on it and a really nice one I must say. The best thing about it is that I discovered other songs I would've never got close to otherwise. And I'm actually liking some of them better than the ones by my favourite artists (for now). One of them is this one, and I really suggest you shouldn't miss it out, 'cos it just sticks in your head and doesn't go away!