In what might well (have) be(en) my favourite album of 2018 (if it weren't for Florence, that is), Lykke Li changed gears again, towards a genre that's not really my cup of tea, but that I ended up greatly enjoying. This end-of-summer I had the "pleasure" of going through a tough breakup at a tough time of year, while busy with an exam I spent the whole summer preparing, getting cut off by the person I needed the most... it hasn't been easy, but surprisingly I breezed through things much more lightly that I throught I would. As I told many people, I was ok in a moment when I should've been running naked and screaming in the streets pulling my hair. I've had my fair share of "bad womanhood", as my special one did, and as we all do at times, I guess. No one's perfect and relationships are hard work, and it takes two to tango. And tango takes a lot of effort, energy and dedication. It happens that the dance stops working, but when the dancers stop respecting each other, things are really not ok, even when they need each other more than they know, as Lykke suggests. And then, to close the year beautifully, she gifted us with this beautiful acoustic version. Sounds like an appropriate end of an intense and heartfelt 2018.
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!!
I've been listening to Lykke Li a few times these past days, today I've listened to a new song released by one of her backing singers (Kiki), and I just found out that she had released another song under "liv" band a few months ago! It seemed appropriate to end this hectic and very tough week with her, especially with rich kids blues which kind of makes a lot of sense for me now. The next couple of weeks will probably be even worse, and I'm anxious already about all the things I'll have to do, but well, again... better to be too busy than too bored! Have a great new week!
This is my new obsession and I've been meaning to share it with you guys for a few days now, but being busy has actually turned out to be a good thing this time around, as Lykke Li just released the official video for this song on her channel. liv is a so-called "supergroup" featuring Li herself and a few other Scandinavian/American music business known names. This is the first song they released for this new artistic project, and I can't wait for more music and parts of this "installation" to come out if this is a good representation of the quality of the stuff!!
I guess we all get one of those days every now and then, those days when you just feel like sh*t for no particular reason, but for a lot of particular reasons. Stress builds up, especially when you are just starting a new chapter of your life or when you are going through a particularly intense period. Even worse when these two things happen together. Add in the fact that you thought were through with your mid-youth crisis but well... you know that answers don't just fall from the sky and solve all of your problems at once. Anyway, I think I conveyed my malaise well enough! Then I go to take a walk and find myself doing yoga exercises in my favourite reading spot in the park nearby (the corner for old people to exercise), past midnight, Lykke Li in my earphones and voilà! Feeling sooo much better. Sometimes it's so easy... not to solve your problems. You never solve your problems (for good). What you need to do is to regain your balance, and I've managed to do that. For today. Thanks Wii Fit, thanks music (once more)!
I've been intensively listening to Junip in these past few days, but I don't feel like posting two songs of theirs in a row...! So I'm gonna go back to the last song I had among my drafts from two playlists ago (it sounds like ages ago, it's been maybe 2 weeks...), and this is Lykke Li (she's Swedish too in the end). This is a bonus song of her 'Youth novels' session, and that is probably my favourite album of hers. I can really relate to the lyrics of 'Everybody but me', as it doesn't happen seldom that I don't feel like doing things that many people do or think like most people. It's not a... necessity of being different, it's probably just that I don't really like to do things just to "belong" to a group, so I turn out to be the weird one more often than not. And then I do things most people don't, but that's another pair of sleeves (as we say in Italy)! Today for instance I bought tape to stick a couple of cork boards to the walls of my room. I've been having them around for years, one of them with all the most relevant tickets of my 4-month exchange in Montréal (and all the travels I made from there) and the other one, which I started filling out today, with concert tickets and public transport tickets (from cities I've been to) from 2013 onwards. I'm really happy I finally did hang those two girls, I've been meaning to for ages but never found the right moment!
As I placed my last CDs order on Amazon recently, I realised that I had on AutoRip (Amazon's service that gives you access to MP3 files of the albums you have bought and are going to be delivered to you) a few extra songs, bonus materials and b-sides that were missing in my library, so I immediately downloaded them. It was mainly music coming from Lykke Li's first two albums, and the songs are actually quite good!! I already added a couple of them to my current playlist (which I'm actually enjoying a lot!) and so I thought that you might want to give them a try to!
It is so very late, I know... in my defense I bring forward... well I don't know what I can bring forward! Maybe that it's been my first day at home as an officially unemployed young man? Maybe that I've been planning a trip all day long and that I ended up booking another one? Maybe that I've been busy putting up the xmas tree? I don't know if any of these motivations are valid, anyway it's half past 2 and I'm still here... and it took me more time to craft the timelapse video of me preparing the tree than to actually prepare the tree! I'm a hopeless digital native! Anyway, I had this song on my mind while getting the fake pine ready, so I ended up working on it with Lykke's music as soundtrack and I must confess it worked quite well! I just hope that the title of this song won't be applicable to my dear tree!! Goodnight my people!
I'm still dead tired, even more after this morning's early wake-up call and long trip to work. I need to use this week to rest up, but it's not gonna be an easy thing to do while going to work every day! More medical tests are on the way, as if I didn't have enough of it already... anyway I'm just going to keep on giving my best, at least until I collapse (or get on the verge of collapsing). Today Lykke Li helped me stay awake and pass my time at work; her debut album is the last one I got to listen to among her current, and is also the one I like the least, but this song is one of the few on it that I did connect with, and today it felt special when I was listening to it, so I guess it was just calling for its own spot here on the blog! Wishing you a life that is interesting and manageable, unlike mine, I'll leave you with some great music!
Lykke Li's had to stop her live performing activities in the last weeks due to physical problems (methinks), but, as many blogs and articles have underlines, she has not been resting at all! After releasing a few weeks ago a featuring with Emile Hayne, she released two new videos in two days! Yesterday the official video for 'Never gonna love again' came out, a nice and fitting dark video (taking bits of Florence + the Machine's video for 'What kind of man' in my opinion), while today her cover of Drake's 'Hold on, we're going home' premiered on Vogue. I reckon I never listened to the original (never listened to Drake at all actually, I don't even know what kind of music he plays), but I have been instantly captured by the beauty of this cover, so I had to post it right away!! Hope you can enjoy it! A little about me: my future is more and more uncertain, but I kinda got used to that; good news is that I'm going back to Milan tomorrow for the graduation weekend (well, it actually started today and ends on friday, so not properly a weekend), I can't wait to see all my (graduating) friends again and celebrate with them! Cheers!!
When you find yourself humming a song in the office, walking in the corridors, at meetings and stuff, you know that it's the one you really have to post for the day!!! And yeah, here we are! After drafting the beginning of this during the above-mentioned meeting (well, it hadn't started yet to be honest), I can bring to completion! The trip home that has taken place in the meanwhile has been quite long and extenuating, but now I can (hopefully) enjoy this easter weekend in peace!! Chocolate (the best friend of sadness), here I coooome!
Don't know why this wish to listen to Lykke Li came to me tonite, it just did and I'm just enjoying it a lot, after a couple days of full London Grammar and Imagine Dragons mode it's been nice to keep on with another artist I feel in love with recently! I have recently been preparing something in relation to the change it's going to happen in my that I mentioned a few times already (more news on this soon!), and this song is a part of it, so that's one point of view it makes sense under. Another one is that I started working recently and have been feeling the "weight of age" on my shoulders, not being able to sleep as much as I'd like and need especially and generally not having as much free time as I used to...! I'm gonna have to live with it, but I think I can know no pain yet according to Lykke!
Come find me - Emile Haynie (feat. Lykke Li & Romy XX)
Hello people!! Today's been the first day of this week I didn't have to wake up early to carry out some courses around the city, and of course I ended up staying in bed until midday! I know myself all to well by now... but it's ok! Not a long day, but a really enjoyed one! And I wanna share with you some music I've been enjoying lately, just to stay on topic! I found out this song (and this songwriter) thanks to - I don't remember if Lykke Li's or the XX's facebook page - I think Lykke Li's. It turns out Emile Haynie has been composing songs for other people in the past few years and now he has released his first own album, with other singers featuring on the songs and offering their vocals. This is my favourite for the time being, a very introspective song, very Lykke Li's style, I'm sure you'll all gonna enjoy it too!! Have a good night!
Winter has come and in turn it's time for wintery songs!! Well, to tell the truth I've been listening to this one for a while now, but Lykke's whole debut album has kind of a northern beat, so I think it fits well with the new season. As I've said many times, I really really don't enjoy the cold, one of the few good things about it is that there are many songs I enjoy best at this time of year, as they remind me of it. The fact that most of them are very deep and soul is not casual, but it's one of the kinds of music I love the most so... here it is!
I have been talking about Lykke Li with A, one of my dearest followers, and since I have recently been listening to her debut album, the last one of hers I still missed, it makes sense to write a post about her, doesn't it?! I must confess this is the album of hers I liked the least, but given how much I liked the other two, that doesn't mean I didn't like it! Well... there are a few tunes I've been having a hard time with and I still haven't figured them out completely, but some others... are good! I think I'll be posting another couple in the next future probably, so stay tuned for more!
Hello dear readers and followers! Finally a sunny day again, it has been so so different from yesterday, like from November to June in 8 hours! That's good, and yeah, I can't complain for this heat now, it's not "julyish" yet but it is very enjoyable (unfortunately it won't last most probably...). Another disappointing day in the World Cup for now, bad matches and bad teams that keep going on and on, but that's it... More good sport news coming from F1, with JB scoring P3 in his home GP with his pink helmet to remember his father, it was a pretty nice image, let's see now how the race will go tomorrow!
About music, I can't keep posting songs I have already posted, but I'm in a bit of an obsessive mood in these days and so I'm just picking from the "currently second best" category, which is still a great picking, don't mistake me!
Hello people, another shitty day here in Milan, damn rain! Yesterday has been a crazily intense day, filled with two big events in Milan: the gay pride and the One Direction concert! I have been hanging out with some friends at the beginning of the parade and, well, while I was going back to the center to meet my friend coming from England I was surrounded by teenagers with their headbands and posters and stuff... it didn't feel that good! Jokes apart, I have been going back and forth from one group of friends to the next, but I managed well I think, had a nice aperitivo, a not-so-peaceful quick nap and then went out clubbing until, well... the sky was turning light blue again! Now I'm ready to start another day in the city as a tourist, let's hope it's not gonna pour down water like on Noah's ark! The song I chose for today, another great one out of Lykke's latest album, fits well the weather of today methinks! I chose once again a KEXP live over the album version as I like it better.
Another late post, this world cup is really taking its toll on me! Today I woke up at 3 PM after going to bed at 5 AM to watch the last match and then it's been a (kind of) continuous sequence of matches since 6 PM interspersed only by a few readings of articles for my final paper. My days are passing by at an astonishing speed and... wow! I can't keep up! I will be forced to let this football fever cool down somehow in the next couple of days, as I'll soon leave for a(nother) short trip! But let's focus for now... don't worry, I haven't stopped listening to music (at all) even with all of these other activities that I have been involved with! Today I'll be giving you another one of the pearls contained in Lykke Li's last work, I never learn. The song is called Gunshot and you can also find an acoustic version on the album itself, an awesome H&M acoustic version (which the picture here above comes from) and a majestic KEXP performance; here though is the album version, likely the most powerful one!
Yesterday I was finally able to create a new playlist (I wanted to wait for the new month to come) and, even if the songs are coming mostly from the same singers and albums as last month's, it's still something new! One of the news in here is a couple of acoustic songs by Lykke Li she performed on KEXP: one of them is No rest for the wicked, which I already posted and love very much. The other one is this one, a song I'm quickly falling in love with too. It is the title track of her new album that came out a few days ago and it's a heart-rending ode to never learning from the past and always making the same mistakes. Which makes us human, in a way.
Moreover in the last nights I've been watching Nymphomaniac, the movie by Lars von Trier and the mal de vivre atmosphere created in the movie fits very well Lykke Li's music, so what better than that? A happy depressing new week to you all!
