Go dreaming - Dido

Go dreaming - Dido

I didn't start this 2017 much better than I left off 2016 on the blog, so I will try to make it up at least today! The new year kicked off being social and lazy for me, both things not being beneficial either to my studies or to any other commitments I might have taken, including the blog... so today, mostly out of guilt, I tried to put my down and read some papers, trying to turn things around. It's been going quite ok, also thanks to the fact that my nth sore throat + fever is getting better and so, being forced at home with a relatively clear mind, I took advantage of the good chance I had to work. And to write on the blog too, of course! It's hard to feel these days as winter days, with temperatures outside constantly over 20°C, but I found myself in a winter mood this afternoon and put on some Dido, so I'm going to share with you one of my favourites out of her latest studio album!
Some interesting new music has already been released in these few days of 2017 so stay tuned and be patient, I'll get to share it with you soon!!

What happened to us? - Shura

What happened to us? - Shura

I'm already happy about buying my ticket for Clockeflap even if the festival hasn't started yet, as I have already got to know new, awesome music thanks to it! Shura is of course a big part of this and I really love this song, especially how it fits perfectly my life in this moment!!

You were somebody to me once

But now you're a fiction

Someone that I made up

Turns out it was too much for us

And if we met in five years, would we notice?

Funny how we remember things

How we hold on to the good

But throw out the bad stuff

What happened to us?

I was never ready for your love

No, I'm no child but I don't feel grown up

I was never ready, it was never meant to be

So tell me how come I still feel so messed up

Drive - Halsey

Drive - Halsey

I started watching again Game of Thrones from the beginning, I've been meaning to for a couple years as I kinda lost the thread of the whole thing, and after a few episodes I am have already understood a bunch of things I didn't really get (or remember from) the first time. Plus, I booked my next trip, which is going to happen soon. Well, given the shitty rain and the seemingly not-coming-so-soon summer, what else can I do?! Yeah, yeah you're right, I could drive, I could think about all the feelings that I hide, I could sit in silence waiting for a sign. Good advice, yo!

Gasoline - Halsey

Gasoline - Halsey

Unfortunately unlike Halsey I don't run on gasoline, and that means I am just human and have things to do (which, lately, seem to all condense in short periods of time, then leaving my days totally empty after) and I forget to do other things, such as posting on the blog. And I also had the good songs to put on here. Anyway, musically speaking in the last few days I've been listening to Moby quite a lot (even more after reading an article about his biographic book that just came out), so expect more posts about him, and also I've felt my connection with PJ's last album grow stronger, so expect more of that stuff too!! Cheers!

Hold me down - Halsey

Hold me down - Halsey

Yesterday I posted 'Meet on ledge' by Counting Crows and, talking about songs that got stuck in my head lately, I need to share with you guys this one too! I really can't get it out!
I have also been watching the Season 6 finale of 'One tree hill' and I've been crying a little bit. Ok, maybe a little more than a little bit. It's peculiar how we get attached to characters that are not even real people but who portray potentially real people and stories, and it is always amazing to be touched by that, especially when the shows go on for quite a long time and you really have the time to feel part of that world that is created. Don't you agree?

New americana - Halsey

New Americana - Halsey

Being ranked as one of the worst performers of the first Coachella weekend by the most renowned blogs, maybe Halsey is not at her best moment in terms of popularity, but I can't deny I am quite liking getting to know her music, and this is one of my favourites so far! Today I spent the day going to Luino, a (not that) small town on the lake up close to the Swiss border, as one of my best friends has just finished working there. My father used to work there and my uncle's family lives there, so I have a few links with it but never really got the chance/willingness to go there as far as my adult mind can remember. I spent a very nice day, with the bluest spring sky you can think of and in good company, and it's nice to get to know better the area around my hometown before leaving once again!

The light - Adam Lambert

The light - Adam Lambert

I keep being accused by friends and parents that I am always travelling around the world and... well, I can't say they are wrong. Probably I don't travel as much as I would like or could, we all know that seeing people on Facebook makes it look like everybody is always going around and doing cool things and this enhances my willingness to do the same, but all in all I can't complain, as especially in the last couple of years I've had my fair share of miles travelled, for one reason or another. Not being able to always find any friends to keep my pace, I also resorted to travelling alone, a thing I did last December for the first time since I was studying in Canada in 2012, and I will do it again. Tomorrow I am leaving again, this time for a trip that has been in my heart and brain for years, so I am really excited!! Maybe I won't get the time to post daily on the blog, but I'll do my best to keep you updated!

Ocean drive - Duke Dumont

Ocean drive - Duke Dumont

I am really feeling the pressure for the blog lately: spending so much time at home, I am listening to a lot of (great) new music, and I don't have enough time to post all the songs I would like to! Now I have just created a new playlist while I still have songs from the now-third-to-last-one to post, I haven't even seriously started posting from my not-anymore-current playlist! I really need to get out and do things! (Do I really?) Anyway, this song, together with the recent remix of 'Ain't nobody' that I recently posted, reminds me of our taxi drive in Abu Dhabi... gosh, I wish I had another travel to somewhere warm planned already, it's so cold here in these days!

It's good to be in love - Frou Frou

It's good to be in love - Frou Frou

Today is another shameful day for my country: another edition of the "Family day" took place, this being an event where people manifest their unwillingness for other people to love each other and have their love recognized by the law. They also want to prevent other people from raising children just because they didn't procreate them. I don't want to explain here all my thoughts and my reasons why these ideas make me feel sick, I'll just tell you they do.
Today is also a very bright day for me! I have received news from one of the universities I have applied to that they selected me for a PhD program starting in September! I've been really really hoping for this to go right and it seems like it did! I'll keep you updated and give you more news about this in the future...!
Anyways all I want to do is to leave you with the following message:

It's good to be in love. With whoever and whatever you want. Love is never wrong when it makes people and things happy, and it usually does. Preventing other people from loving each other and caring for each other doesn't protect nor defend anyone, it's just a selfish excuse that people use to not try and understand how other people feel. Spread the love. Whatever kind of love. Because it's good to be in love.

Hang it up - The Ting Tings

Hang it up - The Ting Tings

Today I came back to Milan once again because of a couple of things I have to do here tomorrow, mainly Foals' concert to go to. I (quite randomly) met a friend from Uni who happened to pass by Milan in these couple of days and some of her friends for an aperitivo, a nice night out. Walking back home I really felt like I was living my university days again, the streets so familiar, the same feelings... it seems like yesterday but actually it's been quite a while and I've walked quite a lot of road... even if I feel it's been leading me exactly back to where I was then, just a different person, somehow more mature and more conscious of not knowing what I wanna do with my life at all!
In the meanwhile I found The Ting Tings' sophomore album at a very great price while walking around what used to be my favourite multimedia store and that's it, one more album off my to-buy list and I'm back to 2012 already!!

"Break it, make it, you can make the break

Back and forth saying just make it great

Intake, no fake, don't wanna let go

Make all the changes that you need to make

Stand back, give it up, ain't life a bitch

No war making, you just do that

Guess, guess that's the fame you maintain

Time for you to rearrange"

Communication - The Ting Tings

Communication - The Ting Tings

Given the lack of time I've had lately as far as listening to new music is concerned, I've really savaged my second playlist of the year for inspiration for blog posting. And well... this is one of the very few songs that are in it that I hadn't posted already. And yes, I have already compiled a new playlist after it, and posted songs out of it, but I needed to give the Tings at least this one post out of their new album. You might remember how I previously underlined that I didn't really get to love their latest work as much as the previous, but it successfully passed the proof of time and I actually got to like most of the songs on it way better than I did. Like transitioning from "that's ok but I'll forget about it in a couple of weeks" to "Wow, I really do like this! I'm going to listen to it again soon!". Because there is all the difference in between wanting to hear a song again and just happening to hear it by chance!

Failure - The Ting Tings

Failure - The Ting Tings

You guys know me, I am very bad at remembering things daily... you might wonder why I started a daily music blog, you are not alone in that, I wonder about that too... like Katie sings in this song I am a failure! Ok, not a complete failure, but a failure in respecting my daily commitment! Another kind of failure in my life that happened today is that concerning attention: the two sessions of training of today were so boring and/or impossible to follow that I almost paid no attention to the speakers... well, one good thing is that I did useful stuff in the meanwhile, more precisely freshen my Japanese (language) skills! Last night I spoke with the contact that is going to offer me a job and... well, big news are coming soon! I hope I won't be a failure concerning that part of my life too!

When you were mine - Cyndi Lauper

When you were mine - Cyndi Lauper

I'm drawing fully from my current playlists to create posts this week, and I'm glad when I do that, because it means I'm really liking the music I'm listening to! Mainly focused on Hozier, The Ting Tings and Cyndi Lauper (plus a few extra additions that I will share with you shortly), the playlist I've built for this beginning of February is one I'm really fond of. Its name is very telling: Sperendio, (literally "hoping-in-god") which is a word used in Italian when you do something without attention or not having data and information that lets you foresee the outcome of your actions with good predictability, and which is a word that describes my current stage of life perfectly! It seems like the inspired name of the playlist brought me to select inspiring music for it, and this is another piece of it that I am enjoying greatly!

Do it again - The Ting Tings

Do it again - The Ting Tings

I have just watched the video of the first single of Komminuet, a duo that got almost to the end of last year's Italian X-Factor and I was just realising how much they look like an Italian version of The Ting Tings: the Komminuet guy is "a rapper" and has a more central role in the singing part than Jules does in the Tings, but apart from that they are very similar, in particular they play a very similar genre, a kind of electro-hip hop and something else... quite peculiar! Anyway, back to the Tings, I have recently posted (I think) the first song out of their latest album a few days ago on the blog, now it's time for n°2, which is actually the first one that got my attention and one that I have just featured in my first February playlist! The other post didn't resonate much with you guys, so I hope that this one will have a little more success...! I know, this album is not (at all) my favourite work of them (for now), rather... yet it's very new, so it can only grow and a few songs are already showing potential in my opinion, so why don't you give it a try?!

Besides, I just found out that 'Do it again' has also been released as a single (well before the album came out)!! I like the video, it's pretty cool! And the song is really catchy, I'm sure you're gonna like it!

Wabi sabi - The Ting Tings

Wabi sabi - The ting tings

Since their breakout hit Great DJ, I have always had a great love for The Ting Tings, loved a number of tracks on their debut album, loved almost the entirety of their sophomore Sounds of nowheresville and so I was highly anticipating their next work, which came out a few weeks ago. I must confess I've not been particularly drawn to the first single out of it, released last summer, and after a few listens I'm not so enthusiastic about the whole album either. The one song that hit me was this Wabi sabi, which is an unusual pick for an electro-synthpop-dance band's 80-disco-inspired album (it's kind of a ballad)... but it is what it is, it's my currently favourite pick out of Super critical, and I'm sharing it with you!

Fire meet gasoline - Sia

Fire meet gasoline - Sia

Hello people! After many many hours of travelling, I am finally almost on the other side of the world! Ok, maybe not THAT far away, but it feels like it! I finally reached Dominican Republic to have a 1-week holiday with my father, and I'm already thrilled, even if my baggage has remained in Paris (for now). We already had a nice buffet dinner and enjoyed a Broadway Musicals show since we came to the hotel a couple hours ago, but the song I'm posting is related to my long plane trip from Paris to Punta Cana, 9 hours and half of cramped seats and pushy people! Luckily enough, the entertainment on board was quite nice, there were the usual movies (I watched a couple, let's say one and a half as I was almost sleeping at one point), but also games and of course music! Nice music! I created a playlist with songs from some of my favourite albums of last year, by London Grammar, Imagine Dragons, Lykke Li and of course Sia! Even if while this song was playing I was asleep (I actually slept for almost the whole duration of the music play), it still stuck in my mind and given that I hadn't posted it already, here it is!
Once again, as usual when I'm away from home I might delay and/or miss some posts, so I'm sorry in advance, I'll do my best to keep the flow regular and constant (while also enjoying my Caribbean trip at the fullest)!!! Burn with me tonight!

Elastic heart - Sia

Elastic heart - Sia

Just a few days after I picked Elastic heart as my favourite song of 2014, Sia released for it an(other) awesome video with Maddie Ziegler and, this time, also Shia LaBoeuf. I already professed my love for this song more than once, so I don't think I need to say anything more about it, and the very fact that I picked it as my fav in a year which has been of great musical inspiration for me should be enough to tell you how much I care for it! The version of the song featured in this video is the one found on Sia's album '1000 forms of fear', while the one I posted last February (and my favourite, probably because it's the one I fell in love with) is the one featuring Diplo and The Weeknd, used in the Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie soundtrack. What more? I think you'll just love the video, I'd love to hear your interpretation of it so feel free to comment anywhere and start a discussion! Cheers!

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!

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!

Lights - Ellie Goulding

Lights - Ellie Goulding

It feels somehow weird to be posting this song now, but I knew t would've happened when I decided what to do with it. I first got to know and like this song while listening to Ellie's latest re-released album, Halcyon Days, which, I don't know why (weird marketing in my opinion, doesn't encourage people to buy her debut album at all!) contains this song too, even if it was featured on her previous album. Well, even if I soon grew a liking for it, I decided to refrain from putting it into any playlist until I got to listen to her first album. Now the time has come and here we are, the beautiful Lights is into my very very beautiful playlist called "Database" (guess why?!) and will be with me during this hard-working times. This week is gonna be tough, I have finished with the interviews and now I have to analyses to bring on in parallel, plus I have to re-read and re-organized all the literature review, loads of work! Good night!!