The music's no good without you - Cher

The music's no good without you - Cher

Today's been a busy day (for my current unemployed standards): besides other things, spent a big part of my afternoon chatting with a University classmate who needed to interview me and ask me a few questions about music for her final thesis. I'm always happy to talk about music business models, my own approach to music, digital vs physical music and the like; I am also happy to chat with my friends, so all in all it's been a very pleasant afternoon! The theme of listening to music as a primary vs background activity emerged and it struck me a little as I already touched it with another person a few days ago. I tend to do both, but sometimes it's true that music as a shared experience is way more intense than music experienced alone (and sometimes the opposite is true). What do you think about that?

#sundayrevival Imitation of life - R.E.M.

Imitation of life - R.E.M.

Yesterday was Ferragosto, one of my least favourite days in the whole year: it's the day when everything is closed in the cities, everybody is out and about, so places are crowded and expensive, and I (as all of my fellow Italians) am torn between staying at home doing nothing or going somewhere crowded and paying a lot of money for it. Well... this year it looks like I found a great solution to the problem: gather a good amount of people and have them over for a lunch-to-after-dinner event! And it's been awesome! My life is just so hectic lately that I get very very little time to spend with the people I really care about, so every time I get the chance to do it, I can't help rejoicing! Yesterday has been a great day, one of my best Ferragostos for sure! And back to the music: it feels weird posting something that is not London Grammar music today as I've been listening intensively to their debut album (and only one, so far). But I've been listening to other music too, and quite a lot of it, both yesterday with people around and today while I was cleaning up. And this album, R.E.M.'s 'Reveal', was noticed among the others in my collection by one of the friends I had over. We didn't get to play it yesterday, but after talking about it, I had it on my mind and I decided to play it today. And well... 'Imitation of life' is probably my favourite R.E.M. song, so it really does feel right to post it now!
After another hectic day cleaning-up and putting everything in order today, tomorrow I'll be on the road again, but I hope I'll get a little time to share my next adventures with you in the next few days! Even if summer is over (here at least), have a great new week!!

Fever - Elisa

Fever - Elisa

Of course. Of course I've been waiting for months to get away, to go abroad for work for a two-week visit and of course I get sick two days before I should leave. Of course with a relocation to do (first home and then goodness knows where), of course with a 3-hour drive home to undertake, hopefully tomorrow if I'm not feeling too bad. Of course this is probably not the fever Elisa was singing about, but my own fever, caused by whatever illness I got in my lungs since last xmas, is starting to be pretty bothersome!! Of course.

Drops of Jupiter - Train

Drops of Jupiter - Train

What a long and intense day today has been! As I told you, against my previous program I stopped in Marghera (well, not exactly... but whatever!) for one more night, actually in the southern province of Padua, and had a very fun night with some of the people I have been doing the training with! We ate together and played a few alcoholic card games, nothing complex but much fun, it reminded me of my times in Exeter and... yeah I really enjoyed it, I'm so glad I stayed one more night! Today we attended the last lecture of the course and then I drove to Treviso to speak with some people about my professional future, so I'm quite sure I'll be starting to work in Veneto in about a week in preparation of my moving... I'll let you know where in due time! After the talk I drove (to a fuel pump and) back home and on the (long) way I've had time to listen to some good music! After my current playlist, an old playlist from 2007 started, I remember I was compiling it with my little cousin taking songs from previous years summer hits... it brings back memories, even if most of the songs are pretty trashy-pop!! Among them I chose for tonite one of the most representative songs of our generation, one that always gives me the late90s/early00s nostalgia feeling and that I unavoidably start singing out loud with passion every single time! I mean, if you were born in the late 80s/early 90s I dare you not to!!

Disappear - R.E.M.

Disappear - R.E.M.

"There is a calm I haven't come to yet
I spend half my life figuring what comes next
I telescoped in
I'll finally win
I'll finally win the prize
That now eyes see
A comic's perfect timing squeezed.
I'm head-first fighting everything
The crushing force of memory
Erasing all I've been
The vanishing point appears."

After many many hours of travelling I'm finally home, I took a nap, had a quick dinner and a hot bath and now I'm almost ready to get to sleep. I've not been feeling well since the flight back from America, as I've been writing before, and now I feel pain in my head when I turn it and look sideways, and the usual symptoms of fever (cold hands and stuff). I really hope I'm gonna get better soon, as my life is rapidly entering a spiral of important events! I'll just tell you that (if nothing goes wrong) I'm gonna be on a plane again on monday! Life aside, I was uncertain whether to play some music while having my bath, and when I decided not to, I plugged in the radio! Then after a quick look at my CD library my eye fell on R.E.M.'s Reveal and the song I'll take the rain came to my mind, I decided to play it in shuffle mode (and of course it was the first one to play)! The one that touched me more strongly this time though has been Disappear, another favourite from the album! The lyrics are quite meaningful for me now, I hope they resound in you too!

"I looked for you and everywhere.

I looked for you and everywhere.

Tell me why you're here.

I came to disappear."

Paid my dues - Anastacia

Paid my dues - Anastacia

Here I am, just back from my Anastacia concert in Milan (take 2). Some of you might recall that she had no voice during her performance in November and to compensate her deficiency, she performed another show for free for all of us who had come to the previous gig! This time she rocked the house with her super powerful voice at its best, but I must confess I liked a couple of songs better the other time, even with her difficulties...! This is not one of them, and I'm very glad that she actually paid her dues to us all, she did it beautifully! And now, ready to board on a couple of planes tomorrow, I'll give you more news when I get there!

#sundayrevival This is the day - The Cranberries

This is the day - The Cranberries

Hello dear folks! Of course I must begin by apologizing again for missing another post yesterday, I've been relatively busy and especially distracted, I came back to Milan and days of travel always tend to steal away time that then makes me forget to post... I have realised lately that I have been kind of ditching my sundayrevival posts and I had a couple of songs to post, a regular one and one for sundays! It's not sunday anymore actually, at least not in this part of the world, but given that I'm posting late quite often in the last few weeks, let's make this post count for sunday and get it like it is! The song is one of my all time favs of The Crans, even if it's not usually that much loved by fans... it came to my mind between two days ago and last night as I though that chances were opening up for a big step in my life, but the day has not come yet. I'll just post this in advance for when it's really gonna be the day!

PS: Now that the post is complete and ready to be published I have a very strong feeling of dejà vu! That's quite crazy when these things happen, isn't it?

#sundayrevival I'll take the rain - R.E.M.

I'll take the rain - R.E.M.

I feel that I have been neglecting my sundayrevival concept in the last few weeks: between forgotten posts and lack of time to sit down and write something real, not taking into account all the amazing new stuff I am listening to, I didn't do justice to my sunday posts.
The choice of a post for a weird day (full rain to clouds to the sun out now and who knows what's gonna happen!) of this fake, rainy and autumny summer had to be something rain-related! And, well... this works perfectly. My relationship with R.E.M's 2001 album Reveal has been one of the hard and complicated kind (but with a happy end): I have been listening to it before I should have according to the chronological order I have used to approach their discography because my favourite song of theirs (Imitation of life) is on it and at first I found the album a very hard one to digest. Then things (slowly) evolved, song by song I started growing a liking and then fell in love, up to the point of it surely entering the top 5 of R.E.M. albums in my personal ranking! And I'll take the rain is no exception: it is one of the first songs I started liking for what I remember and, well... that's it! and what better song for this frigging weather? I can't do but take the (whole lot of) rain that's pouring down from the sky. Literally. Not to say that I'm not taking the rain that's always dropping down on my head figuratively... what else can I do?
As a magnet my parents gave me as a present says:

"Don't wait for the rain to stop, learn to dance in the rain"

Everywhere - Michelle Branch

Everywhere - Michelle Branch

Today I woke up, opened my Facebook and got a perfect inspiration for a song. And then, I kept on scrolling down my wall, listened to a song on YouTube and then... paf, I forgot about the song and notwithstanding all the efforts coming back and re-reading the stuff I didn't come back... well whatever, fate says it wasn't its time! Luckily enough, when I was in a supermarket buying some ice-creams with my parents, as soon as we were able to get out of it this song started playing and I started singing it by myself in the parking lot. And here it is, new inspiration for the blog! And it's a perfect one for this hot summer day too! Couldn't ask for anything better!

Survivor - Destiny's child

After three exams in one day and getting back home after midnight, I can definitely say I'm a survivor!!

A place called home (live @ Lamacq) - PJ Harvey

I really feel the need to share a PJ song today, don't know which one yet, so give me one moment to decide.... no, I actually know. I'm ready! Good, I'll share with you a beautiful, beautiful version of one of my favourite songs ever. This is A Place Called Home live @ Lamacq in 2001, right after the release of her Mercury Prize winning album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. I'm really totally in love with this song, just think that it contains the only lyrics I would ever consider for a sentence-tattoo at this point in life.

Hereunder you can find the as much beautiful official video:

Sing - Travis

Here is another classic from last decade, a good one for an otherwise gloomy sunday. I bet all of you know the song already, but it's never a shame to go back a little while. Late 90s / early 00s have been (in my opinion) a very good and fertile period for good music, for quality pop, maybe it's because I have such good memories of my life when I was a kid and I associate these tunes to that happy periods, I don't know, fact is that I really enjoy a lot of the stuff that dates back to that period!