Music this week: lots of new albums for me

This month I'm still bingeing on a lot of new music.  In addition to having a Muse and Mumford & Sons revival, here are some of the other songs and artists I've been listening to on repeat.

1. 'I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)' - Josh Groban

So I think I mentioned that I was getting Josh's new album.  Unfortunately, this is probably my least favorite of his albums so far.  I found a couple of the songs just a little disappointing.  But that said, there are a couple songs that I really love.  I definitely listened to this one a lot (also Changing Colors and Play Me from the bonus tracks).  I can totally see this song being used at the end wedding-scene of some super-feel-good romantic movie .  .  .  and then fade to credits.

2. 'Radioactive' - Imagine Dragons


I went to see Beautiful Creatures and this song was in one of the terrible trailers I had to watch.  But I'm glad I got to hear it because I got the full album and I really like it.  My other favorite right now is 'On Top of the World.'

3.  'Your Bones' - Of Monsters and Men


I finally got my hands of the Of Monsters and Men album and I was immediately distracted and moved by 'Your Bones.'  It has such a haunting sound and made me really really emotional the first couple times I listened.

4. 'Stronger than Me' - Nashville  [DON'T WATCH VIDEO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE SPOILERS]


And speaking of haunting songs, this song really stuck with me too.  I know I said I would stop posting about Nashville, but this song is so powerfully sad, and mesmerizing.  I had it in the back of my head for days after I watched the episode. (Not really a song I'd want sung to me on my birthday though, poor Deacon.)

5.  'Kiss Me Goodbye' - Nick Urata and the Candelabras

I heard this song after watching the independent film Virginia starring Jennifer Connelly.  It was an interesting, sometimes funny, movingly sad movie.  This song captures the weird mix of cheerfulness, nostalgia, and bittersweetness.

6. 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' - from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel soundtrack, Thomas Newman


I distinctly found parts of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel very relaxing and beautiful, especially because of the music.  I got the soundtrack and it is great for calming down, concentrating and finding that inner peace.

7. 'Shake it Out' - Florence + the Machine (Benny Benassi Remix)


I was discussing F+tM remixes with my sister.  And while I don't really care for the Calvin Harris remix of 'Spectrum,' this is one of the other remixes floating around out there that I enjoy.  This version is also pretty wonderful.

Of course, I always prefer the originals.

8. 'Terrible Love' - Birdy


I forget where, but I heard her cover of People Help the People and got the album on a bit of a whim.  I'm really glad I did because I really like the whole album.  She has a great and strong voice, and the album as a whole has a sleepy and reflective vibe.  I'm really looking forward to what she does next.

Music this week: Nashivlle and electric alterna-pop???

Since the last music post (October!) I have got a lot of new tunes!  A lot are songs or artist I've heard on tv shows and remembered to look up.  Tunefinder is pretty great! 

1. 'Bones' - MS MR

This group has a little of what I love about Florence + the Machine.  The drums, the powerful female vocal, mystery . .  .

2. 'Sleepsong' - Bastille

I read about this artist in Nylon and decided to check him out.  Then I fell in love with this song. Bad Blood is also pretty great.

3. 'One Works Better' & 'Sideshow'  - Nashville (tv series)

Beside liking this show a lot, I really love Nashville for giving us some great tunes!  I tend to like the songs by Scarlet and Gunner the most.  I really like 'One Works Better' in particular because it is a nice change from their more subdued, quiet love/heart-break songs.

I also love Deacon and his star-crossed-lover problems.  'Sideshow' is the prefect country song for him, and gotta love listening to Charles Esten's voice.

4.  'The Devil Don't Mind' - David J Roch

David J Roch's music is a little weird.  But I think I like it.  And I definitely have fun howling along to this song on my drive home from a soul-deadening day of work.  Skin & Bones is the first of his songs I heard (I haven't watched the video so can't speak to it).

5.  'Secret Days' - School of Seven Bells

This type of more electric music usually isn't really my cup of tea but I got into this song.

P.S.  Going to get my copy of Josh Groban's new album tomorrow!

Songs I've been listening to this week

With different weeks come different moods, and with different moods come different songs playing constantly on repeat.

Some song I've been listening to a lot this week:

1.  Carry On by fun.

2.  Landscape by Florence + the Machine

3. Lay Your Head Down from Albert Nobbs, sung by Sinead O'Connor

4.  Sophia by Laura Marling

5.  Bedroom Eyes by the Dum Dum Girls

6. Fix You covered by Janet Devlin on X Factor

 
7.  Straight to You by Josh Groban

8. Hey Ho by The Lumineers

9.  Swanee River by Hugh Laurie

Josh Josh Josh Josh Josh Josh Josh: Part 2

Our seats were not super-good nor super-terrible either. We had a pretty good view of the stage, I just wish we had been a tiny bit closer.

The opening act was a piano-playing extraordinaire named Elew who called himself a Rockjazz pianist, from Camden of all placed. He was very good, a bit loud, and played hilarious medleys of Coldplay, the Waltz of the Flowers, Sweet Home Alabama, the Entertainer, the Pink Panther theme, Katy Perry, the Peanuts theme music, and much more. He also wore these insane metal arm sheath things that I guess helped him bang on the piano and play the piano strings (which he does by the way) without inflicting pain on himself, but from far away he looked like a super-hero mid-transformation. A woman behind me leaned over to the woman next to her and said hopefully "Maybe he'll be on a PBS special." Maybe, dear lady, may be.

After he finished there was a rather long wait in which we ate the rest of the Swedish Fish and felt peeved at the ads. But then the lights dimmed, the orchestra came out and started a really intense, anthemic intro. I really felt like the astronauts from Apollo 13 or Olympic athletes were supposed to be approaching. They were so good I almost missed tricky Josh running out into the audience from the BACK of the arena!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!! THE FLOOR SECTION WENT BONKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING!!!! JOSH IS IN THE BACK OF THE ARENA!!! HE'S SO SNEAKY HAVING US WATCH THE ORCHESTRA ON STAGE AND THEN SURPRISING EVERYONE FROM THE SOMEPLACE ELSE!!!!! HE. IS. SO. CLOSE!!!! MELTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was not surprised; I knew that he has been trying to interact with the audience more so figured he would do something like that. (See all my research paid off.) He hopped up on a little stage they had in front of the sound board and started crooning away.

He sang as song called "Changing Colors" that was nice, but a little cheesy. Not my favorite song he's ever sung. But then he went into "February Song" which I LOVE. It was a much more subdued version than I'd heard previously; on his last tour this song kinda blew my mind because he really rocked out to it and IT WAS AWESOME. I missed that raw energy.

What was nice about his playing a few songs from the back of the arena was that he actually ended up being pretty much right in front of us, rather than at a longer side-angle when he was on state. I took a picture on my phone:See Josh playing the piano!!! Isn't he just the best?!?!?!?!? See all the crazy women gathering around. They were actually rather entertaining to watch as well. There were a couple of girls absolutely having a meltdown and lots of middle-aged women swaying and waving their arms in the air.

After that, Josh launched into the feel-goody "You Are Loved" which he obligingly sang to diverse sections of the audience. He only sang to my section once though. That was a bit disappointing.

Here, in an even better phone-photo, is the back section hogging all his attention:
After this he charmed his way to through the audience and got up on stage to do the rest of his singing, although he did come back to the back for a few songs later on. He did lots of my favorite songs: A La Luce, Oceano, Higher Window, Bells of New York City (sooooo good), and If I Walk Away. The only song I really missed was Awake, which is a super beautiful and deep song. I would so have preferred that over Galileo, which I really do not care for (It starts "Galileo fell in love as a Galilean boy . . . the chorus involves: "who put the rainbows in the skkyyyyyy?").

Josh did some cool drumming though. He and his two drummers had a great percussionfest in the beginning of the second half of the show and during Você Existe em Mim.

I was desperately afraid he was not going to sing Machine, which is such a GREAT GREAT song, but then he did it close to the end of the show. YAY!!!!!!!!! It was stupendous. He had a kickin horn section that really got into the jazzy attitude of it--- and to be honest, how can you not get into it, it is too fantabulous! I wanted to get up and dance; I definitely was singing along. (The one and only downside of going to a Josh Groban concert is the other audience members are 80% 50 and older, so they are not exactly super carefree, groovin people to sit next to.)

They also lit up the lights above the stage and choreographed the (not-on) lights to rotate and move around during different parts of the song, which was SO COOL. It really caught the eerily, cold, emotionlessness of the person the song is about ("Oh you're a machine!" accuses the song). It was a fantastic touch. And while I am on the subject, this tour had some super cool projections, which made the background look really detailed and 3D. I'd love to know how they did that some day.

In between songs, Josh was funny and witty and darling. He answered questions people had texted him before the show which was really adorbs because he called out their seat number and the spotlights swirled around and landed on them and they got to stand up and show-off.

Josh also started the wave when asked by a texter which was really funny because he got really excited and started running off to the back the arena to start it off (although the orchestra participated). From where were were sitting we saw a gleeful little Josh running off through the floor section being chased down by several panicked, burly body guards.

And then all too soon, the concert was coming to a close. Josh said goodbye. People started leaving.

But then the Encore!!!!

Those poor stupid people who left early! Boy did they miss out! The encore was great!

He sang a Neil Diamond song!!! A Neil Diamond song! Such a perfect fit! He sang the beautiful "Play Me" and it was glorious. I really was elated and privileged to hear that.

And then to send us all home happy, he sang You Raise Me Up, and because he didn't have a gospel choir to back him up, he tasked us to sing! It was great! I've always wanted to be in an audience that sings loudly enough to carry the song without the singer, and it totally happened! It was wonderful!

My companion and I skipped joyfully back to the car, and filled with Josh-related-happiness, narrowly avoided being killed as we left the parking lot and attempted an insane merge to get onto the highway whilst belting out Elton John and Billy Joel all the way home.

Josh Josh Josh Josh Josh Josh Josh: Part 1

The 'Straight to You' Concert, July 29, 2011, 8pm
Wells Fargo Center (formerly the Wachovia Center), Philadelphia

As I have gotten older and had more stress in my life, I have unfortunately had less and less time to obsess over Josh Groban. But when I discovered myself separated from seeing him live by only a matter of hours, I found myself in a frenzy of excitement. But after all, what else would you expect?

In preparation, in the morning, knowing that I would be leaving essentially straight from work I opted to wear my black liquid eyeliner because 1) it would look classy and 2) it would last all day and night without much smearing. I would not have time for touch-ups, and I couldn't go to see Josh with creased eyeliner! No sir!

I also had to wear something cute, hip-concert-goer-y-but-not-going-to-the-opera-fancy-or-t-shirt-slobbish, and most importantly work appropriate. I opted for a short skirt, tank-top, and blue sweater. The sweater saved me from raised eyebrows at work and could be discarded later for more concert-appropriate fashionableness. I also pocketed my bright red lipstick for the final touch to be added before departure.

But enough about the wardrobe, I also made sure I was up to date on all Josh's video blog posts. (I wasn't, I'd missed one) and read some reviews of the concert as apparently it was getting glowing reviews. I also spent some time daydreaming about what songs I wanted him to sing. I read a few interviews in which he was most hilariously amusing. Which was of course to be expected . . . Technically I was leaving work an hour early, but I am afraid I might have checked out a little earlier.

I was also extremely worried about getting to the arena on-time as I would be driving to Philadelphia essentially during rushhour and not only with a thousand Josh-fans but also anyone going to the Philles game. So I decided to leave three hours early, even though it only takes one hour, according to mapquest.

Luckily, traffic was really not that bad at all until the last 20 miles, in which we saw a white stretch limousine and listened to Mumford & Sons, Florence + the Machine, and Laura Marling. Because my car is super-cool and doesn't have a radio that works, we tested out my battery-powered speakers. Happily, they worked.

Parking, which I had expected to be hell, was super easy, and since I had pre-paid for reserved parking the nice man at the parking booth said we could park anywhere we wanted!!! So we parked three rows from the arena. Yay! Mega-convenient! We were an hour early. But there were also lots of other people around, and we took a moment to eat brownies in the parking lot and smile bemusedly at people in their Josh Groban t-shirts.

We were super afraid of security, so we left our cameras in the car. We were surprised to find security was very lax. We could have brought in our cameras no problem. They did not search our bags at all which meant I succeed in sneaking in Swedish Fish and could have smuggled in my massive bottle of Coke that was probably coming to a slow boil in the car. My companion did get stopped and questioned about her suspicious-looking "water bottle" which the gent suspected was really a "can" and if so that was apparently going to be a problem. I distracted him by asking where the bathrooms were, and she got off with an instruction to "drink it before you enter" which she totally did not do at all. In rebellion, she filled it up at the water fountain. It was pretty exciting.

We strolled around, bought an overpriced hot dog and pretzel, tried out both entrances to our section, considered getting ice cream, sat down, counted the heterosexual men under the age of 50 we could spot, made fun of the flashing advertisements--- one of which was a massive close-up of Enrique Iglesias' eye, ate Swedish Fish and merrily waited for Josh to come sing to us.

Josh Groban is Sexy! David Tennant goes grey.

It is official. Josh Groban is sexy. You've all heard it from me, but now other 'People' think so to. We now have tangible documentation.

Josh is going to be in the upcoming Sexiest Men Alive edition of People Magazine. Yay Josh!

See the video here.

Josh will also be back on Glee sometime this season.


In other news, St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold will be coming out in the UK soon. December 18th to be exact. And on that date we will get a chance to see the lovely David Tennant as the villainous Lord Pomfrey, the leader of a woman-hating secret society. If we were not in love with the girlz already, this is definitely enough to entice us to watch.

DT sheds his typical suave style for a more mature look. But like Richard Gere, he only makes grey gorgeous. And rumor has it, he ends up sloshing through the sea at some point. We can only hope for a Colin Firth/Darcy calibre moment! (Though I actually did not find that as exciting as everyone else seem to.)

Now if only they would release the trailer already!