Christmas songs

Christmas is just around the corner, if you’re not feeling it yet I hope this post will get you in a more festive mood.

If there is a thing I cannot imagine Christmas without (besides family gathering), that would be Christmas carols. Ever since I remember, we always were singing at my household around this period of time. While cleaning our house, baking and preparing various dishes or putting in and decorating our Christmas tree.

As I grew up I learned to play some songs on my guitar, so that we can all sing after  Christmas Eve dinner (before opening our presents!).

Of course you can say that these songs get monotonous, boring or even irritating after some time (especially if they are played on a never ending loop on the radio or in a shopping centre), but what’s amazing is that you have many songs you can choose from, with different genres, styles, arrangements, various instruments etc.

That’s what I want to share with you today – some of my favourite festive songs, I’ve discovered and enjoy listening to in December.

I’ve already talked about Sleeping at last and how amazed I am of Ryan’s songwriting skills, here’s the proof, an amazing, intimate Christmas song. I absolutely adore his Christmas carol covers too.

This song was used in the third season of a Norwegian show, called SKAM. I fell in love with this arrangement and Nils voice, stunning!

My favourite Christmas song by Super Junior. It’s very cheerful so it always puts me in a good mood.

Sainte Nuit, or Silent Night, a very classical cover, but I love it. Bruno’s voice works magic in Christmas songs.

I only tolerate this song in this particular version, I like Pellek’s energy, he’s genuinely enjoying this song, nice guitar riffs too.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Beach house

Have you ever heard about dream pop? Although it has pop in its name, it’s not a mainstream music, but rather indie or alternative – it always bothered me why the genre goes by dream pop and not dream indie... maybe that’s the matter of how it sounds, dream indie sounds a bit awkward, I admit, but nevermind!

Dream pop is a very specific type of music and I always find it difficult to describe it as accurately as possible, but the main idea is to create a music which kind of puts you into this mood of slow-motion almost. I know it sounds bizarre, but I assure you it’s awesome. Dreamy, ethereal, hypnotic, mesmerizing, calm, soothing... that’s how I feel it. Also, it’s very inspiring, because it allows you to fully immerse yourself in the music and the lyrics (which happen to have an important role in the immersion itself), and as a result it opens your mind in such a way that no other genre of music (none that I know of) can. It’s an ideal music while you travel, read, paint or even just lie down. It’s a bit similar to ambient music (which in turn I would describe as the core of the sound that accompanies you everywhere as a sort of background – very interesting btw!), but dream pop more often than not has lyrics. As I said before its introspective role is significant, the breathy vocals accompagnied by minimalistic sound and melody (mainly produced by guitar or synthesizer) make the whole package. Alright, now that I’ve cleared it up, let me introduce you to my favourite dream pop band : Beach House. (Though they hate it when people label them!)

Beach House is an American duo created in Baltimore in 2004 by a vocalist, Victoria Legrand and multiinstrumentalist, Alex Scally. Their meeting must have been written in the stars, because they claim to be musical soulmates, their bond growing stronger with time taught them patience and cemented their friendship. That must be why they are going as strong as ever even today (which not many bands and duos can brag about). As of 2018, they have released seven full studio albums, the last of which, called 7 , was released on May this year and has been critically acclaimed, some even call it their best album yet, and I must highly agree with that. It takes you on a fantastic journey.

 Interesting fact : It took them about 11 months to create 7. Normally they would make it in half this time, but they decided to polish it and not limit themselves in the writing process and in the musical aspect. They like to experiment with the sound in general but not to this extent – 7 has many songs that can’t be recreated live, bold decision, may I add. As for the lyrics their main source of inspiration and questioning was the place of women in the world and the different roles that society imposes on them.

The Baltimore duo is one of a kind. They are bold, creative, strong-willed, down to earth, very sensible and attuned to interpreting and analysing the human psyche. Although they don’t really like to talk with the press, when they do, their interviews are extraordinarily profound, philosophical even. Here is one of them, if you’re interested.

Is dream pop your cup of tea? Write in the comments!

Good old stuff

Up until now I’ve been mostly writing about bands and artists from the 20th century, although I absolutely love listening to old stuff, especially when I’m travelling or skating. Therefore I’ve decided to fix that and make a post about some epic (in my opinion) tunes that don’t get old with passing time.

Some people say that old music (old enough to be remembered by them I guess) is the best music of all times and it has something that modern music is lacking profoundly – a soul. Well, as you may already assume, I don’t really share that opinion. I don’t really care when a certain song was written, as long as it moves me in some way, be it an old song or a recently released one. But on the other hand I kinda understand this point of view, because it’s based on people’s experiences, memories and most of all nostalgia, which is a very powerful emotion, as everyone knows. Who doesn’t reminiscence the old good times with a whistful smile on their face? Who doesn’t want to bring back those good times and memories that are ingraved preciously in our minds? Who doesn’t  have some space carved out in their heart for a certain song because it reminds them of someone from the past? Music is also that : a priceless memory lane.

So yeah. I do understand where someone may come from when they say that today’s music is not the best kind. (Though I’d also tell that said person to try and look deeper because it’s obviously not true and I hope that in some way I proved that through my previous posts). But today, as I said, we’ll look through some old music that I learned to love (with some additional commentary on my part), so here and now, I invite you to drive through my memory lane (aka chosen songs from my spotify playlist), maybe we’ll meet at some point? J

This song is a TOTAL JAM. It really puts me in a good mood and make me wanna dance (which I am not really good at unfortunately...) and goof around. It’s been constantly on the radio since I was little and I never get tired of it.

I’ve been growing up with rock and metal music in the background since my dad was a huge fan of old bands, like this one, Black Sabbath or Depeche Mode. This music makes me think of him and my childhood.

A beautiful song from the Dirty Dancing movie, one of my favourite movies in the romance genre.

It’s one of those songs I’ve been surrounded by for as long as I remember, the falsetto is incredibly impressive to me. My brother likes them too!

This song was covered by Fugees and it surpassed in popularity the original version, that’s really a shame. I like Lori’s soulful singing and the story behind this song – apparently she wrote some of the lyrics after she had seen Don McLean perform Empty Chairs.

 I’ve travelled a lot with my family in the past and this song was often played in the radio. The Police was also one of my dad’s favourite. Whenever I hear it I have a desert road behind my eyes.

I couldn't NOT put this song in here, it wouldn’t feel right. Very few people can cover Queen’s songs. Anyone watched the movie that came out in the theater’s some time ago?

 A pop icon and inspiration to many. Billie Jean reminds me of GTA, a game I played with my brothers in primary school.

I love the chorus and the general cheerfulness of this song!

Perversely written song about love. Totally magical! It reminds me of my teenage love. :)

If you want to hear some more of my old favourites, here’s my playlist.

Comment below your favourite old songs, I’d love that!