The Best Songs of 2011

This is, of course, my most humble opinion, but these are the songs that made my year: I listened to them over and over again, watched the clips on YouTube repeatedly, had them stuck in my head for much of the year. I constantly offered my iPod earphones to friends, saying "You have to listen to this!" and presented them with the opening bars of these songs. It will be close to impossible to think of these songs and not associate it with this year, and vice-versa.

1. VIDEO GAMES - Lana Del Rey
I still remember the first time I heard this song, which is unusual for me. I was in the car on the way to my piano lesson and flicked the radio over to Triple J for a change. The dj announced they were playing 'Video Games, Lana Del Rey'. At first I was distracted as I pondered whether Video Games was the song title or the band's name, and then I listened closer and thought, 'Hang on...this is good.' It grew on me slowly, this sad, strings-driven lovesong, and by the time it was on the second chorus, I was turning it up and listening hard, enraptured. I was determined to Google it that night, but, once home, I settled down on the couch to watch Ringer. In the final scene of the episode, a beautiful song started playing, and I realised it was the same song from that afternoon. It was like the universe was telling me to Google it. I did, learnt more about Lana Del Rey, and fell deeply in love with this song.
I've listened to it so many times, yet it never feels old. Each time I listen to it, something new strikes me. This is a song so beautiful, it sounds as magical as it did when I heard it first time around. I've spent so many days and nights listening to it: in bed, on the bus, at school...this is truly the song of my year.

2. DEFEATIST - Cameras
Close runner-up in the most-played stakes is this haunting little gem of a song. It was the video that caught my attention and left me riveted when it first played on Saturday morning Rage, but it would be nothing without this song. The vocals, the instruments, the rueful, broken-hearted lyrics ("For a minute I was wondering if you'd come around...") - it's all stunning.

3. IT'S NICE TO BE ALIVE - Ball Park Music
How much do I love this? It's a song about the end of the world, for optimists. Dark, sad songs might be beautiful (see previous two songs for proof), but sometimes to listen to something that's just full of joy. Joy is something this song has in spades, encouraging everyone to relax and see the brighter side of life. "Chill out, it's alright, kiss me, it's nice to be alive."

4. SOMEONE LIKE YOU - Adele

Ok, so pretty much everyone in the Western world knows this one, but for good reason, and I'd be lying if I wasn't one of the millions who listened to this over and over and over.

(Should I link it? Should I? Everyone knows it...oh, why not?)

And...yeah. C'est tout!

SUMMER SUMMER SUMMER

So everyone's blogging about Christmas holidays in the snow, or at least the cold. Turkey, snowball fights, rugging up in front of the fireplace, etc. And while I have witnessed a cold Christmas (England, 2008), Christmas for me is something you associate with summer.
Right?
No?
Am I alone down here at the bottom of the world?
Christmas, for me, is all about the beach, drinks in the sunshine, BBQs and ridiculously expensive crayfish. You can rock up in thongs, and hang around in the backyard getting sunburnt and wearing those crappy-but-loveable paper hats you get in the Christmas crackers. Christmas, for me, is when you know the summer holidays have truly started.

Speaking of summer, you may have guessed from the caps-heavy post header that the HOLIDAYS ARE HERE. School is over for 8 weeks, hallelujah. I passed all my exams (even Year 11 maths methods, which is nothing short of a freaking miracle!), and now I have no obligations (um, apart from holiday homework), no major plans and nearly two months of freedom stretching before me.
Let the summer begin!

SUMMER DAYS PLAYLIST -

Defeatist - Cameras

I have no idea why I love this.
I think it's all the elements thrown together that make it so perfect. The black and white, the unplaceable time period, the lack of special effects, the beautiful lingering cinematography, the desperate love, the crooked fairytale.
Not to mention the song itself, which manages to obliterate your heart. That guitar and those vocals and the wrenching chorus all combine to make 4 minutes of sweet and beautiful agony.
It's the story of a wolf, and a girl. But it's not what you think.
I'm running out of praise. Just watch this. Several times.

Band Appreciation: Ball Park Music

Australian band Ball Park Music specialise in quirky, cheerful indie-pop. Their first major album, "Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs" is being released soon, after a couple of years of EPs and singles buzzing around the Rage-level indie scene.

My favourite songs of theirs are -

"Chill out, it's alright, kiss me, it's nice to be alive"

What a glorioius, glorious day.

Sky the colour of a swimming pool, the sun's shining down, the wattle is finally out and is its usual bright yellow, and everything's beautiful. After weeks of cold and rain, this is just what we need down here.

I had a heap of homework, but at 2pm I decided trigonometry could wait. So I put together a playlist, donned my leopard-print sunnies and white lace jacket and took the dog for a walk around the park. Beautiful beautiful weather, makes you believe that everything is right in the world, even if it really isn't.



Photo taken by me a while ago, but it looks the same outside at the moment. Dodgy quality because it was taken on the old camera.

Sunny Days Outdoors playlist (song title first):

1. Jake Ryan - Summer Camp
2. Over the Rainbow - Gin Wigmore
3. Something Easy - Georgia Fair
4. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
5. Time to Wander - Gypsy & the Cat
6. It Can Wait - Illy feat. Owl Eyes
7. Control - Jebediah
8. Peter Pan - Jinja Safari
9. You Don't Scare Me - Josh Pyke
10. Fall - Lanu feat. Megan Washington
11. Young Love - Mystery Jets feat. Laura Marling
12. Older Brother - Pepper Rabbit
13. In the Sun - She & Him
14. It's Nice to Be Alive - Ball Park Music (Post title comes from that song's lyrics, more on the band soon)
15. Fall At Your Feet [Crowded House cover] - Boy & Bear
16. Don't You Think It's Time - Bob Evans

Hope you have good weather wherever you are!

Z

R.I.P Amy Winehouse

In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed the deaths of Princess Diana (even though I was only two), Steve Irwin, Michael Jackson, Elisabeth Sladen, Elizabeth Taylor and many more. For each of those listed above, it was an unbelievable event, for they all appeared to be such invincible people, who could not be brought down by something like death.

Amy Winehouse, unlike all those listed above, did not appear indestructible. On the contrary, she seemed dangerously fragile in her recent appearances. Yet her death, even though it’s not wholly unexpected, is still immensely shocking.

I’ll always remember this morning, when I found out she was gone. The sick, stunned feeling when I turned on the TV to find them talking about it; standing in my room watching the heavy rain and thinking, ‘Amy Winehouse can’t be dead! She can’t be!’

It took me a while to realise why exactly I was so upset. I can’t claim to be her biggest fan. I’ve listened to both her albums, and have several of her songs on my iPod (which I’ve been listening to all morning). It’s because I was waiting.

No one can deny that Amy Winehouse had amazing talent. Her songs ranged from heart-broken ballads (Back to Black, Love is a Losing Game, In the Box) to brassy odes on avoiding rehab (Rehab, obviously) and paying out gold-diggers (F***-Me Pumps). Yet even her talent couldn’t save her from the problems that plagued her life. As time went on, she seemed to fall deeper and deeper into a black hole. But I waited and waited for her to come out of it, to rise up and stun us all again with another musical masterpiece.

Surely, somewhere under the chaos, that talent was still there, just waiting to be unleashed? Each time there was an article about her doing something positive, I was so happy for her, convinced she was on the way to recovery. I’d been waiting for years, but I hadn’t given up hope. I was sure it was only a matter of time before she put all her trouble behind her and went back to doing what she did best – being an amazing singer/songwriter.

Now we’ll never know. We’ll never know if she would have overcome the drugs and blown the world away with new material. We’ll never know if she had more in her.

I like to believe she did. I like to believe that if she hadn’t died, she would have eventually broken free, cleaned up, gotten back in the studio, released a third album to great acclaim and toured the world, dazzling us with those bruised-velvet vocals and sharp, heartbreaking lyrics.

But now she won’t. Amy Winehouse is gone. It doesn’t make her a sudden saint, but all we can do is celebrate her talent, and cherish the music she did make.

Rest in peace, Amy.

The Best Australian Music Videos, part 2

Part Deux.

The Best Australian Music Videos, part 1

Australian music doesn't get much attention overseas. Well, apart from Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton-John and the Bee-Gees, and with the last two there's controversy about whether they're actually Aussie or not.
But there are some amazing Australian music videos too. I couldn't pick all of them - these are just a select few from my lifetime - but over 2 posts, here's 17 of them. Some are gorgeously artistic, some are sad and some are just wacky. Enjoy.

It's an Apocalypse, Let's Party!

So, obviously, the world didn't end yesterday.
I wonder if that guy in America feels really stupid now? I would've loved to have seen him standing there, all "wait for it...wait for it...wait....Oh. Darn."
My friend C came over for a sleepover last night, not because of the "apocalypse", but to watch Doctor Who together. At 6 o'clock we sat there with a packet of gummi bears between us, waiting to see if there'd actually be a giant earthquake and apocalypsey demons and all that jazz...but there was nothing. So we did a victory dance at not being dead.

But what if the world was actually going to end? I mean properly, not just based on the word of some religious extremist. What would you do? My answer is, of course, throw a giant party. Go out in style. You could do what you want with no regrets, since the world would be ending. You could watch 2012 or any other sort of apocalyptic-dystopian fiction film. And of course, you'd need a great playlist.

So, here are my musical choices for an end-of-the-world party:

Top 5 Best Musical Moments from Non-Musicals

Sounds strange, I know, but these are moments of brilliant song and dance. Yet the films they’re from aren’t musicals, which makes these displays of theatricality even more...well, theatrical. Whether they’re performances or hallucinations, this is my Top 5 (with honourable mentions). These are only from movies, though. Musical moments from TV shows is an entirely different post, which I might will definitely do later.

1.      “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” performed by Heath Ledger, Ten Things I Hate About You

I loved this movie from the moment it started, but the moment that crowned it all was this performance. Having upset Kat (Julia Stiles), Patrick (Heath Ledger) decides he must sacrifice his dignity to win her back. So while she’s on the oval doing soccer practice, he bribes the leader of the marching band, hijacks the PA system, and serenades her with “Can’t Take my Eyes Off You” from the bleachers. The whole marching band joins in, he dances wildly and continues to sing even when security tries to drag him away. A moment of pure awesomeness and one that makes you miss Heath Ledger even more.

2.       “Moon River” performed by Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The most iconic image of Audrey from BaT’s is surely the one with the jewellery and the LBD and the cigarette holder. There’s no doubt she’s glamorous as Holly Golightly. Yet this scene shows just how beautiful she is, as she sits on the fire escape in jeans and a towel-turban, plucking a guitar and singing in her thin, whispery voice. I have to admit I like the song Holly sings in the book better, but Moon River is a fantastic song. Holly looks so far away from the high-class prostitute, and you get a sense of just how lonely she really is.

3.      “La Marseillaise”, performed by every non-Nazi at Rick’s, Casablanca

Casablanca is a truly wonderful film, and this has to count as one of the most emotional scenes. In Rick’s (Humphrey Bogart) bar, German soldiers start to sing the German national anthem. The others, mostly runaways from invaded countries, begin to look disheartened. Then Laszlo orders the house band to play the French national anthem. Slowly, everyone else begins to sing. The look on their faces as they sing are breathtaking – such emotion, such patriotism, such determination. They drown out the Germans, and the audience cheers while wiping their eyes.

4.      Random Morning-After Dance, performed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and a large crowd, (500) Days of Summer

This is quite an odd movie, but I like it. Clearly, events are seen from Tom’s (JGL) point of view and this scene is the best example. After finally sleeping with Summer (Zooey Deschanel), Tom is exultantly happy to say the least. He walks down the street imaging everyone congratulating him and when he gets to the park, thing go full-on Glee-like and everyone starts dancing while “You Make My Dreams Come True” plays in the background. Then a little blue cartoon birdie flies down to see Tom. No, I’m not making that up. It’s that kind of movie.

5.      “Jai Ho”, performed by Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, and a bunch of randoms, Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is played as a straight romance-drama all the way through, but at the end it’s like the writers went ‘Damn, this is meant to be an Indian movie and we don’t have anything remotely Bollywood in it’. So, throwing conventions and possibly reality out the window, the movie ends with Jamal and Latika dancing in a train station, backed by everyone else on the platform. “Jai Ho”, a joyous song about love, fits the movie’s triumphant end well. At the end, the crowd boards the trains and Jamal and Latika walk off hand-in-hand. It’s a beautiful and somewhat unexpected way to end the film.

Honorary mentions:

·         The scene in, of all movies, Scream 2, where Derek upset by Sidney’s ‘we can’t go out because I don’t want you getting hurt’ speech earlier, sits glumly at the cafeteria table with her and two others. Suddenly, he starts singing “I Think I Love You”, quietly at first, then at full volume, jumping onto the table and being clapped by the rest of the students. Sidney, unable to resist such a declaration of love, kisses him. An unexpectedly sweet moment for a slasher flick.

·         The Plastics (and Cady) performing ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ in Mean Girls. Yet another hilarious moment in this sharp, observant, genius film.

·         In Girl, Interrupted where Susannah steals a guitar and she and Lisa sing to a locked-up Polly, trying to keep her spirits up. One of the few heart-warming moments from this wonderfully dark, thought-provoking movie.