Category: Music

SPOTIFY WRAPPED FINALLY DROPPED FOR 2022 AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER.

If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I’m going to look forward to my yearly Spotify wrapped. For anyone unaware of what Spotify Wrapped is, it’s a feature that the music streaming platform, Spotify, has in which every year the user gets a recap of their most streamed songs, favorite artists, and most listened-to genre. I firmly believe that you can tell a lot about a person based on their taste in music and Spotify wrapped definitely tells me a lot about myself. For instance, I am now aware that I listened to “Mirrorball” by Taylor Swift 56 times this year, and honestly, that makes me proud because I thought that number was going to be a lot higher. So good for me. Moving on, I think that Spotify wrapped is a really cool feature that brings people closer together. Not only do I look forward to seeing my Spotify wrapped, but I also look forward to seeing my friends’ yearly wraps. There’s a joke on social media where every year before wrapped comes out, people post about not caring about anyone else’s Spotify wrapped and how we don’t need to blow up the feed with everyone’s most streamed songs. To that I say, I CARE ABOUT YOUR SPOTIFY WRAPPED. Please post them. Send them to me, and talk to me about them because I absolutely adore hearing about the music that people love. I think that it’s precious that we all have different types of music that we love and I love when I find other people that like the same artist or song, it feels like a hug. Another really cool thing about the yearly wrap is seeing all the songs you listen to the most throughout the year in a single playlist. One of my favorite things to do is put the playlist on shuffle and just see what plays. There are times that I’ve done this and the most random song that I had completely forgotten about will play and bring with it a whole flood of memories.

To conclude, I love Spotify wrapped season and if you know me please share your Spotify wrapped with me, I would love to see them!

Recently, The 1975 released new music and it’s been a big hit. Though, the most popular new song by far is “About You”. This is for obvious reasons, and I’m fully convinced that this may just be one of the prettiest songs that makes me feel the most unexplainable emotions of both love and sadness.

The entire song is about a man recounting his love that has obviously ended. He talks about how there is a place he goes, presumably a place the couple used to go together, to remember them and what they once were. He talks about the conversations that they would have if they were still together. He then goes on to ask the question “Do you think I had forgotten?”, asking the partner if they really thought that their relationship and themselves had been forgotten about so easily. He then goes on to continue reminiscing on their relationship and how he still finds himself holding on to the hope that they may one day find their way back to each other. After this, we launch into perhaps my favorite part of the song and I just have to show yall these lyrics:

“There was something about you that now I can’t remember
It’s the same damn thing that made my heart surrender
And I’ll miss you on a train
I’ll miss you in the morning
I never know what to think about
I think about you
About you“

To be dramatic for a second: every time I hear these lyrics I want to do a multitude of things, including but not limited to twirling, dancing, sobbing, collapsing to the floor, singing, clutching my heart, and fall in love. I want these lyrics to be played in the tv show of my life at a significant moment and I want to think of someone and have someone think of me.

Now we don’t have time to unpack all of that, but you get what I mean. I’m obsessed with the idea of there forever being something special about a person that once they’re gone, you can never quite put your finger on what it was about them but you know that it was there. The way that there is just something about certain people in our lives that stay with us and haunt us long after that person leaves our lives. And the way that that thing haunting us is both painful and comforting because even though they’re gone now, they were there at some point and this unidentifiable thing is ironically one of the only parts of recognition you have left of them. It’s poetic and painful and really beautiful.

Movies, TV shows, and video games make up a large part of what people enjoy consuming in their free time. I am most certainly one of those people, but I think a big and often overlooked part of why we love them so much has to do with the incredible soundtracks that help make them so memorable. I want you to think about your favorite movie right now. Now, go look up the soundtrack of that movie and listen to it. I bet you can remember each scene that goes with each song. I just think that it’s super cool, that people can create music with no words whatsoever and yet still convey a story and a message. Soundtracks can make or break the thing that they are representing. If franchises such as the MCU had bad music to associate with their movies, they wouldn’t be as recognizable or popular as they are today. The same goes for things like Stranger Things. The soundtrack for that franchise is so wildly popular that now when people hear any type of electronic music, more often than not they call it “stranger things music”. The main one that most people recognize is “Kids” and it’s recognizable within the first few notes. My favorite soundtracks of all time have to be the ones that go along with video games. Games such as Skyrim or Dragon Age have such distinct styles to their music that I can tell you what exact level the songs on the soundtrack correlate to. I can tell you which songs go with which settings and characters. That’s the true beauty of soundtracks. They make up part of the bigger picture of the entire project. Without them, the final product would always feel incomplete.

In honor of Taylor swift releasing her new album Midnights, I decided that I wanted to blog about some of her songs that have had an impact on me. (I’m talking about, altering my brains chemicals, type of impact here). Some I have a lot to say and others I feel like I’ll never be able to put my love for them into words.

• “You Belong With Me”
  • This is the first song I remember being absolutely obsessed with, so its only right that this list starts with it. I vividly remember sitting in my room, with my little pink mp3 player, playing this song over and over, memorizing all of the words. To this day, whenever I hear this song, suddenly I’m that little girl in her childhood bedroom, screaming about being in love even though she has no clue what that means. I think she’d be happy to know that this song still makes me happy to this day,
• “Champagne Problems”
  • We all have our champagne problems, I think that thats why this song is so impactful to me. I’ve listened to in in multiple seasons fo my life and each time it means something different to me. You see this one gets me because of how painful the lyrics are. “Soon they’ll have the nerve to deck the halls that we once walked through” and “”She would’ve made such a lovely bride. What a shame she’s ****** in the head, ” they said. But you’ll find the real thing instead. She’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred” makes me wanna scream every time I hear it. The emotional rawness of accepting the fact that we can inflict pain on people who love us and then we just have to move on with our lives matched with still having a love for them and wanting them to live a great life is beautiful and painful and I love and hate it at the same time.
• “It’s Time To Go”
  • I listened to this song as I drove away from my hometown to move away for college and when I tell ya’ll that it was an emotional one. “The snaps from the same little breaks in your soul. You know when it’s time to go” is so relatable. You can love something to death but it still puts so much weight on you that you can feel yourself aching from it. The whole course about how giving up and running can be the strong and brave option is incredibly validating when it comes to leaving someone, something, or a place that you love. It takes strength to leave, with nothing except for the hope that there is a brighter future waiting for you on the other side.
• “Cardigan”
  • This song is an emotional rollercoaster. The way Taylor compares herself to an article of clothing that brings a sense of comfort to someone who loves her will always make me feel something. And then the insinuation that that person leaves, “I knew you tried to change the ending, Peter loosing Wendy.” and the pain and anger that follows with being left. I don’t even have the words to describe that. “You drew stars around my scars but now I’m bleeding” is quite literally poetry and keeps me awake at night. All of this ending in that love that left coming back and finding the same comfort that was there before because love doesn’t just completely go away. It lingers like an old cardigan that you forgot about and once you put it on again you feel so much better. This song is beautiful.
• “Mad Woman”
  • This song is for the girls who feel a little jaded. Like broken glass or a storm that has been kept in a bottle. This song is for the girls who got called crazy. It’s for the girls who notice the little details. The ones who defend their friends because they’ve been in their situation. The ones who won’t let anyone treat them like a doormat ever again. The ones who can’t fit into their old frame that they were forced into.
• “Mirrorball”
  • I have such a strong emotional attachment to this song. It’s a beautiful song about how we are beautiful because of our brokenness. It’s about how we use that brokenness to bring joy to others. Performing for others in spite of our own pain. The lyrics “I’ve never been a natural all I do is try, try, try.” give me a feeling I can’t quite put into words. In short, it’s me. I’m the mirror ball. But at the end of the day, aren’t we all?
• “The Archer”
  • This song is for my girlies with imposter syndrome. I love how Taylor acknowledges the duality of heartbreak in this song by calling herself the archer and the prey. Singing about how sometimes we hurt people that love us, but hurting them hurts us too. Neither side of heartbreak is an easy one to be on. And the part of the song where sings about being see through and worrying that the one she loves can see right through makes me scream along in my car every time without fail. We all try and have this facade around us, and when we meet someone who see’s through it, it’s scary.

I have about 20 more songs that I could put on this list, but if I did that we’d be here for weeks. Needless to say, I’m very excited for Taylor’s new album and you can for sure expect a post all about it!

All my love,

-Lexi

When I tell y’all that I love 4 men from an Australian band called 5 Seconds of Summer…I mean that.

I’ve been an avid 5SOS (5 Seconds of Summer) fan since I was a 4th grader listening to “She Looks So Perfect” (Which, in hindsight, I may have been too young to really understand). Now, I’m sitting in my dorm room as a college freshman listening to their 5th album, 5SOS5. It’s been absolutely crazy to grow up with their music and hear how their sound has changed in the 8 years I’ve been listening to them. Each of their albums has such a distinct and unique sound to it, so leading up to their newest albums release date, I was really interested to see where they went with their sound this time and what kind of story they were trying to tell. When I listened to it for the first time, I fell in love with the entire album. Each song is different and means something unique. You have soft and slow songs like “Older” and then fast paced, upbeat songs like “Caramel”. There are songs that make me want to drive around and scream them at the top of my lungs, and then there are songs that make me wanna curl up in my bed and sob (in the best possible way of course). This album sounds different from their older ones, it definitely leans more into the pop side rather than the usual “punk” that the older fans are used to. That being said, this album definitely isn’t your usual main stream pop music, and I really appreciate the fresh sound that the band has put out. Especially in a time where music seems to be following safer patterns than normal.

I think that the main story that the boys were trying to tell with this, is one of growth and that while its exciting and leads you to great places, it’s a scary journey that can hurt and you’ll loose people along the way. Growing up is terrifying, but in the end, the people that matter are going to stay by your side. This album really shows how far these boys have come from being a punk pop band, singing about girls that are out of their league and getting famous, to a group of men who have learned lessons and found their way along side each other.

My favorite songs from the album really depends on my mood. The song “Haze” has become one that I always have on repeat. It absolutely can not skip that song. It has an incredibly unique sound that we haven’t heard from them. I also love the songs “Bleach” and “Red Line” because of the lyrics and the rawness of the lyrics, will definitely be screaming those at some point while driving in my car.

At the end of the day, I personally believe that it’s impossible for this band to miss. They’ve been making incredible music since day one, so I had no doubt that this album was going to be amazing and I was 100% correct. Anyways, go stream 5SOS5 by an Australian band called 5 Seconds of Summer.

All my love,

-Lexi

I do this weird thing were I associate different songs and the way they sound with different seasons. Sometimes it’s because I listened to that song for the first time during that season, other times it’s just the overall general feeling the song gives off. As we get closer to my favorite time of the year, it comes time for me to break out my fall playlist. Little fact about me, I’m passionate about good music and sharing good music, so I thought, why not make this post about my favorite songs to listen to as we go into autumn?

(Disclaimer: These explanations are so strange and I apologize for that, also these are just my opinions, take em’ of leave em’)

• Head Over Heels – Tears for Fears
  • The love I have in my heart for this song is enough that I literally can not skip this song anytime it comes on. The 80’s produced some of the best music in the world and I love them for that. Anyways, this song is on repeat always, but especially as the temperature drops and I get to start wearing sweaters again.
  • Fav lyric: “Something happens and I’m head over heels, I never find out, until I’m head over heels.”
• Autumn Town Leaves – Iron & Wine
  • Autumn is literally in the title and you expect me not to associate it with fall? However, they could’ve named it something completely different and it would still be on this list. This song is walking through your campus with a hot drink in your hand and watching the leaves fall from the trees. It nostalgic and simple and I adore it.
  • Fav lyric: “Song birds only end up where they’re going.”
• We Fell In Love In October – girl in red
  • The title pretty much explains this one, but besides from that, the song has an upbeat but chill feeling to it. It’s hopeful and sweet and really does make me want to fall in love in October, so good job naming the song!
  • fav lyric: “Don’t bother looking down, we’re not going that way, at least I know, I am here to say”
• Light My Love – Greta Van Fleet
  • This song is the embodiment of fall. I think I feel this way because I vividly remember listening to it around a campfire with my friends last year but that’s besides the point. I love this song and it makes me think of leaves changing colors and cars flying down roads kicking up said leaves.
  • Fav lyric: “Your mind is a steam of colors, extending beyond our sky.”
• Rosyln – Bon Iver, St. Vincent
  • Okay I know what you’re thinking, “she put this on here because of Twilight: New Moon” and to that I say, you are only partially correct and in my defense in that movie it constantly looks like fall. But for real, this song is a cool autumn night under the stars and your can’t convince me otherwise.
  • Fav lyric: “When’d this just become a mortal home? Won’t won’t won’t, won’t, won’t let you talk me. Won’t let you talk me down.”
• Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell
  • This song is the ultimate halloween/spooky season song and nobody can convince me otherwise. It genuinely is one of the most catchy songs I’ve ever heard and it makes me feel like I’m the main character in a season of Stranger Things.
  • Fav lyric: “I always feel like somebody’s watching me. Tell me is it just a dream?”
• Dark Red – Steve Lacy
  • This song feels like walking to class on a brisk day with headphones in and a warm drink in your hand. I just think Steve Lacy’s voice is so pretty and theres just something about his music that screams “fall” to me.
  • Fav lyric: “Don’t you give me up, please don’t give up. Honey I belong, with you, only you, baby.”
• Stick Season – Noah Kahan
  • I actually adore this song with my whole heart. Something about the vocals and the guitar will forever make me think of leaves falling off of trees and the lyrics will always make me think of the changing of the seasons. It’s actually so hard for me to pick a favorite lyric because the entire song is just that good.
  • Fav lyric: “And I’ll dream each night of some version of you, that I might not have but I did not lose.”
• Sit Down Beside Me – Patrick Watson
  • If you want to listen to a sweet song that sounds like leaves changing color and fresh air then this is the song for you. Instrumental used in it, but especially the piano, is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever heard.
  • Fav Lyric: “Sit down beside me and stay awhile. Til’ the night runs away. Til’ the morning rises and we part our ways. Til’ the end of our days.”

There are undoubtably about a hundred more songs I could write about that make me feel the way fall feels, but instead if listening them all out for you here, I’m just going to link my Spotify playlist because I feel like that saves all of us some time. Happy listening!

All my love,

-Lexi