Category Archives: Music

This week’s Music Monday is a bit different… I’m not going to link to the songs I mention because I don’t like them and don’t want to hear them at all. Sorry if you like them, people have different, inexplicable tastes (which 100% explains why my husband and youngest son like Vegemite).

Music I do not listen to:

• Anything by Ke$ha (I hate even typing her “name” and the fact that I had to google it to make sure I “spelled” it correctly)
• Pretty much all of Nickleback’s offerings; though I do sometimes find myself listening to one of their songs longer than intended and then I hear the familiar nasal, whiny stylings of the lead singers voice and off goes the song
• Most 80s hair rock – though I can sing along with almost all of them, they are just no my favorites (sorry, Sandy) but I do love the power ballads (my goodness can those bands rock the power ballads – e.g., Poison’s “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn”).
• Phil Collins, Genesis and Rod Stewart (all of these my husband will listen to which I find strange and disturbing given he also loves AC/DC but then, I love David Gray and [sometimes] Eminem, not to mention a few selections by Sugarland and Kid Rock)
• “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly (also don’t really care for R. Kelly as a person, but that’s another thing)
• “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson (though I did love “Man in the Mirror,” “Smooth Criminal,” “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” back in the day; did not love the video for “Thriller,” which gave me nightmares – thanks, Marty – but still am okay with the song itself)
• A variety of late 90s club/dance hits: “Macarena” (Los Del Rio), “Tub Thumping” (Chumbawumba), “Barbie Girl” (Aqua), “The Thong Song” (Sisqo) [this doesn’t mean I didn’t listen to them back in the day, but I’ve done my time with them and can now move on]
• And, also Kanye West because I think he is a tool.

What songs do you refuse to listen to?

And to cleanse the palate, a song I do like:

Half Moon | Blind Pilot [and I will admit to you that I heard it on the series finale of One Tree Hill and that’s all I’m going to say about that, it’s a good song]

Some Nights | fun.

Lights | Ellie Goulding [actually downloaded the whole album because it was only $5 on Amazon, and I mostly like it]

Stereo Hearts | Gym Class Heroes w/Adam Levine

Let My Love Open the Door | Pete Townshend [did anyone else know that’s how you spell his last name? I did not.]

Nothing Left to Lose | Mat Kearney [I love everything I’ve ever heard by Mat Kearney]

I’ve made a handful of mixed CDs for friends who are/were expecting or who had recently had babies (I love mixed CDs, or mixed tapes as I used to make back in the day). I tend to customize them with music appropriate to the person I’m giving the CD and whether or not they are having a girl/boy, etc… but there are a handful of songs I always include…

New Soul | Yael Naïm

You Are the Best Thing | Ray Lamontagne

The Luckiest | Ben Folds (sorry for the sound quality – but it’s LIVE and I’ve shared this before here)

Something in the Way She Moves | James Taylor (obs. for a girl)

Pink Moon | Nick Drake

You’re the World to Me | David Gray

I saw The Hunger Games twice this weekend – once with my girlfriends on Saturday night and again on Sunday with Simon. I had told him that if I liked it, I’d go see it again with him and I guess you can deduce that I liked it.

Here’s my take: both the book and movie are excellent but the book is definitely superior. The movie had to boil down a whole lot of content into nearly 2.5 hours and it still felt fast. It probably could have been well served with some voice over to explain things you wouldn’t get until you’d read the books (like: Peeta is not as toolish as he appears to be in the movie). And it turns out I liked all the main characters so much more in the movie than I did in the first book, despite Peeta’s toolishness. But my husband, who hasn’t read the books, very much liked the movie and got what was going on so you can see the movie without first reading the books – though it’s definitely a movie for a more mature audience since the premise is centered around a fight to the death between 24 12-to-18 year olds. Please do not take your ten-year-old to see it unless you want them to be upset and have nightmares.

Side note: Despite the books being targeted at a mainly teenage and female audience (though certainly they appeal across the board), the previews for the movie were definitely going for the male 20-30 audience which made my friends and I laugh since we typically don’t get to see previews for action movie when we go out to a movie together.

Here are a couple of songs from the soundtrack (though not actually played in the movie, so I’m not sure they can call this a soundtrack).

Kingdom Come | The Civil Wars

Safe & Sound | Taylor Swift with The Civil Wars

And just because I find it funny and it’s a play on Rihanna’s lyrics to “We Found Love.”

First Concert I Ever Went To
Eternal Flame | Bangles

Second Concert I Ever Went To
Come As You Are | Nirvana

First CD I Owned
Jeremy | Pearl Jam

First Celebrity I Ever Met (and Then Watched Perform This Song)
Slide | Goo Goo Dolls

First Time I Ever Made Out With a Boy
One | U2

First Song Simon and I Both Loved
Open Skies | David Crowder Band

First Dance With My Husband
At Last | Etta James