Monthly music, September 2017

Had a decent amount of time to listen to music this last month which was a nice change but I don’t expect it to continue.

Total plays

1,452 – only 36 short of the last two months plays combined and an average of 48 a day, although a couple days with about eight hours of music probably helped that number more than consistency.

Artists

1. Neck Deep – 165 plays

2. Arctic Monkeys – 51 plays

3. Enter Shikari – 44 plays

4.Anti-Flag – 30 plays

4. Jeff Williams – 30 plays

4. Lama-ajan lapset – 30 plays

A couple newcomers and a landslide top spot for Neck Deep. I was absolutely obsessed with their newest album and I couldn’t stop myself from listening it through completely multiple times. I also figured I’d give an Enter Shikari album a chance since it’s one of those bands that I’ve always kinda liked but never really actively listened to. Lama-ajan lapset is a punk band from Turku which I heard about from a friend in the army, and I immediately fell in love with one of their songs.

Songs

1. Neck Deep – In Bloom, 20 plays. I don’t quite know how to start describing these songs because 4 of the top 5 songs are from the same album and you can only say “a pop-punk masterpiece” in so many ways. Anyway In Bloom is the most popular song from the album and although I wouldn’t automatically give it the title of best song on the album, it makes a very good case for itself to be called that.

2. Neck Deep – Parachute, 19 plays. This is one of the chiller songs from the album and the first song to really capture my attention on the initial listen of the whole album while being the fourth song from it.

3. Lama-ajan lapset – Pommittakaa Vatikaani, 18 plays. This is almost too fun of a song to listen to, it’s just a great combination of not too serious lyrics (or very serious if taken seriously) and sweet instrumentals. The chorus goes: pommittakaa Vatikaani, aloitetaan ydinsota, USA c’mon! From Russia with love. The Finnish parts translate ‘Bomb the Vatican, let’s start a nuclear war’. The rest of the lyrics are equally awesome and the way they’re delivered just adds to it.

3. Neck Deep – Where do we go when we go, 18 plays. The final song of the amazing album with some great lyrics, perhaps my favorite song from the album. It’s so upbeat and easy to listen to and makes you want to binge through the whole album again immediately.

3. Neck Deep – The Grand Delusion, 18 plays. Okay I may have run out of ways to describe this album and the songs on it but surely I’ve convinced you it’s worth a listen by now? I know it’s claimed a spot on my top albums of all time list but you should judge it yourself and maybe find an unexpected love for pop-punk.

Other stuff

Anti-Flag’s two new singles have been great but so very different from past Anti-Flag songs. American attraction doesn’t sound like any A-F song I’ve heard before but it’s got a very catchy riff to it. Their new album seems to be called American fall which is quite clever because it’s a pretty obvious reference to a certain election result (it is Anti-Flag after all) but also because their last album was called American Spring. Really looking froward to the full release after only really liking two songs from American Spring.

Monthly Music, June 2017

Last update before army, not that these were too frequent anyway.

Total plays

2,482 – That’s about 159 hours or six and a half days. I did a whole lot of nothing all June which gave me more than enough time to listen to tunes, mostly while playing games.

Artists

578 unique artists with the coveted top 5 being:

1. Jeff Williams – 134 plays

2. Sabaton – 107

3. In Flames – 67

4. Arctic Monkeys – 58

5. Anti-Flag – 54

High numbers this month, top spot goes to Jeff Williams thanks to the release of RWBY volume 4 soundtrack which has a couple top tunes and is a great album overall. Sabaton also cracked 100 plays which is impressive, I wanted to prepare for seeing them live and it worked perfectly for memorizing lyrics. I saw them on Thursday (29th) and they were amazing. I also saw Haloo Helsinki, which just missed the list, along with couple other great artists. And since the last three are on the list constantly I’ll instead mention Smokey Joe & The Kid which I discovered recently and really liked, I’m especially liking their song mister nice guy and recommend checking it out.

Songs

1,132 different tracks, top 5:

1. Parkway Drive – Vice Grip, 21 plays. Pretty much just a great metal song I was addicted to at the beginning of the month, on June 2nd alone I listened to it six times.

2. Jeff Williams – Let’s Just Live, 20 plays. A highly addictive song that I love, along with the next song this is my current favorite of RWBY v4 soundtrack. That usually changes every couple months after the latest release so we may see more from this soundtrack.

3. Jeff Williams – Armed And Ready, 19 plays. I pretty much just queued these two back to back whenever listening to these, so I’m just going to say that this song too is highly addictive and awesome. Also a great punny name, which I totally missed at first (this won’t make any sense if you haven’t seen the show).

4. Pain – Black Knight Satellite, 15 plays. Another great metal song. This one was described as conspiracy metal when I first heard it and the lyrics definitely back that up. Chalk up another one on the list of genres that should totally be a thing because of one awesome example.

5. Beartooth – In Between, 13 plays. This one has a great and I mean great chorus. Not sure if this counts as metal or rock but who cares, very summery song in my opinion so get it while it’s hot.

5. FamilyJules – Live And Learn, 13 plays. Sonic soundtracks are notoriously good, or at least a meme at the moment so what’s better than an awesome metal cover of an already great song, can’t think of many things personally. Either way Jules shreds some serious shreddage on this shred-fest of a tune, wow that’s a sentence.

Other stuff

I already mentioned Sabaton but I can’t overstate how hyped I was during it. First row is definitely the way to go when injecting metal to your ears. They played White Death, Soldier of Three Armies and Talvisota, their Finland related songs and the crowd was wild, I also have to mention that the intro to Swedish Pagans was indescribably awesome. This further proves to me that Swedish music is the best kind to experience live but if you were unsure about that and have a chance, go for it. Since I already mentioned Smokey Joe & The Kid I’m done for now.

Monthly Music, April 2017

Here’s for a more active month of blogging *crosses fingers*. Although I didn’t really update the blog in April, I did listen to a bunch of music.

Total plays

2,120 – Somewhere around 133 hours or five and a half days. The first half of the month I didn’t listen to as much music but seems like the second half made up for it.

Artists

584 different artists – which is the most for a month so far, cool. Once again let’s dive into the top 5.

1. In Flames – 72 plays

2. Arctic Monkeys – 64

3. Jeff Williams – 57

4. A Day to Remember – 45

5. Anti-Flag – 35

The three month (probably a lot longer unrecorded) reign of Arctic Monkeys has seen its end. In Flames takes the top spot, it was a pretty metal heavy month for me, led by the Swedes. Jeff Williams makes a return after not making the cut last time while ADTR is starting a streak. Anti-Flag is one of my all time favorite bands so it’s kind of surprising that this is the first time it has made the list.

Songs

I listened to more different songs last month than any other so far this year – 1,022. Interestingly enough there’s a three way tie for the top spot.

1. A Day to Remember – All sings point to Lauderdale, 20 plays. This song was a Spotify suggestion for me in late March and it was my favorite new song to listen to in April, hands down. It has the ADTR energy you’d think it would which results in a mood boosting tune.

1. 30 Seconds to Mars – The Kill, 20 plays. This is a blast from the past, it was actually on the same list of suggestions from Spotify as All sings point to Lauderdale but I was very familiar with this one from (checks Google) 2005. You could say it had been a while, it totally holds up if you’re wondering.

1. Amon Amarth – Twilight of the thunder God, 20 plays. Remember when I said it was a metal heavy month led by Swedes for me? It wasn’t just In Flames, this song is a melodic death metal masterpiece and I can not recommend it enough if you like metal music.

4. Stone Sour – Through Glass, 19 plays. Another song that I had kind of forgotten about. This song was pretty often the last one I listened to each day because it felt fitting so often. I recommend singing along to this one because it’s both doable and a ton of fun.

5. 3 Doors Down – Believer, 17 plays. This one is pretty much just a fun rock song with a great riff that also falls in the category of songs I heard a long time ago, it seems like that kind of a month. It’s also less than three minutes which makes it very replayable.

5. Owl City – Rugs from me to you, 17 plays. Did I say that a less than three minute song was replayable? How about a song less than 90 seconds? I’ll answer that myself: you won’t realize how many times you can listen to this in a row just to enjoy the cleverly punny lyrics coupled with upbeat tunes.

Other random stuff

The number of plays for the top songs and artists were lower than before which was due to the larger number of different artists/songs than usual, I’m a fan of variety so I like that. I started tracking what I listen to on Spotify via Last.fm on December 16th last year, I passed 1000 different artists recently (last week I believe) which, being someone who likes milestones, I thought was really cool.

Some neat covers

I love a good cover so I figured why not share some of my current favorites.

 

Starting with one of my favorite discoveries from last year Steve ‘n’ Seagulls are a Finnish cover band whose style I love. They turned a punk rock song to bluegrass with great success. I love hearing covers that are completely different from the original song and this one definitely is. I actually like this more than the original but their style might not be for you.

If that’s the case maybe you’ll enjoy this one…

Sticking with Finnish bands but essentially making a U-turn in terms of cover style. Pop songs turned into metal are a rare treat and even more rarely do they sound this good. I had no idea I needed a metal version of Oops I did it again before hearing this but holy cow do I love it. I’m honestly not too familiar with Children of Bodom but I’ve tried getting into them after hearing this masterpiece.

 

This might be my favorite of the bunch. A super chill kalimba version of a pop-punk song with a cute dog in the video too, unfortunately it’s only 50 seconds long.

 

The original version of this is probably the only Justin Bieber song I like and this high-energy rock version is even better. This guy has a bunch of great covers, mashups and such on his channel so if you like this one I’d suggest checking it out.

 

Memes, right. Love ’em or hate ’em they pretty often touch on music. I’m not a huge fan of the 7000 different meme versions of a song, but using dog barks to recreate Feel Good Inc.? That I can get behind.

 

It was pretty difficult to pick this song, I knew I wanted to show a Luna cover but didn’t know which one. Kind of wanted to go with Feel Good Inc. but you probably know why I didn’t.

 

Okay so this is a medley and not a cover per se but it’s amazing anyway. I love video games and video game music so I couldn’t not include it. It’s pretty long but it’s definitely worth watching.