Monday, December 24, 2012

A Summary

Winter Break is a thing of beauty. Especially when a certain long term project has taken all your time away from your music blog.

Back to music. During my unfortunate hiatus, the music world did not deign to pause (and it should not) for me. There have been truckloads of new artists, singles, releases, so I'm going to take a moment to share the ones that have stuck out for me when I first heard them.

Nikki Williams - Kill, Fuck, Marry - At first I was all like "This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen" and was SO not into it. Ditto when the opening stanza came on. From then on, it was clear sailing. The fact that she's classically gorgeous and the video is such a cliche Americana thing only helps.

Nikki Williams - Glowing - I know it looks like I have Nikki Williams Music Obsession disease or something (NWMO for short) but this song is amazing. First off, it's so different from Kill, Fuck, Marry, and when I first listened, I was blown. Away. The chorus is dancy enough to be categorized as pop, but the rest isn't sugary or cheesy or stupid. Loving this.

Colette Carr - F16 - Yes, this song has been out for ages. Yes, I probably have Colette Carr Music Obsession disease (CCMO for your reference), but I just think that everyone should be aware of and love the music video. Part of what I loe is that as a video, it's so radically different from everything else Colette has done. She's done the pool party with the almost naked girls and old creepy guy, the insane asylum inmate, the rapping by the railroad tracks, the looking cute while skipping down the street, the blonde bombshell from Grease, the bejeweled bodysuit. The classic video about a boyfriend she loved and lost? It's new territory, and done as well as one would expect of Colette (meaning she climbs all over a plane, not like we could expect her to be normal).

Janet Devlin - Wonderful/Crown Of Thorns - Wonderful and Crown Of Thorns are actually two different songs included in the same video. The song Wonderful, while not fully played, promises to be a fun song, though not necessarily pop-py. Crown of Thorns reminds me a bit of her on the X Factor, ans while I like it less that Wonderful, it is appropriately dramatic and is very cool.

April Kae - The Writings on the Wall - I don't really know what I was expecting when I clicked the link to April's song, but it was not this. Perhaps a sassy woman pretending to be Gwen Stefani, yes? Awkward, because no. Nothing about her is similar to Gwen, least of all her voice. The one thing that bothers me is how she's singing that beautiful song and ends up dancing to it in a club, of all places.

Dragonette - Merry Xmas - I shouldn't have to explain. To anyone averse to Christmas songs for whatever reason, don't worry about it. It has a Dragonette twist that expels it from the realm of Christmas songs forever.

Jhameel - Shadow of a Man - Half great, half bizarre. I don't quite understand what's going on, but okay!

Chris Cab - Good Girls (Don't Grow On Trees) - I have to admit the title inclined me to the song. And when there is a rap song that has pop moments as well, then I'm a goner.  Of course, this song is better than most that fall under that description. Furthermore, I usually don't pay much attention to lyrics (funnily enough, I can't pay attention when I'm listening to something, unless it's music) but the lyrics to this song are gold.

Christina Aguilera - Army of Me - Oh yeah...that's why she's a judge on The Voice...

Sirah - Double Yellow Lines - until the chorus, I did not like this song, but for the sake of fair judgement, I kept going, and I know love this song and plan to buy it as soon as I earn 99 cents.

Obviously, there is so much more. But over the past few months, this is what really stuck out in my mind - must be better than the rest of the stuff, right?