Thought I’d do a broad range of musical styles… in acoustic. Sometimes too many instruments get in the way of hearing the purity of the voice and the lyrics. Sometimes, simple is just better.
You might wonder why I include so much music on this website. It is an author’s site, after all. However, I listen to music all the time when I write. And I choose different music for writing different things. Having a little background noise helps to focus my brain and my attention on what I am writing. It just works out that way for me. Which is why there is music on my site.
Too Close by Alex Clare
Ellie Goulding- Lights as performed on the Ryan Seacrest show
Gone through a lot of musical genres. Can’t leave out classical. Some of you may not appreciate it. But seriously, you can’t be a well-rounded music head without listening and liking some of it even if it’s only Mozart.
First up is Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overature with FULL canons. Awesomeness. Really.
Next up is Ravel’s Bolero. Not my fav of his, but the most easily found on the internet. And I couldn’t call myself a Romance writer without one of the great Romance composers in my musical list.
Esthero is probably one of my all time favorite singers. Ever. Her Breath from Another CD is in my top 10 CDs of all time. I would take it with me anywhere. Her voice can be sultry or bright. And while she has good musicians playing with her. She can rock the songs A Capella and they would STILL ROCK. Here are a few songs I really like. Enjoy!
This first one is with the illustrious Cee-Lo Green
This one is from her Breath From Another album.
This is from her latest album Everything is Expensive.
A few albums helped get me through law school. P.M. Dawn cut the Bliss album during that time period. I used to listen to the CD over and over again. So much so I had to buy a second CD because I messed up the first one listening to it so much. So many good memories. So here are a few P.M. Dawn songs from that album. Enjoy
Gonna rock out this week. I’m writing about drivers, rock stars and kick ass women. Need some tunes that get me in that groove. A little Incubus, Linkin Park and Foo Fighters should fit the bill. These are some of my favs. Incubus and the Foo Fighters each get one song. Linkin Park gets two. One is by themselves. One is with some rappers. I love when genres mix it up. I could add a whole bunch from Linkin Park but gotta keep the post from getting too big. lol
April showers bring May flowers. And since I can’t get the weather to cooperate, I can, at least, get the music to cooperate. Here are some songs of summer. Again, in a variety of genres. Don’t be put off because one isn’t the kind you would listen to normally. They will all make you smile. The first three have Summer in the title. The last one doesn’t. I just added it because I like it. It’s Queen Latifah from when she released her Dana Owens album. Dana Owens is her name and she can sing. The song is California Dreamin’ and it still makes me think of summer. And as an aside, I would have added Jimmy Buffett to the to the list but then I would have had to add all his songs, or most of them. 😉
Some music evokes certain feelings. And certain feelings lend themselves to certain types of music. Genre isn’t just about books.
My mom died almost two years ago this month. I miss her terribly. Most times the loss of her is a momentary punch in the gut. Other times, I wallow in how much I miss her, how heart broken I am that she is gone.
There is something about blues and jazz that just naturally fits when I am feeling sad. Normally, I listen to male and female jazz and blues singers/performers. But when it’s about my mom, I turn to women singing. It just seems fitting.
And while these aren’t the exact songs I listen to when I am sad about my mom, I hope you enjoy the following selections of Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James.
Today is Music Monday. It also happens to be Tax Day. Geez, if there ever needs to be a day for music, it has tax day, yeah? Not just to help start off the week on a good note, but to help with the pain that today represents for most people. Seriously, if you don’t get your taxes done today, at least send in an extension.
I came to the whole Radiohead phenomena late. My first album of theirs that I listened to was Kid A. I loved it. It was something that was different and new. Everyone had been talking about them for a while. Radiohead was still getting used to their success. They went from virtually unknown to known in like a day. It was crazy. So for your listening pleasure, I found a youtube of Kid A.
Now the other artist that I am throwing up here couldn’t be more different from Radiohead. I have been digging on Rihanna. The first is her and Eminem, Love the Way you Lie. The video has a real young Megan Fox. The second is her new song Stay feat. Mikko Ekko. All this music is kinda sad in its own way. They have stories within them. Not all of them good. But even with taxes due today, there are some things that are even worse. Yeah?
Starting out the week can be hard. After the laid back weekend, being a work week is for most people, me included, a craptastic thing to do. But I think that music can make anything better. So in my quest to find a way to make Mondays better, I decided to start the work week with a song or two.
Yesterday I went shopping for some trees for my yard. I no longer live in a housing development that is regulated by a homeowners association, which is GREAT. But I do live in a city that has pretty strict regulations about how many trees have to be in my yard. I will take the tree regulation over the crazy homeowners association Nazis any day of the week. I got two apple trees cause I love apples. they are dwarf trees so they will not grow as big a regular apple trees. And I had to buy two because they aren’t self-pollinating. The bees in my areas haven’t been decimated by whatever is going on with bees in other parts of the country so I am GRATEFUL for that. The bees will pollinate my trees and I will hopefully have apples. Not expecting them this year but maybe next year I will get a small crop of them.
I also got two cherry blossom trees. Because they are a big deal where I live now. We even have cherry blossom festivals and the like. So I decided to get in the spirit and get a couple for my yard. Again, I am hoping that next year my trees will bloom as the festival gets underway. Like they belong to the group of other cherry blossom trees.
Not wanting to stop there and because I had 5 trees die last year, I picked up a red leaf maple as well. I wanted my tree leaves to have some variety. Green leaves, yellow leaves and red leaves now adorn my yard. And I don’t mean for fall when all the tree leaves naturally change color. But during spring and summer as a natural part of their foliage costume. I did this because one of the things I really like about fall is the changing color of the leaves. But I wanted it for the whole growing season. And with the different types of trees available that have different color leaves, it totally is.
So how does this all tie into music you ask. Well, as I was browsing different green houses and tree farms yesterday, they had music piping through the area. And some oldies but goodies were playing. It made shopping for trees that much more fun. And what should be playing but some Red Hot Chili Peppers. Awesomeness right? It got my Sunday going GREAT. So I am looking at my new trees this morning and I have some RHCP playing as I look at them. Somehow as I look at my trees and listen to some music, Monday doesn’t seem so bad.
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If you are over 18, please enjoy!!
