Songs of 2017 so far

Hello everyone.

In this blog, I am concerning on what songs I like in 2017. Music in 2017 has been interesting and refreshing to listen to, various newbies and loads of YouTube views.

Martin Jensen – Solo Dance

I actually just heard it for the first time at the start of September and brought the single on iTunes. It was so random how I found out the song, I was flicking through The Hits channel at home on a Saturday night. I just love the song, it is very upbeat and very fresh, it has a Jonas Blue feel to it.

 

Anne Marie – Ciao Adios

This is more of a popular song choice. I didn’t really like it at first off but until recently I got listening to it and I quite interested in listening to it again (it must have been Ed Sheeran). The song has a meaning. I hope somewhere along the line, the right girl comes eventually and relatively soon.

 

Calvin Harris feat Pharrel Williams, Katy Perry and Big Sean – Feels

This for me is an all star pairing, you have the top DJ in the world (Calvin Harris), one of the best songwriters (Pharrell Williams), one of the best female vocalists (Katy Perry) and a guy who can mix it up with some hip hop (Big Sean). This song is so suited to a summer party or a chilled party somewhere. This group can easily make a supergroup.

 

Paramore – Hard Times

When I heard this song, I was so excited to see Paramore back again (especially Hayley). I was expecting Paramore to return to their Pop-Punk roots but this is so different to what they have done in the past but it mixes quite well. I have been listening to the song since April and I’m not tired of listening to it.

 

Rat Boy –  Laid Back

This is a song that takes me to why I like listening to the Indie/Alternative genre. That is why I love this song, I am laid back about listening to this song and that doesn’t bother me. Although this isn’t going to be a mainstream song that is going to be on the UK TOP 40 but this song is attractable.

 

Miley Cyrus – Mailbu

I chose this song for a number of reasons, one reason being of course it got me thinking of a drinking brand lol. All joking aside, I feel Miley has grown to be more mature which is good because I didn’t really like how she has presented herself in the last two years or so. I respect Miley as well for how she presented herself in the music video and massive respect her for going out to perform in the Manchester concert after the Manchester tragedy.

 

Rita Ora – Your Song

I felt in LOVE just recently but I don’t have that excitable feeling anymore which is a bit of a let down but the song reminds me of what I can expect when I fall in LOVE.

 

Little Mix feat Machine Gun Kelly – No More Sad Songs

Normally, I don’t listen to Little Mix even though they are British and a successful girl band. I just felt even though I had some sadness in my life right now, you can’t have sadness forever so this song was a quick reminder to move on and have a positive attitude to life, THIS APPLIES TO EVERYONE.

No matter how hard life is, you can always come back and come back stronger.

 

Olly Murs & Louisa Johnson – Unpredictable

For me, I just love British artists so I’m being very biased about this song choice. In various ways, life is unpredictable. I didn’t predict that I would have a job right now so I’m not really control of my own destiny. I doubt that I will be expected to get a girlfriend anytime soon but when I do or if I do, I have no idea who this girlfriend will look like or what the girl will be interested in.

I’ve done some unpredictable things just recently, never thought I would be fulfilling objectives on my bucket list such as visiting York and going to TWO cricket matches and visit Lord’s THREE TIMES. It’s amazing what money can bring.

Let me know what you think of my song choices and have you got any song choices of your own?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Found and Lost

Hi everyone.

Welcome to my usual regular blog where I’m going to be writing for long hours during the night.

So where to start? I don’t really know where to start.

I’m just wanted to bring up the theme of popular music.

The theme of popular music has intrigued me these past few days.

I would like to bring up two music songwriters who have been inspiring in different ways.

The first songwriter I want to bring up is the wonderful Christine and the Queens. I found this artist just by seeing a 10 or 15 second sample of the song “Tilted” while waiting for a music video to load on YouTube. This was just a few days ago. Now, I’m just listening to it at least five times today. While on YouTube, I have learnt various things about her. On a short interview she gave to Channel 4, she fled France to come to London and stay with some drag queens. To be honest I’m not focused on commenting about people’s sexuality. I don’t really think of Elton John, George Michael or Ricky Martin. I just care about the music that is produced. I listened to both Tilted and Christine and I loved the song.The music video is something else. When I first heard it, it sounded like HAIM were performing it. I was blown away from listening to her. The music video consists of fascinating and intelligent choreography behind the song.

It is crazy, by far she is the most recognisable music artist from France right now. It is rare to see that because when I think of French artists, I only think of Daft Punk and artists who represented France from Eurovision. I think it’s given France a sense of pride that they have a success story to talk about. She reminds me a bit of Lorde. Her real name is Heloïse Letissier, she performed on Jools Holland and the Graham Norton show. I seen both of these videos and I just think wow, I have tremendous respect for the bands and artists who perform on Jools Holland. If only I just watched Jools Holland earlier in the year, I may have got an earlier glimpse of her talent.

The next artist I want to share with you is Christina Grimmie. I have no words to describe how wonderful she was. It was a TRAGEDY. I just knew by listening to one of her songs that she was going to be a STAR. I found her through my YouTube page on newly released videos. I didn’t know who she was but I saw she had a lots of views on her video so I listened to the song. When listening to that particular song called Deception (I’m glad I did), I felt the sorrows of the song, it reminds me of myself of what I’m going through. I doubt myself a few times. Weird thing was, I was imagining her playing the song ‘Deception’ on The Voice UK and I would push the button and everybody giving a standing ovation. I mean WOW. There isn’t too many who can do that. I’m very sad she’s gone from our lives but I hope she lives in my memory. I hope she is in heaven, she has a voice of an angel.

 

I MISS YOU CHRISTINA 😦 😦 😦

General Review of Eurovision 2016

Hey everyone.

I’ve been wanting to do a General Review of Eurovision 2016.

Now here it is.

Surprisingly, I didn’t pay much attention to the entries that were going to be played at Eurovision (apart from the UK’s entry).

People especially in the UK don’t take Eurovision so seriously which is fine.

I think the disadvantage of the UK having an entry in Eurovision is that Europe has some dilemma with the UK for some reason or another and because the UK are producing high organic calibre artists that the UK doesn’t want to tarnish their reputation (to be honest I don’t blame them). So right now, I don’t pay attention to the UK charts but I’m assuming Ellie Goulding, Adele, Calvin Harris, Little Mix, Tinie Tempah, Jess Glynne are pretty hot right now which is why I want to illustrate the point that the UK are pretty much too good to send there best artists for Eurovision.

These entries below were my favourite that were played in this year’s Eurovision contest. Let me know what your favourite entries by commenting on the bottom of the page.

Made of Stars – Hovi Star (Israel)

Soldiers of Love – Lighthouse X (Denmark)

Midnight Gold – Nika Kocharov and Young Georgian Lolita

J’ai Cherche – Amir (France)

Miracle – Samra (Azerbaijan) 

If I Were Sorry – Frans (Sweden) [One of my personal favourites]

Heartbeat – Justs (Latvia)

You are the Only One – Sergey Lazarev (Russia)

Say Yay – Barei (Spain)

Loin D’ici – Zoe (Austria)

If Love Was A Crime – Poli Genova  [12 POINTS]

No Degree of Seperation – Francesca Michielin

Fire in the Rain – Mans Zelmerlow

I was a bit late of watching Eurovision. I watched the Semi Finals on BBC iPlayer the day after it was televised and I watched the final the week after it aired. It does feel weird.

To be honest, before I watched the Semi Finals, there was a lot of talk of Russia winning the thing (although I hadn’t listened to the song before it aired on the Eurovision stage). I believed and expected the UK to do so much better than recent years. I can’t say I was enthusiastic early on but after a month or so late I did hope Joe and Jake’s entry did well.

By the end of Eurovision, I was inspired by Italy’s and Austria’s entries the most because the songs in which they were spoken in was a breath of fresh air. Italy’s entry was spoken in Italian (with a bit of English) and Austria’s song was spoken in French. While I am writing this blog, I am learning Italian, I’ve listened to the first CD for the first time so at least it is a start.

I was a bit gutted for Joe and Jake, I thought they did an excellent job representing the UK this year.

With respect to the artists that performed in Eurovision. All the acts did a fine job representing their countries.

I wanted Bulgaria to win because overall it was a winner’s song for me. In no way shape or form that I would have thought that Ukraine would have won the whole thing, even when Ukraine were in the semi finals, the song didn’t grab my attention. The song doesn’t make much sense anyway. To be honest, I don’t know how Jamela who represented the Ukraine could win Eurovision after mourning about the dead, I thought everyone in general would just move on and stop reminding people about the past. It must be a crazy world we live in.

To be honest, the most shocking thing that happened in Eurovision this year was probably not seeing Denmark get into the final, they rocked in the second Semi Final and I expected them to go through, it may not have been a winning song in everyone’s eyes but it definitely felt like it.

It was good to hear that the Eurovision song contest this year got international exposure, it was good that it is getting publicity in the US. The idea of having JT on board felt like a big deal, he is an international superstar who is still at his peak now, his songs may just suit the New York crowd, he is a hit everywhere he goes. I saw a stint on YouTube from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, it was incredibly funny, I would recommend watching it.

Although Australia were good at Eurovision this year and last year, I’m a European through and through, I believe that only the countries that are situated in Europe should complete. Ok, maybe Eurovision historically allows countries from outside Europe to complete. I only can recall Morocco (1980) being the only country from a different continent to perform in Eurovision before Australia did in 2015. If the UK decide to leave the EU will that mean they will not participate in Eurovision again? Let’s see what happens.

Mans and Petra did a fine job as presenters in Eurovision this year.

If you want to give your reaction to this year’s Eurovision then feel free to comment below.

Cheers

RealJoePhill25

Songs to listen to when heartbroken

Hey everyone. Just trying to sober up my hangover of heartbrokenness during the past week. I didn’t really know how to cope with it. It is emotionally draining. If you have any tips you can share with me then that would be great. I’m glad to say I have moved on from that so it is a good thing that I have quickly moved on I guess.

I did a search on Google and this is what I typed in:

 songs you can listen when you’re broken hearted

When I was looking through the results, I went through the results but they gave me such songs as Irreplaceable by Beyonce, You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette and Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division but those songs didn’t interest me.

For that reason, I have decided to come up with my own list of songs that I was listening to that would just make me move on and stop being bitter about the whole thing.

Too Little Too Late – JoJo

It doesn’t matter to me that I’m that not in love. I’m just bitter that I put in the best that I could but yet I could self-improve myself so this experience has told me a lot about myself. It is just like coming out of job interviews, their are times when I look back and think of stuff that I could have said but didn’t?

My Love – Jess Glynne (Acoustic)

I picked this song because I want the person who broke my heart to remain friends with me. Happiness can build to make and create better things. I was happy talking to her and I didn’t get the same response but I still want her and I to be friends. Life moves on …. Onto my next adventure.

Losing – Becky Hill

This song just reminds me of being alone and just reminding myself of what the person that I loved said, she didn’t want to be alone either so it is confusing that both of us wanted the same thing but she dejected me? Ok, this totally makes no sense and  I’m getting more questions than answers here.

Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart – Alicia Keys

This song just reminds me that I am going to move on without thinking about her, going to forget about ever bothering to contact her every week. As harsh as that sounds, she thinks that it is BEST so I have to agree with those wishes.

All Together Now – The Farm

Ok this isn’t a ballad or a most popular choice when it comes to feeling broken. But I love the song. “All Together Now” reminds me of unity and have that belief that we can be strong enough to let bygones to be by gones and to forget about the past and think about the future. When I listen to the song, it is uplifting and makes me proud to be British.

Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now – The Smiths

To be fair with The Smiths, they did write and produce some depressing sad pieces of music. Various people like it or they don’t but I do like listening to The Smiths. But the song itself just summarised a feeling that people relate to.

Feeling Alive – Alastair Griffin

This is a song that I only discovered lately on the album by the same artist on iTunes. This is a magical song. My point is with this song, it makes me feel alive. I can move on from something with a positive attitude and so I don’t want to reminse about my negative experience. It is a great song and worth a listen.

Just Give Me A Reason – Pink feat Nate Ruess

I would wish that this heartbreak was just a bad dream, sadly it isn’t.

Sirens – Cher Lloyd

My point with this song is that I’m getting tired of being unsuccessful with life. My mental state is getting weaker so I just want to be positive but it is hard to stay positive.

Only Love Can Hurt Like This – Paloma Faith

I don’t need to explain this. It is a great song because I took it for face value.

Hate to see your heart break – Paramore

I think the song speaks for itself. I wasn’t expecting to know that I had my heart broken so early.

Can’t Feel My Face – The Weekend

Surprising enough, this cheers me up but a slap in a face at the same time when he sang about the “alone” part.

Goodbye to Yesterday – Elina Born & Stig Rasta

Ok, the lyrics in the song is to no relevance but I like how I am staring at the phone the days going forward waiting for the girl in case she changes her mind.Seems ironic though that it feels like I was heartbroken yesterday.

Unbroken – Maria Olafs

This song basically describes about moving forward, going at one step at a time. It would be nice to be out of the darkness pretty quickly and be in living colour.

All Good Things (Comes To An End) – Nelly Furtado

Why do good things come to an end. I ponder the same question.

Broken hearted Girl – Beyonce

This sums up my feelings for my loved one in my last blog Heartbroken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Music originals/covers part 2

I had an excellent time visiting the Science Museum, I had a lot of fun and a great time looking at the Information Age exhibition that was on display. I learnt something new that the computer mouse was originally wooden and I seen the neXT computer which Tim Berners Lee used to write the code for the World Wide Web web browser. I could do a blog about the Information Age in the near future and go into better detail about it but there may be luddites reading this blog and feel concerned already.

Thank you to those viewers who read part 1 of my blog series. CHEERS 🙂

I’m so excited to be doing part 2, talking and reviewing originals and cover versions of songs. I like discussing music because it is a general subject that targets various genres out there.

In this discussion, I’m going to be running down a few original and cover songs which I made up myself and choosing which version of the song I prefer. Some of the songs I put on here are not embedded so feel free to look round YouTube.

If you want to add song titles that I haven’t mentioned then that’s great because if I name every song title, the blog would be boring to read like this one.

Kiss Me – Sixpence None The Richer/New Found Glory

My Pick: Sixpence None The Richer

P.S spoiler Hayley Williams from Paramore appears in the video of New Found Glory’s version.

Talking about Hayley Williams, that leads to my second choice.

Use Somebody – Kings of Leon/Paramore

My Pick: I have to go with Paramore’s version , Hayley’s voice was phenomenal as I hope you would agree as well.

What Would You Do – City High/Bastille

My Pick: City High .That song for me is the main song I listen to of Hip Hop because it is about LIFE (I don’t mean the film title with Eddie Murphy) and its being truthful and honest.

Mama Told Me Not To Come – Three Dog Night/Stereophonics and Tom Jones

My Pick:  Stereophonics and Tom Jones

Fast Car – Tracy Chapman/Boyce Avenue feat Kina Grannis

My Pick: TIE!!!

Uptown Girl – Billy Joel/Westlife

My Pick: Westlife

Tragedy – Bee Gees/Steps

My Pick: Easy choice for me and for everyone. I would have to go with the Bee Gees . The Bee Gees original gives me goosebumps. The whole guitar playing combined with Barry Gibb’s voice just makes the song special.

The Long and Winding Road – The Beatles/Will Young and Gareth Gates

My Pick: As I only heard the original once and listened to the modern cover many times, I’m going to be biased and say Will Young and Gareth Gates . NO disrespect to The Beatles.

Too Close – Next/Blue

My Pick: Blue were on a roll during the early 2000s and that song was very memorable to me growing up whereas the original by Next doesn’t stick out.

Freak Like Me – Adina Howard/Sugababes

My Pick: Sugababes . I’ve heard the original by Adina Howard only once so it’s not that fair really. But since Sugababes released it, they made the song their own so I don’t compare it so much. The Sugababes track is good to listen to during Halloween tho.

Eternal Flame – The Bangles/Atomic Kitten

My Pick: I have to go with Atomic Kitten , every time I hear the words of the cover, I can remember the lyrics perfectly. I did a game on Facebook called Lyroke and got a perfect score on that particular song. I grew up listening to Atomic Kitten and it was nice revisiting them on The Big Reunion recently.

Truly Madly Deeply – Savage Garden/Cascada

My Pick: I prefer the original from Savage Garden . Cascada’s cover is more of dance remix in a strange music video.

Stuck In The Middle With You – Stealer’s Wheels/Louise

My Pick: Stealer’s Wheels

Run – Snow Patrol/Leona Lewis

My Pick: Leona Lewis . When I heard her version, I didn’t make much of it at first but the song grew on me when I brought her debut Spirit (on deluxe) and listened to the album.

Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty/Max Milner

My Pick: TUFFIE, I’m blown away by both versions. I’m going with Tom Petty’s original tho.

All Or Nothing – O-Town/Westlife

My Pick: I prefer O-Town’s version, It’s such a lovely ballladly poppy song to listen to, I would turn on the music station and wouldn’t be ashamed to listen to it all the way through the track. Sadly that was only one of two big hits O-Town had.

So that’s my list. If you found my list very random,

LIKE MY BLOG.

If I left out any major original songs and covers I do apologise, feel free to comment below. (There is probably a dozen of them).

My next blog will be about EDM music and you get my future blogs straight to your mailbox by subscribing on my home page at:

realjoephill25.wordpress.com

Music originals/covers part 1

In this blog, I’m going to be talking about original songs and covers.

I’m not too bothered about how old you are when reading this blog because I want this blog to appeal to EVERYONE.

Throughout the world of music, we have to give the credit and gratitude to the people who produced and written the song itself. If you get a lick of paint on a blank canvas, their job is to create a masterpiece with the tools and resources. That is what I would define a song that is original.

A cover is defined as a new recording of a song that has been released by an artist or a group other than the original artist or composer.

When people perform the covers, my viewpoint is that they have the painting in hand in the studio and love it so much that they tailor it to that individual or band.

I find covers a bit RISKKAY because it can make the original more appealing or the cover song unfavourable, I mean the worst cover I heard was Marcus Collins‘ cover of Seven Nation Army, I immediately thought it was going to be forgotten so it’s a really a hit or miss situation, it can make or forget a star.

The great thing about the revolution of technology of YouTube, covers are a great way for musicians to market themselves and get users around the world to know about them. One particular band I found a few years ago were Boyce Avenue, they specialise in doing acoustic covers. While I am writing this I’m listening to a song called Back for Good (originally sung by Take That). Since I found them on YouTube, I’m a fan of their music and brought a few of their albums.

Sadly, although I have a passion for history, there is no way I can go back in history and find out what the first song was to be covered. But I think the whole idea of song covers first started back over 100 years ago.

My understanding (without visiting a music museum) that some inspirations like Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland in 1939 was one song that must have been divided opinion or tempted to take credit for the cover. Glenn Miller did one apparently in the same year and was charted number one in that year. So that is probably the earliest example. I came across a paper on the history of music covers.

But probably before covers became COVERS, it would have been popular during the 19th century after Mozart and Beethoven died for orchestras to do renditions of composer’s work. The orchestras at that time would probably be optimistic or inspired by the classical pieces by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach (you name it) and that they wanted their music to live on for the future. It must have been tremendous pressure like performing a cover of songs like IMAGINE by John Lennon or Get Here by Oleta Adams. I’m talking a tremendous reputation to live up to.

During the early part of the 20th century when musicians first started doing covers of songs, it probably wasn’t universally accepted because the originator would have been in the minds of the audience.

Of course, in the decades from the 1960s, that was a time when covers were growing in public eye. One of the songs that springs to mind is ‘A Little Help From My Friends’. It was a song that was written by The Beatles and released in 1967 and then Joe Cocker did a cover of it two years later. Although Elvis Presley is a popular and well-known figure in history of rock and roll, I would compare Elvis to Mrs Beeton in that it would appear to be that they would take the majority of the credit for other people’s work. In Elvis’ lifetime, he and Colonel Parker wouldn’t have written that many songs but to his credit he took the songs that were given to him on the plate and made the songs recognisable and marketable.

That is why I find original and cover versions so fascinating, they can be compared all the time and be very subjective to people’s opinions, they is no right or wrong answer. Some of covers that come immediately to my mind is Valerie by Amy Winehouse and Skinny Love by Birdy. It is interesting to note that Valerie’s version by Amy Winehouse have 9 times more views on there vevo name on YouTube than The Zutons do. (That is completely straggling).

What I love about both of those songs is that they sound fresh and produced differently to the originals so it really isn’t about a comparison contest.

The question I want to put to you is:

Would you want to write a masterpiece or take an existing canvas that is already there and make it your own masterpiece?

ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS BELOW

S-P-I-R-I-T

The band Bring Me to the Horizon have inspired me about what I am going to be writing (SPOILER) about in this blog.

If you listened to Bring Me To The Horizon lately, you would have noticed that the heading of this blog “S-P-I-R-I-T” is the opening line to one of their singles “Happy Song”.

It’s been a great week in my blogging success.

Just want to thank Charde King, John Chon and Emma who are following my blogs.

To all readers who want to follow my blog, you can do this by going on my home page and click the Follow button located on the right hand side. (I should really do a YouTube video).

I only talked about the band briefly when I was discussing the song Throne when I conducted a music review at the end of September. The most important lyric to the song that resembles me is:

“Every wound will shape me, every scar will build my throne”

When I am writing this blog now, I am excited and passionate about writing because I’m getting noticed by the people I mentioned but also from those people looking in and get a taste of what I am writing. I am thankful to WordPress because without them, my presence online wouldn’t be what I desired it to be.

Although, I’m still unemployed, I’m not entirely frustrated at all, in the week that is coming up is going to be busy doing volunteer work so I’m looking forward to that very much. Like Friday, I just had nothing scheduled all day so I was just catching up on tv programmes that I haven’t got to watch and combine it with doing job searching on a desktop which wasn’t enjoyable to tell you the truth because rest days sounds quite boring when at home. My advice to all those unemployed, is just get off your butt and do something constructive.

There is a quote that I wanted to share while typing “constructive quotes” on the Google search engine.

“In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept constructive criticism. Without one hundred percent dedication, you won’t be able to do this”. Willie Mays

What I am implying there is. Well I use myself for an example. I want to work in heritage/museum organisations. I have recently became a member of Museum Association which means I can spend sometime visiting museums, I receive a monthly magazine of the Museum Journal which will inform me of how museum organisations are doing at present. One of the main reasons why I became a member is because it can give me the opportunity to develop and progress my career in museums. When I went for an interview at Windsor Castle, the feedback that was collected was that I needed interview practice, contact museums and take up some museum courses.

All of this is very constructive criticism. To me, visiting Windsor Castle was a dream come true for me and being called up for an interview was not what I expected. I’m not going to stop giving up my dream to pursuing a career in museums. I have arranged to meet up with the curator of The Royal Philatelic Society which I am very excited about because they provided me with the right opportunity for me so I’m eager to get stuck in.

On a final note, my advice in general is to never give up on your dreams but I want to share a quote that I found that was presumably by Taylor Swift:

“You can make a board for all the goals you want in your life with the pictures on it, and that’s great, daydreaming is wonderful, but you can never plan for your future”.

Hope you enjoyed reading this blog.

STAY TUNED for my next blog where I will be reviewing A Very British Romance.