January is over. My last exam went pretty absymal, so I’m somewhat sad at the minute. Bye-bye A in Economics. America next week, not excited yet but I’m sure I will be soon. I’ve officially blocked Ucas Track using Firefox extensions to avoid it ruining my holiday. Trying to read 1984 and do second English coursework draft this week. And stream Los Campesinos!’s latest album ‘Romance is Boring’ which would sound good if it didn’t cut out to buffer every thirty seconds. Damn the lack of decent copper wiring in my neighbourhood. I bought The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)…in flippin Middle English. Not that Middle English is that hard to read, but I’d rather not, considering the time it takes to compute in my little brain.

Made another Spotify playlist. I think I may do this at the end of each month. January was hectic college-wise, so I ended up mellowing out into the relms of folk/indiepop and drinking copious amounts of Japanese green tea. It doesn’t flow as smoothly as the last playlist, partly due to laziness and the fact I should be doing coursework, but my room lacks so much oxygen I can barely stay awake at my desk anymore. Here it is.

1. Charlie Darwin - The Low Anthem

2. A Short Weekend Begins With Longing - The Leisure Society

3. The Islands - The xx

4. Hopelessly Wasted - Shrag

5. Night Drive - Gotye

6. To Ohio - The Low Anthem

7. The Sleeper - The Leisure Society

8. White Sky - Vampire Weekend

9. Huddle Formation - The Go! Team

10. Twilight Omens - Franz Ferdinand

11. Dangerous and Sweet - Lenka

12. Animal - Ke$ha

13. Stronger - Kanye West

14. Everyone’s a VIP To Someone - The Go! Team

15. Bridge To Nowhere - The Like

16. Ready For Drowning - The Manic Street Preachers

17. Heart Skipped a Beat - The xx

18. Hunted By A Freak - Mogwai

I can’t be bothered to detail all the tracks. The first track is the best one, his voice will make you melt. The Leisure Society are probably my favourite band to listen to right now. Tracks 12 and 13 probably shouldn’t be in there. Ke$ha apparently compared her track to The Arcade Fire, I laughed, that must’ve been a high comment. And yeah, 13 shows that I’m a year behind the world when it comes to number one singles, and it distracted me from so much revision. Night Drive by Gotye is breathtaking, and reminds me of the sound in Age of Empires where you complete building a house. You know the one, that African drum that lasts a milisecond. I’m not that into Vampire Weekend’s latest, but White Sky was a clear highlight. And I assume everyone on the planet has already heard Huddle Formation, and I hope I’m not alone when I simply have to dance to it when it comes on.

Anyway, I quite like this playlist. This’ll be the last post into after Americas!

It’s New Year’s Eve. It’s also the end of a decade. I’ve already elaborated this years’ experiences in a previous post and frankly, I’m glad it’s over. It’s certainly been eventful, dramatic and fucked-up year; but that’s how I like my life. I’ve come out the other side thereabouts.

To remember the year, I’ve made my second playlist. The first playlist never got posted here because it consisted of really obscure remixes that weren’t on Spotify and laziness prevented me from re-tagging songs/zipping them/uploading them. It’s far better than this one, but I only had to compromise on a few songs which weren’t Spotifiable (that should be a verb if there ever was one).

Link to Joanna’s Playlist

The overarching theme was “an obscure album to dance to.”  So I avoiding using my obvious pop favourites and filled it with indie-pop and electro; with some darkwave and psytrance for good measure. When trying to make it into some form of nice order, I ended up feeling there were three distinct “phases,” which could just be down to me reading lots of Thomas Hardy poetry.

Phase I: Intensify

1. Vandals - (We Are) Performance
I adore We Are Performance. As an opener it works brilliantly. Pretty metaphors on a fuzzy little beat, oh so emotional.

2. Somebody Told Me (Mylo Remix) - The Killers
My  first dose of “let’s take indie and make it danceable.” It came on a compilation CD from Fopp, when Fopp was the original Fopp half way up on Park Street. It cost three pounds. I stopped listening to the original shortly after.

3. Ways To Make It Through a Wall - Los Campesinos!
All Los Campesinos! really remind me of is early morning bus commutes to college throughout September. They would wake me up. The chorus is properly happy ting.

4. Hell - Tegan and Sara
It’s amazing. Oh my God it is. You just want to get up a DANCE. It’s the most infectious Tegan and Sara song EVER. I HOPE CAPS LOCKS ARE EXEMPLIFYING HOW AMAZING IT IS.

5. Lisztomania (Alex Metric Remix) - Phoenix
My favourite song from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix made better*.
* Subject to time of writing, I frequently change my mind over whether this is indeed superior than the boomting original.

6. Marlon JD - Manic Street Preachers
The Manic Street Preachers don’t make songs to be danced to, and this is the only exception I can think of. Short, sweet, punchy.

Phase II: Synthesize

7. Uprising - Muse
How sexy does Matt Bellamy sound in this one? It’s like the best of “Knights of Cydonia” cut with a hella catchy bassline. I’m falling in love with Muse all over again.

8. Gravity’s Rainbow (Soulwax Remix) - Klaxons
Hate Klaxons. Love Soulwax. This is how the Klaxons probably wanted to sound like, but they aren’t physically capable of doing so. It’s so electric it would blow your mind. Cliche? Fuck you, it’s true.

9. Paris - MSTRKFT
MSTRKFT are Kings. My love for electro-house had to come on here somewhere.

10. Live a Little - (We Are) Performance
I will again emphasise how amazing this band are. This is electro-pop at it’s finest. I want to marry and man with a voice like his. Actually, he’s an author and in a band…maybe I’ll just have him.

11. Heavyweight - Infected Mushroom
I toyed with putting this song on as it totals nearly nine minutes. But this song is like a fucking intense journey in itself it’s worth it. Layers of psytrance with hints of metal. Oh hell yes.

12. Feel it In My Bones - Tiesto & Tegan and Sara
Emotional, powerful, beautiful, epic, stunning. It will make you laugh, smile and cry all at once. It brings shivers to my spine every single time.

Phase III: Diminuendo

13. Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge
This is a compromise because ‘Your Love’ and ‘Save Your Soul’ weren’t on Spotify. Lyrically it’s one of their best. It’s intense, dark, unsettling and brutal.

14. Tell Me It’s Not Over - Starsailor
A rollercoaster of emotions over a powerful piano and guitar melody. This is why I love Starsailor.

15. Love is Dead - The Lovemakers
“When we can’t be lovers, and we can’t be friends.” It’s infectious without being sugar-coated, and if my ears don’t percieve me, there’s a staccato violin in the chorus. Win.

16. Higher Than The Stars - Pains of Being Pure At Heart
The Manics like them. Rough Trade likes them. The vocals are subtle, the melodies - fuzzy. It makes me smile.

17. Geraldine - Glasvegas
It’s such an emotional choon; piercing vocals, beautiful chords, heartfelt lyrics. It nears perfection at moments.

18. Like A Song - Lenka
I recommend Lenka to anyone who likes Regina Spektor, and no-one has complained (yet). The haunting vocals make this song the diamond it is. Yeah, it’s music cliche day, w/e.

19. VCR - The xx
The end to the collection. It’s staggering how such a simple arrangement can sound so splendid.

Happy New Year.

Woohoooooooooooooooooooooo.