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 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Invalid Item" "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
My wife and I were talking the other day about Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. We're pretty big fans of her music and when we heard that she was going to be playing an extensive setlist from across her entire discography, we tried to get tickets... but alas, Ticketmaster ended those plans in a rather unceremonious fashion with the way they bungled the ticket queues. But my wife and I got to thinking, even if we can't attend her tour in person, which songs would we want to hear? We decided to challenge ourselves to put together our own setlist and I'm documenting it here because, well, I don't have anywhere else to post it.  If you want to play along (or get an idea of the methodology), here were the rules:  Select exactly 44 songs (the number of songs on her actual tour setlist) Must choose at least 3 songs from each of her 10 studio albums The other 14 songs can be additional tracks from any album, or tracks from her EPs, album re-releases, etc.With those established, here's what I went with: Taylor Swift (2006) 1. Teardrops on My Guitar 2. Picture to Burn 3. Our Song Fearless (2008) 1. Love Story 2. White Horse 3. You Belong With Me Speak Now (2010) 1. Mine 2. Back to December 3. Mean Red (2012) 1. 22 2. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together 3. Holy Ground 4. I Knew You Were Trouble 1989 (2014) 1. Blank Space 2. Out of the Woods 3. Bad Blood 4. Clean 5. This Love 6. You Are In Love 7. Shake It Off Reputation (2017) 1. Delicate 2. Getaway Car 3. Dress 4. Endgame Lover (2019) 1. The Archer 2. Cornelia Street 3. You Need to Calm Down 4. Death by a Thousand Cuts 5. I Forgot That You Existed 6. Me! 7. Cruel Summer Folklore (2020) 1. the 1 2. exile 3. mirrorball Evermore (2020) 1. long story short 2. 'tis the damn season 3. ivy Midnights (2022) 1. Anti-Hero 2. Bejeweled 3. Midnight Rain 4. Maroon Additional Tracks 1. Today Was a Fairytale - from Fearless (Taylor's Version) 2. Message in a Bottle - from Red (Taylor's Version) 3. All Too Well (10-minute version) - from Red (Taylor's Version) The hardest albums to whittle down were 1989 and Lover because I genuinely like almost every single track on each of those albums. I could have stood to lose some tracks off Evermore, Folklore, and her self-titled first album in exchange, but it wouldn't be much of a challenge if I could just pick whatever 44 songs I wanted with no restrictions.  |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies  Everything Everywhere All At Once Leave No Trace Minions: Rise of Gru The Purge: AnarchyTelevision  Jack Ryan (Season 2) The Night Agent (Season 1) Shrinking (Season 1) Yellowstone (Season 2)Other  Anthony Jeselnik: Fire in the Maternity WardEverything I watched this past month was pretty decent. Everything Everywhere All At Once was a lot of fun (although I'm not sure it was Oscars Best Picture caliber), and probably my favorite movie of the month. On the television front, I'm still really enjoying Yellowstone, but Shrinking was pretty charming and The Night Agent was a surprisingly good political/espionage thriller show. My favorite of the month though had to be Anthony Jeselnik's Netflix comedy special, Fire in the Maternity Ward. If you're not familiar with his particular brand of comedy, it's extremely offensive... but that's kind of the point. He's actually known for his brilliant one-liners, but he accomplishes that by subverting audience expectations and going places they don't expect him to go. In the past month, I've listened to all three of his comedy albums, plus watched this special and I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time. His humor is definitely NSFW and not for the easily offended... but for everyone else, his comedic timing and ability to come up with deadpan zingers is a real treat, especially for anyone who appreciates good storytelling. TOP PICK: Anthony Jeselnik: Fire in the Maternity Ward |
| To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish. Movies Edge of Tomorrow The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea Lyle, Lyle Crocodile The Menu StorksTelevision New Amsterdam (Season 2) New Amsterdam (Season 3) Yellowstone (Season 1)Of the kids movies that I watched this month, The Little Mermaid II and Storks were about what you'd expect... nothing that would really merit the attention of an adult. Lyle, Lyle Crocodile was a surprisingly charming movie with a great soundtrack. I didn't realize the Pasek & Paul did original songs for the movie (the duo behind The Greatest Showman and Broadway's Dear Evan Hansen), and they're pretty good. Javier Bardem is fun to watch, and singer/songwriter Shawn Mendes provides the voice of Lyle, which is outstanding. I finally got around to watching Edge of Tomorrow, which I had never seen. I really enjoyed it; as much as he creeps me out on a personal level, Tom Cruise is a bonafide movie star and knows how to make really compelling action movies. It was basically a sci-fi thriller version of Groundhog Day, but I thought it was great. The real standout movie for me this month, though, was The Menu. I don't want to say much about it because someone told me to watch it without knowing too much about it and I'm really glad that I did. The basic premise is that it's a horror/thriller about a group of diners who go out to a celebrity chef's exclusive restaurant on an island and are given more than they bargained for with the chef's unusual multi-course meal. It's bizarre and fascinating and totally worth a watch for anyone who likes weird, suspenseful type movies. On the television front, I watched two more seasons of New Amsterdam, and I finally decided to jump into Yellowstone, which I ended up liking a lot more than I thought I would. It's not set in a world I'm particularly interested in, but the characters are great. Taylor Sheridan is a really talented writer who always manages to create fascinating characters that are just fun to watch interact. I'm not sure I'm in for the whole "Yellowstone Cinematic Universe" yet with all the spinoffs and sequels and prequels in development, but this particular group of characters is a good one and I'll definitely be watching more of them. TOP PICK: The Menu |
 | Day 28 | "The Black and White" by The Band CAMINO It's only fitting that I end this year's "The Soundtrack of Your Life" challenge with the artist that I unquestionably listened to the most throughout 2022. Even though "Over Yourself" had the most plays of any individual track on my Spotify year-end playlist, The Band CAMINO actually had multiple songs on that year-end playlist, with "I Think I Like You," "Know It All," and "Damage" (off their self-titled LP released in September 2021) all in the Top 10. That last one I even wrote a short story ("Damage" ) about last year. I was planning on doing the whole album for "Musicology Anthology" , but life got in the way and that ended up being the only short story I wrote based on the album. Still, I'm pretty happy with it. The last time I featured The Band CAMINO on a Soundtrackers challenge was back in 2021 when I did "My Thoughts On You" for "The Soundtrack of Your Life" . I'm actually going to do something a little unorthodox and instead of using a song from their most recent album, I'm going to call back to the song that I was thinking about featuring during the 2021 "The Soundtrack of Your Life" but ended up passing up in favor of "My Thoughts On You" instead. After thoroughly listening to the new album last year, I found myself going through their back catalog quite a bit and this was a really frequent song in the rotation.I was really bummed when I found out that The Band CAMINO actually played a show about 5 miles from my house last year, but I didn't find out about it until the last minute when it was too late to get tickets. I'm definitely keeping tabs on the band a lot more closely now; they just have so many great songs and I've heard they put on a fantastic live show, so I'm excited to check them out the next time they come to town. ... and with that, another "The Soundtrack of Your Life" draws to a close! Hard to believe we're already at the end of a month of music blogging! I really enjoyed last year's playlist and I'm already thinking about what I'm going to include from all the things I've been listening to this year!  |
| Day 27 | "Alone" by Heart (cover by The Hindley Street Country Club feat. Sarah Lloyde) I included this song specifically because I think Sarah Lloyde does a great job with a really difficult song to sing, but the main reason I'm including this artist generally is because The Hindley Street Country Club might be my favorite YouTube find of the past year. They're an Australian cover band and they have an incredible number of videos on their YouTube channel. They upload a new video roughly once a week, and if you're a fan of pop and classic rock hits, you'll find yourself going through their videos for hours. This one is great because "Alone" by Heart is one of my favorite songs ever, but I also highly recommend their covers of a number of other songs, including but not limited to: "Your Love" by The Outfield "New Sensation" by INXS "Under Pressure" by Queen & David Bowie "To Be With You" by Mr. Big "Waiting for a Star to Fall" by Boy Meets Girl "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by StarshipIt's a really good mix of popular 80s/90s songs and they frequently split the vocal duties among a couple of regulars with very different voices, as well as bringing a number of outside singers in to provide guest vocals depending on the needs of the song. Seriously, they have over 750,000 subscribers and 200+ videos on their channel. If you like music from this era, you won't be disappointed. |
| Day 26 | "I2I" by Tevin Campbell feat. Rosie Gaines (cover by El Rich feat. Kike Jimenez, Prudence, Paco Lorenzana, and Pachi) A GOOFY MOVIE (1995) has, unquestionably, some of the greatest original songs of any soundtrack. Tevin Campbell's "I2I" and "Stand Out" are absolute bangers that are still great nearly thirty years later. I found this cover version while playing around on YouTube one night and absolutely fell in love with it. All of the artists are from Mexico and one day during the pandemic (July 2020) they decided to do a cover of the song with each of them recording their parts separately and socially distant. Honestly the cover is pretty great, not just for a pandemic recording, but full stop. This song just makes me happy when I listen to it, not just because it's a great song from one of my favorite movies as a kid, but also for giving some talented musicians an outlet during the pandemic, and introducing me to a number of great artists from Mexico. Each of them is pretty outstanding on their own as well. Prudence has an amazing voice, and Paco Lorenzana (the guy with the long hair and red guitar) is a really talented guitarist. |
| Day 25 | "Clean" by Taylor Swift (cover by Travis Atreo) "You Are In Love" by Taylor Swift (cover by Travis Atreo) Continuing on from the previous entry ("Anti-Hero" ) about Taylor Swift, this was a song that I (re)discovered this year. 1989 is one of my favorite albums of all time; I honestly don't think there's a bad song on the LP. But for some reason I never really focused on this one until this year. (I also found myself listening to "You Are In Love" from the 1989 Deluxe Edition quite a bit as well.) For some reason, these song really resonated with me this year, and I found myself listening to them a lot. So much, in fact, that I also started seeking out cover versions on YouTube, and since I already did a Taylor Swift track for this year's "The Soundtrack of Your Life" , I thought I'd include the Travis Atreo versions, which are probably my favorite covers that I've been able to find so far. His vocal style really matches the lyrics well and while I think the originals by Taylor are hard to beat, I've included Travis' versions for the sake of a little diversity on my playlist this year. |
| Day 24 | "Anti-Hero" by Taylor Swift It wouldn't be a "The Soundtrack of Your Life" without an entry from Taylor Swift's latest album! Like almost all of her albums, I start out thinking it's not as good as her earlier ones and then, as I listen to the songs more, I find that I like them more and more. I think the whole Midnights album - and the extended Midnights (3am Edition) - is really good. I was tempted to go with "Maroon" or "Question...?" or "Lavender Haze" for this entry, but "Anti-Hero" is the song I keep coming back to over and over again. It's another great example of her facility with song lyrics, and I love it when she tackles issues like her own flaws and insecurities. I know a lot of people bag on Taylor Swift for being too commercial or whatever, but I do think she's one of the most talented songwriters of her generation, and is always coming up with something new and exciting and interesting. As a writer, I can only hope to be able to come up with work that's both as catchy and as introspective as Taylor's work often is. |
| Day 23 | "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC Another classic rock classic that I found thanks to the rabbit hole I went down after rediscovering "Photograph" by Def Leppard. AC/DC was one of my favorite bands growing up, with such a distinctive sound. The vocals are truly unique, and their guitar riffs are incredible. I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite AC/DC song, but this one is definitely up there. It's frequently present on my "high energy" type playlists, everything from workouts to working late when I need to build and maintain some momentum.I also love the fact that this song has been featured in everything from the live-action board game adaptation of BATTLESHIP, to the family-friendly CARS franchise spinoff, PLANES. It's truly an iconic song for all audiences and all ages. |
| Day 22 | "Photograph" by Def Leppard I blame Robert Waltz  for this song making its way onto my playlist again in 2022. Back on December 4th of last year, he posted "Note: I've added a new entry to my book, [Link To ..." with a GIF of stormtroopers dancing, and this song just happened to cycle onto my playlist at the same time, and the two fit so perfectly together that I must have listened to it on repeat a dozen times. That caused the song to come up in my YouTube music mix for the next few weeks, and before I knew it, it was one of my most listened-to songs of last year with in the span of only four weeks. The last time I was obsessed with this song was when it was featured on the Los Santos Rock Radio station soundtrack from 2013's Grand Theft Auto V video game. Every time that song came on in the game, I'd just cruise around listening to the song... or better yet, if I carjacked a car playing the song while I was on the run from the cops, that was just *chef's kiss* I suppose I should be thanking Waltz... I had been on an electronic pop/synth kick before this, and he rightfully pointed me back toward hard/classic rock jams from the 1980s and 1990s. Oh how I've missed some of these bands... |
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