I have been thinking about sport a lot of late. Many hours of my child hood were spent in front of a television watching tennis, cricket, basketball and almost every weekend, Formula1. While the end credits of each sporting event had an exhilarating song to match the sport none has perfectly captured the essence of a sport as much as Alistair Griffin's Just Drive which was used in the Formula 1 2010-11 season. With exceptional lyrics stemming from his songwriting career, the song perfectly captures the adrenaline that only Formula 1 can bring. I would highly recommend ALL his other songs. He is high up on my favourite singer/songwriters. Tanisha's Pick Weekends can get busy and then Mondays come around too fast. I was on the train Monday evening and I really wanted to listen to something quiet. Something unlike the usual happy-jumpy song that I want on a Monday. This song by The Cinnamatic Orchestra and Patrick Watson came to mind. It would have been perfect if I had my iPod. This morning I started listening to other music by Patrick Watson- oh wow! Such lovely lovely music. Must download them soon. So many choices now of what to post here, but I will stick to my first choice. But in case you want a taste of his other music- listen to this one.
How could you not like this song? No seriously. With more than half the song is just beautiful humming set to a lovely melody, this song screams perfection. The rest of the song brings a cacophony of wonderful sounds including clapping. It makes my indie heart beat faster. A must listen!
Tanisha's Pick The Mowgli's are infectiously happy. All their songs are overly happy, that listening to too many at a time will give you a definite overdose of happy music. Here's one of their older ones for this week. It's going to be ringing in your head for many days! Haha.
Today, we have the privilege of hearing from Mr. Joel Louzado, a man who Tanisha and Sudhir have spent the majority of our adult lives knowing as classmates, colleagues and artists. From identifying plot holes in movies to proposing alternate conspiracy theory to the already existing ones, Joel is able to (and with incredibly entertaining arm movements, we might add) make you appreciate life in diverse ways. We asked Joel to write for us and he brought out a post which did all of this. For more of Joel's awesomeness, you can follow him on twitter and read his blog
Love,
Tanisha and Sudhir
---------------------------- Hello, Before we begin, if you don’t like super nerdy songs then there’s nothing I can do for you I’m afraid. I wish you safe travels.
Hey, you’re still here… Awesome!
So I personally wish that this band ‘Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers’ were more widely known. Hank Green, the lead vocalist, is one half of the internet-famous Vlogbrothers channel where he and his brother John Green talk about life (John Green is the one who wrote that book ‘The Fault in our Stars’ btw, in case you’ve heard of it). Between the two of them they’ve built an impressive empire on the Internets: a couple of science shows (SciShow, etc), an education channel (Crash Course), a couple of vlog channels, a record studio (DFTBA Records), an online video convention (VidCon) and subbable.com to name a few ventures… and then just for fun there’s also the band.
What’s awesome about Hank (besides the superhuman productivity) is that he just seems like a regular guy who’s just unapologetically nerdy while doing cool things to hopefully make the world suck less.
Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers : This Isn't Hogwarts
“Unapologetically nerdy”, as exemplified by this first song which is a rock ballad about a kid who wishes he was in Hogwarts instead of public school. And it’s not just full of fanboy-isms, it’s also commentary on the school system with lines like:
...this isn't Hogwarts, this is a concrete box and the pictures on the wall are never gonna talk, and the teachers don't care, that the kids don't try the most magical thing we have is fluorescent lights...
There’s another really fun one addressed to JK Rowling which is full of fanboy-love: “Oh JK Rowling”
Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers : I F***ing Love Science
As I mentioned earlier, Hank clearly has a great love for science education and between SciShow and Crash Course puts out a lot of really informative yet entertaining science content.
I think the guiding ethos behind all of it is pretty firmly condensed into this next song. Super energetic stuff btw, bound to perk up your Monday morning. :) And I f**kin' love Carl Sagan 'Cause I think it's fly to look up at the sky And never ever ever stop wondering why. There's nothing here to argue against It's a process not an ideology, And I f**king love science.
There are a few others I really like where he puts scientific concepts to music like this one about the Fermi Paradox and another about Quarks.
By the way, It’s funny but over on the Vlogbrothers Youtube channel they quite often sign off on their videos by saying “DFTBA”, which stands for “Don’t Forget To Be Awesome”.
It makes sense then that Hank Green and the Perfect Strangers might be just the band to help soothe that crippling Mephobia you’ve been dealing with lately. Have a good week. :)
Tanisha's Pick My friend Bethany and I started talking about music on a 7 hour train ride, scrolling through each others iPods and discussing favourites. She suggested I listen to Agnes Obel. I almost forgot about it until I found the memo on my phone a couple weeks ago. What beautiful music - somewhere in the middle of Daughter and Lana Del Ray, yet completely unique in her own style. Perfectly soothing, flawless arrangements and just as good live as in their studio recordings- so much praise for them.
Sudhir's Pick Please be careful to read
this artist's name as RYAN Adams and not the Canadian who had a pretty good
summer of 69. Their music sounds nothing alike - both good but both very very
different.
I accidentally
came across this song last week and it stayed with me. It is hauntingly
beautiful and forces introspection when Adams asks you
I
don’t remember, were we wild and young
All that’s faded into memory
I feel like somebody I don’t know
Are we really who we used to be
Am I really who I was
Definitely worth a listen… or several… in a row. You will be the lucky one.
WOAH! We are 25 episodes old! How did that happen?! It seems like just yesterday we hatched this plan to share music with the world in our own unique way. To help us celebrate we thought it would be cool to have our BIGGEST fan be a guest blogger for us.
Delaney and Sudhir at Trafalgar Square for New Year's Eve
Sudhir had the pleasure of meeting Delaney Osborn during his year studying in London. Ranked "high up there" in his list of favourite people they took London by storm for the eleven months they knew each other including late night pub-crawls, plays at the Globe, running 5ks and 5am photowalks. During their time together they realized a shared love for several genres of music. This week we get a sampling of some of that awesome music!
Broke Royals : Strung Up in Lights This band is actually a couple of friends of mine from college, but I didn’t listen to their music that much until this year. Once I found their first album on Spotify, though, I fell in love. This is my favorite song off that album, mostly because of the wonderful lyrics. My favorite line has to be the first one in the second verse:
“I’ve seen every city, I’ve seen every city twice.
But no city ever looked as good as this one does tonight.”
Mikky Ekko : Smile
It was pretty hard for me to narrow down my second choice for this post, but ultimately went with this song because it’s probably my favorite one I found this year. I love Mikky Ekko for his lyrics and alternative rock sound, but “Smile” really sold him for me because of its contrast between the music and the words. At first glace it sounds like a fun dancing song, but once you sit down and really take in what he is saying you realize just how sad it is. “Smile, the worst is yet to come. We’ll be lucky if we ever see the sun.”
