A love for playlists

If you know me well, you’ll know that I do like to make a music playlist or 6! You’ve already seen a few on this blog (Making Playlists), but I thought that I would share some more that I’ve made, because music is just such a great thing to share!

I’m going to start off by showing you my yearly playlists. Way back in 2014 I made a playlist for this blog, which contained my favourite songs from that year. I’ve been doing the same ever since, yet have failed to show them to you, so here’s the most recent one, (still in working progress!)

Just give it a click and listen to my favourite tunes from this year so far!
The playlist includes tracks from Dua Lipa, Clean Bandit, Liam Gallagher, Jack White and more!

Of course if you fancy going back one, two or even three years, take a look at the following:

Featuring songs from Ed Sheeran, The Killers, Bastille, Kasabian and more.

 

Featuring songs from Blossoms, Jake Bugg, Foo Fighters, The Last Shadow Puppets and more.

 

Featuring songs from The Vaccines, Swim Deep, Wolf Alice, The Cribs and more.

 

Have a listen and I hope you enjoy what I’ve put together, let me know your thoughts in the box below!

 

 

Making Playlists

Let you introduce to you, one of my favourite hobbies… making playlists!

Since a young age I have very much been into music and my record collection now consists of everything from the latest releases to those golden oldies. My playlist making started with making mix-tapes, moving on to CDs and then making playlists on my iPod. Of course now we’re very lucky for the fact that music is easily accessible through the means of streaming services, such as Spotify and Apple Music where you can listen to pretty much anything you want!

I often use Spotify to make playlists of my own. Whether it’s making one starting from scratch or taking inspiration from a playlist that’s already been made, I find this a great hobby to partake in and enjoy listening to the finished result.

There’s two playlists that I have recently been working on:

Smash Hits | The 90s | LHF Edit

This is an example of me taking inspiration from a playlist that’s already been made. I took a look at the Smash Hits | The 90s playlist and listened to it and found that there were a few songs I didn’t recognise and a few more that I didn’t want to be reminded of! Plus I knew there were some great songs from the 90s that weren’t included, so I made my own version!

 

The Mix

This is a playlist I made by myself from the very beginning, it’s basically a mix of the kind of tracks that I enjoy, I started about a year ago and it has grown a lot since then and I’m sure it’ll keep growing!

 

 

So take a look and take a listen, then let me know what you think by commenting below!

Johnny Be Good

Pictures of Lily

‘Johnny Be Good’ is another great read from Paige Toon. I was drawn to the title of this book, as in my mind it reflected the title of the song ‘Johnny B Goode’ by Chuck Berry, being a lover of music I thought that the story may have a musical theme to it and in a way it does!

The story starts when we are introduced to Meg Stiles, normal, average woman living in London, who has just accepted an offer to go and work in L.A as a P.A. She takes the offer, albeit feeling a bit nervous about a new life across the pond and goes to meet the man who she’s going to be looking after, rock star Johnny Jefferson.

At first life is a bit of a whirlwind and Meg isn’t quite sure how to take it all in. Glamorous celebrity parties, dealing with the press and Johnny’s ever changing moods is all a bit too much to deal with at first, however, after making friends with fellow PA Kitty and becoming close to Johnny’s friend Christian, she starts to cope better with her new lifestyle, however she still can’t seem to shake off her feelings for Johnny.

This book is full of romance, love and admiration, however you may not agree with Meg’s decisions. The story ends leaving you knowing that it’s not over, there’s more to tell and more to discover and I felt so glad when I discovered that there’s a sequel to this book (Baby Be Mine) which I shall be reviewing for you next week!

This book is a really great read if you’ve ever dreamed of dating your favourite rockstar and living a glamorous life in L.A. I felt like I really connected with Meg throughout the story, not that I always agreed with her decisions, but she’s a great character to get to know and if you’re looking for a good romance to read this summer, I’d definitely recommend this one!

 

Other Reviews of books by Paige Toon

Lucy In The Sky
Baby Be Mine
Chasing Daisy
Pictures of Lily

The Best of Adam Sharp

So this week I’m talking about another author whom I have reviewed in the past… Graeme Simsion (see ‘Two Books About Rosie‘) this time I’m talking about his newest read ‘The Best of Adam Sharp‘.

Having read the Rosie books, I was excited to read this one! I wasn’t disappointed but at the same time I felt that ‘The Best of Adam Sharp’, didn’t live up to the greatness of Graeme’s previous writings.

The book is about a guy called Adam Sharp, a guy in his fifties who knows an awful lot about music. The book contains different time periods in his life, the present where he is happily with wife Claire and the past where he was with a woman called Angelina. In his present Angelina gets back in contact with him and well, I’m not going to spoil the story for you!

The first few chapters of this book were a hard read, it felt as if not a lot was happening and I’ll admit I nearly gave up on this book. However once you begin to understand who the characters are and their relationships with one another, the story flows more easily and it makes a great read.

If you’re a lover of music you’ll enjoy this book as there are many mentions of songs you may know and love. At the end of the book Graeme Simsion writes a list of the songs mentioned and you can find a Spotify playlist of them here.

 

Angelina and Adam were the best characters in this book, in my opinion and it is a story full of wit and romance, so if you’re looking for a bit of that, why not give this one a go?!

 

Review: Swim Deep ‘Mothers’

We all remember Swim Deep’s first album, ‘Where the Heaven are We‘ as a great first album for an Indie boyband starting out their career in the world of music right? Well those boys have now turned into men and with the added addition of James Balmont on the synths and keyboards that feature heavily on this album, they have now created something, well awesome was the word that came into my head when I took my first listen this morning, when listening to ‘Mothers‘.

We’ve already heard singles ‘To My Brother‘, ‘One Great Song…‘ and ‘Namaste‘, which personally shocked me on the first listen. When I first heard ‘To My Brother’, I was expecting nothing more than a guitar, bass, drums combo, similar to the tracks that featured on the first album. However I was stunned when the synths kicked in and had to check my screen to see if it really was Swim Deep playing! This was the introduction to their new sound. I could literally picture lead singer Austin Williams bouncing around the stage with big sunglasses & maracas just like Bez from the Happy Mondays (see BBC’s Reading & Leeds footage, as this is exactly what I pictured!)

The rest of the album has a similar feel to the songs we’ve already heard. Highlights include ‘Forever Spaceman’, which has a David Bowie ‘Life on mars‘ sound to it and ‘Grand Affection’ whose intro reminded me of an 80s arcade game’s music. Continuing with the 80’s theme is ‘Namaste’, which Austin recently told me ‘reminded so many people of an 80s game show theme’, hence their choice for that brilliant video that went with it!

Another highlight is 8 minute long ‘Fueiho Boogie‘. There’s some long album tracks that you dread as they can often be quite dull and off-putting, however this is something to look forward to, it will immediately make you want to stand up and dance forever. There’s also ‘Laniakea’ with the line, ‘All the brothers and the mothers and the lovers…’ being one that will soon be stuck in your head.

It’s very rare that a band achieves such greatness in a second album, most we shrug off as ‘alright’ whilst longing for a repeat of their first, but this is something that won’t be forgotten and pushed aside. This is the future.

Review: Swim Deep live @ the Boileroom – 27/8/15

It’s very rare that a great band play live anywhere close to where I live. In Surrey not a lot happens with well known bands, the closest they play is usually London or Portsmouth but my luck was in when I heard that Swim Deep were coming to Guildford’s Boileroom.

Having been placed on the guest list (it’s easy when your cousin is the lead singer!) myself along with my family arrived to support Austin Williams and his mates, (Zach, Cavan, James & ‘Higgy’) and to enjoy what turned out to be a great evening!

Austin & Higgy on stage

Starting off with first album favourite ‘Francisco’ the crowd were jumping away and singing along. ‘I still can’t believe that people are singing along to our songs’, said Austin when I chatted to him after the show, ‘It’s still really weird to see!’

Following with more from the well loved ‘Where the Heaven Are We’ album, Swim Deep played ‘Honey‘, ‘The Sea’, ‘She Changes The Weather‘ and ‘King City‘, all of which were greatly enjoyed by the audience, especially ‘Honey’, where it literally felt like floor was going to collapse, as the audience were jumping up and down along to the ‘Ooo Ooo Babys’.

Songs played from their upcoming album ‘Mothers’ (out September 19th) included singles ‘One Great Song & I Could Change The World‘, ‘To My Brother‘ and ‘Namaste‘ (a former hottest record in the world on the Annie Mac show!). They also greeted us with ‘Grand Affection’, another song from their upcoming album, which unfortunately was cut short due to problems with the PA system, no-one seemed to mind however as what followed was truly great and we all soon forgot about the little glitch in the programme!

Stage After The Gig

As bias as it may sound saying this about my little cousin’s band, Swim Deep are truly on their way to great things, Having massively improved from their first album (which is still great in my ears!) they can only get better and better as time goes on! Having rocked Reading & Leeds this past weekend as well, their fan base is growing with many a screaming fan at the Boileroom on Thursday night and I’m sure there’s many more to come once they discover the magic of Swim Deep!

Review: Wolf Alice ‘My Love Is Cool’

Everyone’s going on about it, yes Glastonbury officially starts tomorrow and well all I can say is that I’m jealous of anyone who’s going along!

One band playing during the weekend is Wolf Alice, hailing from North London, their debut album ‘My Love Is Cool‘ was released on Monday and after a few listens, I must say that if you catch them this weekend you’ll have fun!

‘My Love Is Cool’ Debut album from Wolf Allice

Many people have described this album to be similar to that of the 90’s grunge scene, however singer & front lady Ellie Rowsell has told NME, “It’s 100 percent not a grunge record. It’s a much braver record than that.” Yes that’s true. Whilst there are moments of tribute to 90’s grunge, there’s a lot more in this album and the more you hear it, the more you will discover.

Favourite track of the album for me has to be ‘Bros‘, I’ve loved this track since I first heard it early last year. However there’s now the ‘newer’ version of this track, which when released received some controversy from fans who preferred the original. I at first agreed with them but after many listens over and over I fell back in love with the song and in my opinion it remains one of my favourite songs of the year so far and I’m forever bursting out into song with it!

Other highlights on the album include single ‘Giant Peach‘, ‘Your Loves Whore’ and ‘Turn to Dust’

So if you’re a fan of the band already or if you’re looking for something new to try, get this album, you’ll enjoy it!

A great debut album, and one of the best I’ve heard in 2015.

Found in 2014

Throughout 2014, whenever I found a new song I really liked, I added it to my ‘Found in 2014‘ Spotify playlist. I managed to collect a great list of songs, and to show you what my 2014 sounded like, I’ve made a list of them for you!
Disclaimer: None of the images below are mine. If they are yours and you would like them removed, let me know.

Alt-J – Every Other Freckle
American Authors – Best Day of my Life
Arctic Monkeys – Arabella
Arctic Monkeys – Snap Out of It
Avicii – Hey Brother
Banks – Brain
The Black Keys – Fever
Bombay Bicycle Club – Come To
Capital Cities – Safe and Sound
Chet Faker – Gold
Chet Faker – No Diggity
CHVRCHES – The Mother We Share
Circa Waves – Stuck in my Teeth
Coasts – Oceans
Dan Croll – From No-where
Echosmith – Cool Kids
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros – Home
Eliza and the Bear – It Gets Cold

Fink – Looking Too Closely
George Ezra – Budapest
George Ezra – Cassy O’
Haim – Don’t Save Me
Haim – The Wire
Half Moon Run – Full Circle
Hozier – Take me to Church
Jack Johnson – Shot Reverse Shot
Jack White – Lazaretto

Jack White – Would You Fight For My Love?
James Bay – Hold Back the River
Jamie T – Zombie
John Legend – All of Me
Johnny Marr – Easy Money
Jungle – Busy Earnin’
Jungle – Son of a Gun
Kasabian – Eeez-eh
Kimberly Anne – Sound of Silence
Kings of Leon – Supersoaker
La Roux – Uptight Downtown
Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars – Uptown Funk
Metronomy – Love Letters
Mø – Don’t Wanna Dance
Mø – Say You’ll Be There
The Neighbourhood  – Staying Up
The Neighbourhood – Sweater Weather
Nick Mulvey – Cucurucu
Nico & Vinz – Am I Wrong
NONONO – Pumpin Blood
Paolo Nutini – Scream (Funk My Life Up)
Paul McCartney – Queenie Eye
Pharrell Williams – Happy
Rosie Lowe – Right Thing
Sam Means – Yeah Yeah
Sam Smith – I’m not the Only One
Sam Smith – Money on my Mind
 Sam Smith – Stay With Me
 The Strypes – Hometown Girls
 Tame Impala – Elephant
 Tom Odell – Real Love
 Vance Joy – Riptide
 Villagers – Occupy Your Mind
 Wolf Alice – Bros
 Wolf Alice – Moaning Lisa Smile