Music of Hilary, Trinity, and Long Vac 2013

Well, it's been ages since I've done a music post, which is a bit of a shame, because I've discovered a number of new bands I quite like since my last post.

A friend of mine recommended Fleet Foxes and Bat for Lashes to me, both of which I quite like.  Fleet Foxes has a nice, throwback thing going and reminds me of classic rock, while Bat for Lashes has an indie/Florence + the Machine thing going on.

I might like 'Daniel' best of the Bat for Lashes catalogue, but 'All My Gold' is the one I get stuck in my head most often.  The Fleet Foxes song is 'Myknonos', which is great.

Music of Michaelmas 2012: Within Temptation Edition

Before the end of last year, I promised a post on the music I listened to in Michaelmas Term.  Seeing as we are now three weeks into Hilary, I thought I'd better get this music post up now before it becomes morbidly too late.

Because I went to Within Temptation's fifteen-year anniversary concert in Antwerp, I spent some time listening to their back catalogue, Enter (1997), The Dance EP (1998), Mother Earth (2000), The Silent Force (2004), The Heart of Everything (2007), and The Unforgiving (2011).  In honour of this re-listening to one of my favourite-ever bands, I give, you my favourite six seven songs. 

(Which were incredibly hard to choose!)

"Candles", from Enter.  My favourite from the era of the first album and EP, when the band did "Beauty and the Beast"-style singing.  That is, pairing Sharon den Adel's lovely "clean" vocals with male, er, growling.  If you don't listen much music with growling, it will come across as strange and Cookie Monster-ish, but I've developed a bit of a fondness for it (in moderation!) and I quite like the contrast it creates in songs like this one.

Music of Trinity Term 2012

This is possibly a silly series to have running on a blog, but alas, I've started and I don't know how to stop.  Without further ado, music I listened to obsessively in Trinity Term 2012.

1) Lana Del Rey, "Blue Jeans".  I saw the music video for this on a random afternoon in the Mansfield MCR and for some reason, fell for it, even if it does have a rapped section.  (Not a hip hop fan, not even a little bit).  This was my soundtrack for the end of the Easter vac and the beginning of Trinity.  I will in particular always remember listening to this song the day I hopped up to London and saw the Westminster Cathedral for the first time and went to Teri Terry's book launch for Slated (a great YA dystopia, by the way, and coming out in North America next year).

Oxford Soundtrack: Fall 2011

I listen to a fair bit of music while I work, both on my thesis and my novel (and while doing the dishes).  I tend to listen to one thing pretty obsessively at a time, with other artists and songs thrown in for flavouring.  For this reason, my first term at Oxford and the lead up to Christmas has had a pretty identifiable soundtrack, which I will share with you, if you are interested.

If you, like Tim, have absolutely no interest in European symphonic metal, you will probably want to skip this entry.

Moving over here will probably always be associated with the first single off Evanescence's self-titled album, which came out at the beginning of October.  I remember very clearly blasting "What You Want" in the car on our terrible speakers while driving around Saskatoon during our last weeks there.

The album itself came out right as term began (and, ahem, leaked shortly before that), so I listened to it repeatedly during my orientations and my first few weeks of research.  For the record, I think it's a great album, an improvement over their last effort and, frankly, better than We Are the Fallen's debut record (though I'd be very happy to listen to their follow-up).