I know what books and genres most of my favorite bloggers gravitate towards, but music? I don’t have the faintest idea. Do you listen to classical music while trying to get the words to behave? Do you nod your head to some R&B or hip hop? Do you feel inspired by epic music and pound away on your keyboard to movie soundtracks?
A blogger friend gave me the idea for this post when he asked me about my favorite songs/bands/singers, so I decided to write a post and share some of them with you.
1. Dépêche Mode
I have such great memories about this band. I grew up with them, loved and lost with them, and in 2006, when I was finally able to go to one of their concerts, it was one of the best experiences of my life.
2. Ed Sheeran – Give Me Love
I don’t remember how I stumbled on this one but I fell in love with it from the very first sounds. Sad, haunting, and the video clip is about a tragic story of a famous angel. I also like I See Fire which was on the soundtrack of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”, Photograph, and the chorus of Don’t.
3. Coldplay
I love so many of their songs it’s quite difficult to choose – Clocks, Paradise, Fix You, Speed of Sound, and my latest favorite, Lost. I discovered this one last year during NaNoWriMo and it saved both my story and my sanity.
4. INXS
I’ve liked them for almost as long as I liked Dépêche Mode. Need You Tonight and Suicide Blonde are songs I listen to every now and again.
5. Lenny Krawitz – Believe in Me, Thinking of You, I Belong to You, and the newest one, Chamber, are all great tunes.
6. Florence and the Machine – Bedroom Hymns and Shake It Out
7. One Republic – Counting Stars
8. Marilyn Manson – this one was a surprise to me. I have heard of Marilyn Manson and found him slightly scary (I like Gothic but I find his makeup a bit extreme) but never really paid attention to his music until I was watching an episode of Salem and really liked the song at the beginning of the movie. At first I thought it was a Dépêche Mode song because it sounds similar, but the voice was all wrong so I Googled it. That was a shock. The song, Cupid Carries a Gun, is from the album The Pale King and after listening to the album over and over again (and liking most of the songs) I decided he’s definitely on the favorites list. Killing Strangers, The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles, Birds of Hell Awaiting, Fall of the House Of Death are my favorites. There. I’ve said it.
9. Santana – Maria
10. Lana del Rey. If you have watched “The Great Gatsby” with Leonardo diCaprio you’re probably aware of Young and Beautiful, one of the songs on the soundtrack of this movie. And if you haven’t watched it yet (the movie I mean), you should. It’s a feast for the eyes and a beautiful if twisted love story.
11. Justin Timberlake – Mirrors
12. Maroon 5 – One More Night, She Will be Loved
13. Ellie Goulding – Burn, Lights, Beating Heart.
Somehow she made it on a playlist on my mp3 player and I’ve been listening to her songs for months while jogging.
14. Pink.
When Stupid Girls came out I thought it was a great song and admired Pink for daring to be part of a video that was both hilarious and real. I also like Try and Just Give Me a Reason.
15. Adele – Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You, Set Fire to the Rain
16. Thievery Corporation – Claridad. A great gem of a song from the album Saudade, this one I discovered on a plane trip in January.
17. Gotye – Hearts a Mess. I love this one and the video is really strange; it reminds me of Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride”. Somebody That I Used to Know is another great song and so are the weird and wonderful sounds of The Only Way.
18. The Idan Raichel Project – Mi’Ma’Amakim (Out of the Depths). I heard this song years ago at a friend’s birthday and loved it instantly. I didn’t understand a word but that didn’t make one bit of a difference.
What are your favorites? Can you find some of them on this list?
This is a great idea for a post.
I like your eclectic mix of music.
I try to listen to a wide variety of music.
With that said, no matter how hard I might try to get away from it, Rock, on the harder side, will always be closest to my heart.
Hi Brian,
Rock? That’s great, I’m glad you shared that. Any favorite songs?
Today my favorite bands are the Posies, Tubetop, the Blow Pops, and Material Issue. Yesterday my favorites were entirely different. All the ones for today play a poppy brand of rock music that I like for driving in my car with the windows down. Summer music.
As far as yours go, I’ve heard of most of them but the only ones I have any music by are Depeche Mode, Coldplay, and Adele. I once got dumped by a girl wearing a Depeche Mode t-shirt. It took me years before I could listen to them again. Once I got back into them, I tried to collect as many different versions/mixes of “Enjoy the Silence” as I could find.
Hi M,
I know what you mean, favorites can change all the time. However, for me DM will always be number one.
Enjoy the Silence is one of my favorites too, in fact the entire album, Violator, is amazing.
I’ll have to investigate the bands you mentioned as I haven’t heard of them but I always enjoy your music blogs (I still remember Luluc with “Little Suitcase”, such a lovely, lovely song).
Thanks for sharing your DM-related memory, I love it when people share a little bit of themselves.
I would love to know what you make of no. 17 and 18 on the list, if you get a chance to listen to them, please let me know.
17. Vishy told me about Gotye a couple years ago when “Somebody That I Used to Know” was popular (see his comment below about the cover song). I just finished watching the video of the song you like. That video was strange. It reminded me of Tim Burton and the animation in Pink Floyd’s The Wall movie.
18. I tend to prefer my vocals in English or French, but this song was surprisingly listenable. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.
If you’d like to investigate one of my favorites from yesterday, I’d recommend going to YouTube and searching on the following terms: “the posies” “so caroline” and “live on KEXP”. I was actually in the audience at that performance and can be glimpsed a couple times in the video.
I went to YouTube and looked for the song. It’s OK but not something that I would remember. Were you wearing a hat? (Of course I looked.)
Yep, I was wearing a hat.
Beautiful, beautiful post, Delia! Loved the list of your favourite singers, songs and bands! My favourite Dépêche Mode song is ‘It’s No Good’. I love Lenny Kravitz’ ‘Fly Away’. I need to listen to the other songs of his that you have mentioned. I have listened to Ed Sheeran’s ‘Sing’ and liked it, but I haven’t listened to ‘Give Me Love’. Hoping to listen to it soon. I found Marilyn Manson interesting – a little bit dark like ’70s rock music. I love Ellie Goulding and ‘Burn’ is running on repeat mode for the past few days on my computer. I haven’t listened to Pink in a while but I remember liking her songs when I first listened to them. I loved Natalia Clavier’s ‘Claridad’ – I first listened to it after reading your beautiful post about it. It is definitely one of my favourite songs – so beautiful and haunting. The whole album ‘Saudade’ was beautiful. I remember Gotye’s ‘Somebody that I used to know’ when it first came out – I remember liking one of the covers more than the original 🙂 I somehow never got into Adele (in my defence, I tried hard to like her), but I like her song ‘Skyfall’ – it is nice. I should give her songs a try again. I loved the 9th item in your list – ‘Santana – Maria’ – nothing more needs to be said 🙂 Some of my favourites which I keep listening to these days are – ‘Song in Red and Gray’ (Suzanne Vega), ‘Light in Your Eyes’ (Sheryl Crow), ‘Birthday’ (Katy Perry), ‘No Hay Problema’ (Pink Martini), ‘This Ole House’ (Bette Midler), ‘Burn’ (Ellie Goulding), ‘Claridad’ (Natalia Clavier), ‘I really like you’ (Carly Rae Jepsen), Impromptu No.1 (Schubert), Gnossieme No.1 (Erik Satie).
Thanks for this wonderful post, Delia! I discovered many new-to-me singers and songs and I hope to listen to them soon.
So great to know your favorites, Vishy, I will make a list and listen to them as well. So you like “It’s No Good” – a great song, and so 70s! 🙂
It’s nice to see we have some songs in common – I like Skyfall as well. We don’t all have to like the same songs, so don’t worry about it. 🙂
I just listened to “I Really Like You” on Youtube, there’s a video with Tom Hanks lip-synching the entire song, it’s great! That’s a perfect song to start the day with, thank you!
Nice to know that you liked that Tom Hanks video of ‘I Really Like You’ 🙂 It makes me smile everytime I watch it – it is hard not to love Tom Hanks with his humorous interpretation of that song 🙂
Now I like Tom Hanks even more. 🙂 I wonder if I will ever see Neil Gaiman in a video like that. It would be great, wouldn’t it?
I agree, great idea for a post. And I found a few I like as well on your list.
I couldn’t share my favourites – too many and too many different genres. I used to be a singer in a band and worked as a DJ a while back. But even as a DJ, I had different genres. I was often booked for Goth parties – of course Depeche Mode and Marilyn Manson would be part of that. 🙂 I went to a Marilyn Manson concert but it was a bit lame. I think it was the end of a tour.
I quite like Nick Cave and he’s great live.
Nowadays I listen to The National and The Decembrists or classical like Arvo Paart. Also Philip Glass and Max Richter. I also enjoy people like Trentemoller. The last concert I’ve been to was David Gray.
Another one I like – very different – is the French singer Zaz. Now I have to stop or I’ll go on for hours. 🙂
Hi Caroline,
You were a singer and a DJ! That must have been great!
I find the idea of a Marilyn Manson concert a bit scary. Why was it lame? Was he trying too hard?
I enjoy Phillip Glass and I’m listening to Trentemoller’s album “The Last Resort” right now and like it a lot. The music is a great mix of odd and unexpected sounds – sometimes I think I hear echoes of DM and even Twin Peaks in there.
I’m definitely making a list of all the singers everybody mentions.
Thank you!
I still sing, only I have no band. I’m trying to get back into playing the guitar. But I’m not DJ-ing anymore. It was too exhausting. The noise, the late hours.
The concert was lame because he didn’t try at all.
It had no heart. I don’t like big venues anyway. I prefer the smaller ones. In summer we have a festival on the Rhine. During one month bands play on a raft and you can listen from the quays. It’s for free and sometimes there are well-known people. Not huge names but well-known. It’s fun. At least when you don’t live close by. 🙂
Singing and playing the guitar, that sounds wonderful. I can see how DJ-ing would be fun for a while. The noise would bother me too.
That’s disappointing, that he didn’t even try. He seems so…out there, like he could put everybody under a spell.
It would be nice to go to that festival every now and then but I don’t envy people who live nearby.
I don’t listen to much music really, though I like me some nice pop. Mostly, I listen to podcasts or audiobooks. When I do listen to music, I love to listen to Coldplay, Gotye, Meghan Trainer, and Maroon 5.
Hi Athira,
I’m the same but every now and then a song catches my attention and I can be quite obsessed with it for a while.
We seem to have similar tastes in music. I forgot all about Meghan Trainor. Her song, All About That Bass, is just too funny.
Preferring quiet when I’m blogging I can’t say I listen to much music but when I do listen I feel that like my reading I have fairly eclectic tastes when it comes to music. Thanks for sharing your preferences, its always fun to learn more about the blogger behind the blog.
You and me both, Tracy, quiet is the best, although there are exceptions.
Hi Delia,
This post is lovely! Some of my most favourite songs are in your list. Like Somebody…, all songs of Maroon 5, Adele and Coldplay, Young and Beautiful, Mirrors… I am saving your list, and I am going to try listening to the other songs this weekend. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I love the idea.
I am a fan of Above and Beyond. Sun and Moon, Siren of the Sea, and Thing Called Love are my favourites. I love the acoustic version of all the songs. I have taken a liking to EDM only recently, but I don’t seem to enjoy other popular EDM bands.
Also, I love Imagine Dragons and Passenger. Radioactive, Monster of the former, and Let Her Go and Circles of the latter are my favourites again. Thank you again for writing this post. I am excited to listen to your favourites this weekend. 🙂
And, I listen to instrumental and classical music when I write. Prem Joshua’s Sky Kisses Earth, and Punya Srinivas’s Veena in Vienna are my favourites. 🙂
Hi Deepika,
I am listening to Above and Beyond – We’re All We Need and I like it a lot. Never heard of them before but I love the sound of this song – it reminds me of disco music. 🙂 I’m thinking they would be perfect for my playlist, great workout music, so thanks for mentioning them.
Imagine Dragons and Passenger, I love them too. See, that’s the problem with great songs, you can never remember all of them.
Let Her Go is such a lovely song.
I’m going to listen to the instrumental music you mentioned. Sometimes I like music when I write, preferably without words. Have you heard of “Protectors of the Earth”? “Two Steps From Hell” is a great epic song. It’s The Lord of the Rings kind of music. 🙂
Also, if you search on YouTube for “X-Men: Days Of Future Past – Hope (Xavier’s Theme)” you’ll find a beautiful song, a bit melodramatic but great. I listened to it a lot during NaNoWriMo last year when I needed to write a bit of drama into my story.
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