So, not a particularly exciting month in Music. Despite actual effort on my part, Sigrid still tops the chart by a large margin. Tessa Violet comes in second. I actually watched both of these artists doing online live(ish) shows due to the Corona-virus. Though the Sigrid segment of the Twitch Stream event was pre recorded and not actually live. Tessa Violet has been doing some live shows on Youtube.
The soundtracks for Gris and Journey both make a return. They are both pretty similar in feel and are really great for “general distraction free listening”. Lindsey Sterling also falls into this category really.
In newer releases, Dua Lipa has released the full Future Nostalgia album and it’s pretty good. Good enough to already make it up into this monthly list. I’ve also been trying to give Taylor Swift’s Lover another go, though it just isn’t doing it for me.
Lastly, and kind of out of left field is the Gin Blossoms. The Gin Blossoms are performing in town in a few months and I was listening to them as a bit of a refresher to help decide if I wanted to try to get tickets. At this point, with all the COVID mess, the show will probably get cancelled anyway, but I opted for no, for now. I do enjoy Gin Blossoms, but at the moment, not enough to go to a show.
In general my music listening is down a bit as I’ve been listening to more Podcasts again. Mostly This Week in Tech, Windows Weekly, and WTF@TFW which finally started putting out episodes again.
Not a whole ton that’s overly exciting this month. I did listen to quite a bit of BT, whom is one of my all time favorite artists, even if my time listening to his stuff comes and goes. I think there was a bit of earlier stuff that I didn’t associate as being BT that I liked, but I remember that Never Gonna Come Back Down was the track that really got me into listening to more of BT’s music. It was on the soundtrack for Gone in 60 Seconds. In the actual movie, they play this really neat super low key remix of Never Gonna Come Back Down that I have never been able to find a copy of anywhere. It occurs when they are stealing the Ferraris from the garage.
Another older album I used to listen to on repeat that came back briefly this month was Rollergirl. Last.fm suggests Rollergirl hasn’t had a release since 2002, which is probably around the time I was listening to this music. Also, apparently Roller girl is some German dude.
Still plenty of Sigrid and Tessa Violet going on. Plus a bit more CHVRCHES this month. I have to say, the more I listen to CHVRCHES, the more I like their stuff. Not that I didn’t like it before, I just, like it more.
Anyway, I’m just gonna close out here with a little Spotify Playlist I made up that collects together the more low key Sigrid tracks available on the service.
I keep wanting to change these up to be by artist instead of album but there doesn’t seem to be a 5×5 generator that does artists and has images. Sounds like an excuse to do some coding, but I’m not sure it’s possible because it feels like something someone would have done.
So anyway, it’s back to albums. Which gets a little sloppy looking this month.
So, there has been one major change this month. Around the turn of the year, I got an email through work for 6 months of Spotify Premium. I usually don’t really go for limited time offers but 6 months is a pretty good chunk of time, so I decided to go in on that. I’m enjoying using Spotify, but I doubt I keep the subscription after the 6 months are over. In general, I prefer to buy music. It has been pretty nice for discovery however.
Most of that discovery doesn’t show up on this 5×5 grid though. It’s hard to make it to the top monthly list when you get played maybe 2-3 times within a playlist of others played 2-3 times. Going by the numbers, it didn’t really increase my overall monthly Scrobbles either.
I am honestly a little surprised that Sigrid is still my most listened to artist. She has consistently held that spot since I started listening to her music, and she has become my most listened to artist of all time. I’ve gone through several phases of listening to her music which has helped. There was a time listening to the Sucker Punch album, which is Sigrid’s most recent album. Then I was listening to tracks from live shows that are currently unreleased, some on Youtube (which also gets scrobbled). Then there was a period of listening to the previous two EP releases, Ray and Don’t Kill my Vibe. More recently, with Spotify, I’ve found a cache of tracks that are only on Spotify.
I want to roll of Sigrid to Amanda Tenfjord. Her music came recomended on some Sigrid fan channels due to her similarity in overall style to Sigrid. The music sounds similar, the album art sounds similar, she is also Norwegian. There were jokes that she was secretly Sigrid, though there is a definite difference in the vocals. I am probably not an expert enough to properly describe it, but Amanda Tenfjord has less range and sounds a bit more Tenor… maybe? Like there’s more low end going on in her voice. Plus there is a slight difference in their accents.
Moving on.
Still a lot of Tessa Violet sprinkled throughout the playlist. I mentioned last month that I expect her to stick around for a while, though I’m starting to wonder just how long. I don’t really like all of her songs like I do other artists who stick around for a while. Another one that’s all over this 5×5 is Carly Rae Jepsen. I’ve enjoyed Carly’s music for a while, but Spotify has kind of opened up a nice little world of alternate takes and songs from her library. I particularly like this take on No Doubt’s Don’t Speak.
It’s not a super interesting take, but It’s a weird contrast to the usual super upbeat music of Carly Rae Jepsen. Also, back in the day, I used to listed to Tragic Kingdom a lot, so I have an underlying love for No Doubt as well.
The only thing left that’s particularly notable here is the soundtrack to Gris, coming in at number 4. Gris is a video game I was playing earlier this year and both the visuals and the soundtrack are excellent. It’s got a really nice ambient sort of piano vibe going that’s great for background music.
