Audio

Listening Habits

The Annual Playlist for 2023

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

A few years ago, I was sorting through some older music, and came across old Mix Tapes and CD-Rs.  It’s really fun because unlike digital music, these are essentially static playlists.  This is a window into what I was listening to at that time.  And no, you didn’t misread that, Mix Tapes.  and they were mostly from the 90s era.  My first car didn’t have a CD player, it just had a cassette deck.  Teenage me would regularly visit the local library and check out a variety of CDs, then spend the week picking out my favorite tracks and recording them to tapes.  I also recorded some from the radio.  I had a stereo with a dual cassette deck so I could easily copy some back and forth among my tapes.

Here is a fun blast from the past for ya. I had a thing for a while where I would make little custom art for my tapes too, most of them had Gunsmith Cats artwork but I also did some for Dance Dance Revolution as well.

Something really amusing I noticed here is that “Car Tape 3” includes 2 Alanis Morrisette songs, both of which are on my 2023 playlist (below).

Digital playlists aren’t quite as robust.  They are honestly kind of a pain to deal with over time, because the files can move around and then the playlists essentially just break.  But I did try to sort of replicate the experience of an annual playlist after the nostalgia trip of these tapes and CDs.  Basically, usually sometimes in January, I make a new playlist for the year, simply named, for example, “2023 Playlist.”  For the first few I would star with the previous year and seriously trim it down.  More recently I just start from scratch.  The idea is, it can evolve over the year though.  Essentially, i start with a “best of” from previous years, music I want to listen to “now” in January, then over the course of the year, I might remove some songs, and I might add some songs.  

The bigger point is, I have the old lists, if I wanted to go back and listen to things, though, that would also still have the digital music problem of, “The music was moved/removed and the list is broken.”  

But at least I do still have the list.      

More recently though I have been thinking of sticking these in a more meaningful file for future nostalgia (Ironically, a song that I debated adding to this year’s list but decided not to in favor of other Dua Lipa tracks).  Probably some sort of simple Excel file or something, then I can eventually manipulate the listings in 5 year when I decided to do some sort of retrospective blog post and list out “This song was on 8 out of 12 Playlists!” sort of nonsense.

For now, I wanted to just, post the list, for the start of this year.  I’ll alphabetize it by artist, but the order doesn’t matter, these are always just played on shuffle.

Alanis Morissette - All I Really Want
Alanis Morissette - Ironic
Alice Merton - No Roots
Alice Merton - 2 Kids
Alice Merton - Funny Business
Alice Merton - Easy
Alice Merton - Lash Out
Aurora - The Woman I Am (Vevo Live)
Aurora - Giving In To The Love
Aurora - Cure For Me
Aurora - A Temporary High
Aurora - Blood In The Wine
Aurora - Animal
Aurora - Hunger
Aurora - The Seed
Aurora - I Went Too Far
Aurora - Murder Song (5, 4, 3, 2, 1)
Aurora - Gentle Earthquakes
Aurora - All Is Soft Inside
Aurora - Churchyard
Avril Lavigne - Here's To Never Growing Up
Avril Lavigne - Things I'll Never Say
Bt - Never Gonna Come Back Down
Bt - Movement in Still Life
Bt - Satellite
Bt - Smartbomb
CHVRCHES - The Killing Moon (Amazon Original)
CHVRCHES - The Mother We Share
CHVRCHES - Gun
CHVRCHES - Recover
CHVRCHES - Killer
CHVRCHES - Screaming
CHVRCHES - Bitter End
CHVRCHES - Violent Delights
CHVRCHES - Good Girls Explicit
CHVRCHES - Death Stranding
CHVRCHES - Never Ending Circles
CHVRCHES - Clearest Blue
CHVRCHES - Graffiti
CHVRCHES - Forever
CHVRCHES - Graves
dodie - Monster (Vevo Live)
dodie - Hate Myself
dodie - Cool Girl
dodie - Monster
Dua Lipa - Physical
Dua Lipa - Good In Bed Explicit
Dua Lipa - Cool
Fred V & Grafix ft. Ruth Royall - Sunrise (Season Mix)
Griff ft Sigrid - Head on Fire
Juno Reactor - Guardian Angel
Juno Reactor - Samurai
Katy Perry - Electric
Kim Petras - Icey (Vevo Live)
King Princess - PAIN
M83 - Midnight City
Magdalena Bay - Killshot
Magdalena Bay - Mercurial World
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Metallica - The Unforgiven
Neil Frances - On the Lookout (feat. Raffaella)
Nigel Stanford - Automatica
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Nirvana - Come as You Are
Nirvana - On a Plain
Orla Gartland - Things That I've Learned
Orla Gartland - You're Not Special, Babe [Explicit]
Orla Gartland - Pretending [Explicit]
Orla Gartland - Flatline
Paramore - Misery Business
Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place
Raffaella - Grown Up (Vevo Live)
Raffaella - Blonde (Vevo Live)
Raffaella - Hell Yeah
Raffaella - Sororicide
Raffaella - Bardot
Raffaella - BUICK
Sigrid - A Driver Saved My Night (Vevo Live)
Sigrid - It Gets Dark (VevoLive)
Sigrid - Deep
Sigrid - Dip My Heart in Confetti
Sigrid - Dancer
Sigrid - Mistake Like You
Sigrid - A Driver Saved My Night
Sofi Tukker - Hey Lion
Sofi Tukker - Awoo (feat. Betta Lemme)
Taylor Swift - Getaway Car
Taylor Swift - This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Taylor Swift - New Romantics
Taylor Swift - Fearless (Taylor’s Version)
Taylor Swift - Love Story (Taylor’s Version)
Taylor Swift - You Need to Calm Down
Taylor Swift - Lavender Haze
Taylor Swift - Anti‐Hero
Taylor Swift - Vigilante Shit
Taylor Swift - Mastermind
Tessa Violet - Bad Ideas
Tessa Violet - Games
The Cranberries - Dreams
The Cranberries - Zombie
Wolf Alice - Smile
Listening Habits

My Music Listening Habits for 2022

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

It’s that time again, when I ramble on about what I’ve been listening to this year.  I don’t use Spotify so I don’t have a “cool kids” wrap up to share.  Instead you get this!  A blog post!  And some little 5×5 charts made from my Last.fm.  I kind of prefer starting on Artists over Albums, so without further ado, the top 25 for 2022.  Which unsurprisingly, is relatively similar to my previous years.

In a surprise to literally no one, including myself, my top 3 are pretty much the same as they have been for a while.  Aurora, CHVRCHES, and Sigrid.  Actually, I am a little surprised Sigrid is so high, I didn’t listen tot he new album a ton, or much Sigrid that I remember actually.  Aurora and CHVRCHES, not so much, I listen to both a lot.  Heck, I saw Aurora live this year.

Beyond that is a bit of new-ish stuff.  I’m still been digging on Radiohead’s Kid A Mnesia re-release, and I picked up a copy of OK Computer to add to that mix.  The Weeknd’s Dawn FM has become a pretty regular listen as well.  It’s an album I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I do.   Orla Gartland and Dodie slot in at numbers 6 and 7.  I almost went to see Dodie (and Orla) earlier this year but my wife had a Doctor’s thing come up and COVID was starting to ramp up again, so I opted to skip it.

Next on the list is Magdalena Bay, a newcomer to the list which a lot of the folks at the CHVRCHES discord recommended.  Another with this honor is Wolf Alice down in the number 17 slot.  I actually kind of prefer Wolf Alice to Mag Bay, but I picked up their album later, so they got less time to be listened to. Wolf Alice is a bit more, guitars and rock, while Mag Bay is more synth and electronic.  Also in this list of “Recommended by CHV People,” is Purity Ring at number 20.

Quite a few regulars on the list for a bit, though I want to comment on how much Raffaella has manages to stay in these lists.  I’m sure I mentioned it before, several times, but I had never hear of her back in 2019 before going to see Sigrid, and I’ve been listening to her music still, years later.  She hasn’t even really put out a lot of new stuff either, a couple of singles and a small sized EP.

I think Berlinist is new to the top 25, but this is entirely from listening to the Gris Video Game soundtrack.  It’s a good ‘relaxing music” album.  

There are a few missing that I’m actually surprised are missing.  Well, one anyway, which is Enya.  Not a new artist by any means, but I ended up with her entire discography, minus one, I think, at an estate sale, and I listened to quite a few of her albums recently.  It feels like it should have been enough to put her up there on the list.  It’s also really interesting because, Enya definitely reminds me of the same sort of, exotic, vocalizing, sort of style of Aurora.

Anyway, next up is the albums list, but a lot will have been covered by the Artists wrap up so I’ll just stick to anything interesting.

And it’s more or less an expansion of the Artists lists.  Most interesting, though not surprising is that every album from Aurora and CHVRCHES appears in this list.

I also noticed I forgot to mention the Cranberries.  Like Enya, I picked up a few Cranberries albums and I’ve been enjoying them.  It’s also funny because, Enya “feels” like an “Earlier Aurora” in a lot of ways, and The Cranberries, “feels” like an “Earlier CHVRCHES” in a lot of ways.  I could actually expand on this a bit with Sigrid too, because Alanis Morissette, “feels” like an “Earlier Sigrid.”

I guess my point is, the more things change,t he more they stay the same, and my overall musical tastes is about the same as it always has been, it’s just added the latest version of the same shtick.

Live Shows

Aurora @ The Riviera feat SubUrban (2022.05.27)

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

It seems like my brief run (of 2) concerts where I was standing up front couldn’t last forever. I was close, but I was not right up front for the Aurora show. Not a massive deal, except I ended up behind this dude with poofy hair, so I couldn’t see half the stage half the time.

But I’m not really here to complain. I’m here to record things that I want to remember.

This would have been my 4th (proper) concert, but I opted to not go see Dodie back in February, due to COVID going nuts at the time. So far, there has been kind of an interesting progression. Each time I’ve gotten to the venue an hour or so before doors opened. For Sigrid and CHVRCHES in St Louis, I was maybe 15-20 people back from the front of the line. For Aurora I was around the block and behind the venue in a very long line. I’m not real sure Aurora is particularly more popular, especially than CHVRCHES, but more likely Chicago is just a different environment than St Louis.

It certain was different for parking too. Both venues in St Louis had parking lots available. For Chicago, I used an app called Spot Hero and had to walk a mile and a half or so to the venue. Plus, I got to park in the jankiest back alley spot under an El Train bridge. Fun times.

Anyway, the doors eventually open, everyone slowly files in, I end up maybe, 4 people back right up against the right side. I probably could have gone closer to the center but I kind of preferred the idea of having the side rail available because, less people around.

The opening act was Sub Urban. I don’t really know much about Sub Urban beyond, he did a single with Aurora called Paramour. Unlike the opening acts at the last two shows, I don’t see myself rushing out to listen to more Sub Urban. His music was interesting, and it wasn’t bad, but it just… wasn’t really my thing. I think the best way to describe it is sort of Emo Rock Rap, while Sub urban does this weird sort of spastic jerky dance. Like I said, it wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t personally super into it.

I was a bit disappointed that they did not perform Paramour live, or even at all. It was kind of the perfect opportunity. I figure the issue there amounts to a few factors. Either you get Aurora out early, which spoils things a bit. Or you have to drag out Paramour’s band gear out again, which isn’t feasible at all, because it’s a Paramour song.

Anyway, as usual, there was a short intermission while the stage is reset, and then the main show of Aurora starts.

The main thing I feel like mentioning, I enjoyed the show a lot more than expected. And I want to say this because I had doubts about the set list before the show. I enjoy the the newest album that the tour is promoting, The Gods We Can Touch, but it’s not my favorite. I was worried that would slightly sour my overall enjoyment, but it did not. I think part of it is that the songs are frankly, better live.

I also was a bit worried about the sound because recently Silja Sol, who has been doing backup vocals for Aurora for a long time, left the band for her own solo work. I was a bit worried that this may hurt the sound, because Silja and Aurora harmonize so well together.

This is a common thing I have found in general, across acts. Even for songs I really enjoy, the music is better live.

Anyway, the setlist.

  • The Forbidden Fruits of Eden (Recorded Intro) (TGWCT)
  • Heathens (TGWCT)
  • Runaway (All My Demons…)
  • Everything Matters (TGWCT)
  • Blood in the Wine (TGWCT)
  • Warrior (All My Demons…)
  • The Woman I Am (TGWCT)
  • A Temporary High (TGWCT)
  • A Dangerous Thing (TGWCT)
  • Infections of a Different Kind (Step 1)
  • The River (Step 2)
  • Cure for Me (TGWCT)
  • Queendom (Step 1)
  • The Seed (Step 2)
  • Running With the Wolves (All My Demons…)

Encore:

  • Giving In to the Love (TGWCT)
  • A Little Place Called the Moon (Recorded Outro) (TGWCT)

It’s a little thing, but I am really glad Exist for Love wasn’t on the list, because I kind of actively dislike that track in particular. Total tracks were 3 from All My Demons Greeted Me as a Friend, 2 each from Infections of a Different Kind and A Different Kind of Human and 8+2 from The Gods We Can Touch. Not a bad set list. I had been really hoping that somehow Gentle Earthquakes would make it to the set list as it’s my favorite track but it did not.

My personal highlights on this list are Heathens,, Warrior, The Woman I Am, Infections of a Different Kind, Cure For Me, Running With the Wolves, and Giving In to the Love. OK yeah, that’s like half the tracks, and I honestly love them all. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but Aurora is my top artist of all time, according to Last FM. And as my listening habits tend to be album based over singles, I’ve listened to all of her songs, a lot. I am not sure I could actually pick a favorite from the list, but it probably would be The Woman I Am or Infections of a Different Kind. The latter being particularly notable because it’s a song I don’t listen to a lot because it’s slower, I’m not always in the mood for the slower tracks, and it’s the last song on it’s album, so I don’t always get to it before I stop listening.

Anyway, I am super glad I got to have this experience. I’ve actually seen my top three most listened to (at least per Last-FM) Artists Live now, which is fun.

I’ve added a few photos to this post but a full gallery can be found here.

Listening Habits

My Music Listening Habits for 2021

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

It’s time again for my new favorite annual tradition here (until it isn’t), my music listening habits for the year. Not a lot of new this year, I’ll admit that. Though I sometimes wonder if part of that is that some artists and albums get sort of lost int he sauce of over listening to some of my favorite artists. Anyway onto the break down, I’ll split up artists and albums even though they kind of parallel each other.

Artists

The biggest movers this year were Aurora and CHVRCHES in the number two and number one spot. CHVRCHES has a new album released this year and Aurora in general is just really great. We also have Dodie at number 4, which I predicted last year would be a riser in the charts. Also at number 6 is Orla Garland, who in addition to being Dodie’s Guitarist, also released a pretty good album this year (Woman on the Internet).

Another one, though probably more well known than most of the rest of my top ten, is Dua Lipa. For some reason I keep having to remind myself just how good her album Future Nostalgia is, because every track on that one is excellent and I enjoy listening to it every single time.

Also a few regulars that have been floating around these lists, BT, Daft Punk, Lady Gaga, Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morrisette, The Who. I’ve also been listening to Nirvana a lot lately for some reason. Slightly surprising is that Rafaella is still up there at number 19. She opened for Sigrid when I went in 2019.

Albums

My most listened to Albums for the year are pretty in sync with the artists list. The top ten are dominated by CHVRCHES and Aurora, with the rest of the list covering others in the higher end of the list of artists. I honestly didn’t listen to enough different albums to make a proper list of new albums, but Screen Violence, Woman on the Internet, Build a problem, Red, Taylor’s Version, are all albums I would recommend.

Changes in Habits

So, I wanted to throw in real quick some changes in my music habits. One, I wanted to go to more shows after seeing Sigrid live, and this was re-enforced after seeing CHVRCHES. I keep mentioning this and so I should probably STOP mentioning this. I do already have two shows lined up for 2022, Dodie and Aurora, which isn’t a lot, but it’s something. Here is hoping the world doesn’t collapse on itself again now that we’re sort of able to do this sort of thing again.

I’ve also been shifting to FLAC over MP3. I re-ripped a few of my more favored CDs to Lossless format. I’ve also started buying FLAC instead of MP3s when I can. Part of this also means I’ve been getting less from Amazon, where I previously bought a lot of my music. It’s also part of why the “new” factor took a nose dive this year. I don’t use any music streaming services, I prefer to actually buy and own my music. Amazon did include some streaming I occasionally used with Prime, but the app has become disgustingly aggressive about pushing their paid streaming service so I removed it. Basically I’m sick of it and I’m “voting with my wallet”.

Precictions

I also want to make some predictions a bit for 2022. CHVRCHES will still linger but will likely start to fall off. The new album hype is over, going to see them live hype is over, I still have them in rotation but I can tell I’ve been listening less lately.

I predict Sigrid will start to make a come back. She is still my number one artist scrobbled of all time, but she has had almost zero movement this year. She put out a couple of tracks but I prefer to wait for albums these days, though Burning Bridges and Mirror are both good. I predict the come back because of the new album. HOWEVER, I predict she will lose the top all time spot to Aurora. Aurora also has a new album coming out next year, right at the start, and (unless the world fall apart again), I’m going to see Aurora live in May. Aurora is also very close to over taking Sigrid already.

I also predict BT will start to rise fairly quickly. I’ve bee doing some catch up on some of his newer albums and I still really enjoy his music. I also feel like Dua Lipa is going to start rising in the list and Tessa Violet is going to fall. Tessa Violet hasn’t really put putting out anything that interesting lately, mostly remixed versions of tracks already released. It’s not bad, it’s just not keeping my interest.

Finally, two to keep an eye on will be Sofi Tukker and King Princess. Both have been sort of bubbling along in the background for a while and I feel like both are going to start getting more play in my rotations and album listening.

Live Shows

CHVRCHES @ The Pageant feat Donna Missal (12/06/2021)

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

Back in 2019 after going to see Sigrid live, I decided I really wanted to go to more concerts. I even started planning to maybe try to go to Lollapalooza at some point. Then well, the world fell apart, and there were no concerts really for a while. Things are still kind of falling apart but they are better for people making an effort to make them better (though that’s a subject for another post). I did manage to make it to another concert. I even have one, maybe more lined up for 2022 already. This time it was CHVRCHES. It’s just pronounced “Sheevurches” so don’t over think it. No wait, it’s just “Churches”.

Funny enough, Last.fm suggests I started really listening to CHVRCHES a bit after going to see Sigrid, though I also started really trying harder with tracking music on Last.fm around that time as well. I am pretty really sure I have listened to at least some of their music before 2019. I’ve been listening to them pretty heavily for the past few years, spoilers for my end of year music wrap up, but they were my number one most listened to artist this year. Though they are still number 4 over all.

CHVRCHES at The Pageant

This show was once again in St. Louis, this time at The Pageant, a nice music hall a little north of Forrest Park off of Delmar Blvd. The supporting act was Donna Missal, whom I had not heard before. Before the show I had a pretty tasty chicken sandwich down the block at Chicken Out. I forsake my “Ramen Junkie” moniker this round a bit because the chicken seemed faster and I just wasn’t in the mood for noodles, despite that there is a Ramen Noodle restaurant just next door to the Pageant. Maybe next time.

I got tot he venue around an hour and a half early, I really wanted to get down up front like I had with Sigrid, though the light show of CHVRCHES is probably pretty good even from a distance. I managed to end up on the bar next to the stage again, down on the right side.

The show itself was really great. I enjoyed Donna Missal quite a bit and was kind of disappointed that I could not find her merch stand, despite her mentioning it, I had kind of wanted to pick up a CD if they had any. I did go ahead and get a digital copy of her newer album later. She had some pretty amusing moments with her guitarist, who, in her words, is her “crush” though “sadly, she is married… to a man…” Her setlist was 10 songs line, 9 original and one cover.

  • How Does It Feel
  • Jupiter
  • Skin
  • Butterfly
  • Insecure
  • Sex is Good
  • (To Me) Your Face is Love
  • Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead Cover)
  • Best Friend
  • Let You Let Me
Donna Missal
Donna Missal

After a brief break was the main event with CHVRCHES. What a great show. Tons of amazing lighting effects, a solid performance, despite Lauren apparently having a cold. Not quite as much back and forth banter between the three as I would have liked and have seen in some of the other concert videos, but still a bit of fun bits in between tracks. I almost wonder if some of those break moments where they would chat were sacrificed for Lauren’s many costume changes. She came out in one outfit, and shed the jacket she was wearing after the first track, changed later into a second outfit, then later into a third, which was modified for the encore songs. So essentially 5 different “outfits”, though she doesn’t leave the stage to shed her jacket.

The show was also really good from an acoustics perspective. The audio engineers definitely deserve some credit for good mixing and balancing on things. It wasn’t overpoweringly loud like the Sigrid show had been. Though I did have a set of concert ear plugs this time, something I’d recommend honestly. Proper concert ear plugs are designed to slightly dampen the sound without making if muffled or too quiet. I really did not notice anything missing.

Anyway, CHVRCHES setlist was 17 tracks long, with the majority of the tracks being off of Screen Violence, which isn’t surprising. I also managed to get much better photos and video than when I saw Sigrid.

  • He Said She Said
  • Forever
  • Leave a Trace
  • California
  • How Not to Drown
  • Violent Delights
  • Science/Visions
  • Good Girls
  • Bury It
  • Miracle
  • Night Sky
  • Final Girl
  • Recover
  • Never Say Die
  • Asking For a Friend (Encore)
  • The Mother We Share (Encore)
  • Clearest Blue (Encore)

I particularly enjoyed Violent Delights, which is relentlessly aggressive live, the chaotic build of Science/Visions, Night Sky which is always great, and the massive build up of Never Say Die. Then of course Clearest Blue was a perfect closer track. However all of the tracks were excellent.

The encore itself was particularly special. In keeping with the “Horror” surface level theme of Screen Violence, Lauren comes back on stage covered in fake blood for the final three songs, still wearing her “Final Girl” T-shirt from the last costume change.

CHVRCHES at The Pageant
CHVRCHES at The Pageant
CHVRCHES at The Pageant
CHVRCHES at The Pageant
CHVRCHES at The Pageant
CHVRCHES at The Pageant
CHVRCHES at The Pageant
CHVRCHES at The Pageant
CHVRCHES at The Pageant

« Previous Page — Next Page »