“So you can play your favorite song It will tell me everything I need to know about you” - Frequency by Elton Aura, Andrew Bedows, Burns Twins, Jean Deaux.
May is gone and summer is in full bloom! School ending no longer pertains to me so for me it just means hot weather and that I have to find something suitable in my closet for my business casual job. I have, however, officially turned 25, which really means nothing in the grand scheme of things! Life is the same as it was just before I turned a quarter of a century. The biggest changes are the ones that occur over longer than just a year. So despite feeling unchanged in this moment I am proud of where I am at this age.
Some things as I age remain constant- my favorite song is not one of those things. Once, not too long ago, I made a playlist to share my all time favorite songs with someone so they could get to know me. We limited it to 10 songs which was asking a lot of me. Despite it feeling impossible, I was able to get to this list:
“ILY x11” by dandelion hands
“Landing On Mars” by rei brown
“Kids” by Current Joys
“Uhgood” by RM
“Warm You” by Matty and Mandaworld
“The end.” by November Ultra
“Ur Name on a Grain of Rice” by Runnner
“Ladyfingers” by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
“Curls” by Bibio
Curated over a year ago, this list is still mostly accurate, but there is a lot of music out there. Releases come every week, and new artists spring up. My actual favorite song playlist is over 600 songs long. Try narrowing that down to 10 songs!!
What does this say about me?
The list above are songs that evoke nostalgia, emotion, tears, and create a swell in my heart. Songs that I had gatekept in my heart. Sharing them felt like opening a secret box and now that it's open, here I am sharing them on a public blog. If you listen to any of the songs I talk about on my blog, these are the ones I recommend. This list might be the real tell of whether we agree on music. And if you don't like them? I don’t want to know! I’ll plug my ears and say “lalalala.”
Back to our regularly scheduled programming. The music of May started fresh and hot, and I know in my last post I had hyped it up quite a bit. Listening to the same songs over and over still leads to even the best ones getting stale.
The songs from May that I still have on repeat are:
- “Fool’s Paradise" by Isaac Dunbar
- “LOVE + POP” by Current Joys and YOUR ANGEL
- “Killin’ It Girl (feat. GloRilla) by j-hope and GlorRilla
- “Welcome Change” by Phum Viphurit
Some of my on repeat songs end up in my “Liked Songs” on Spotify. This is where I happen to dump my all time favorite songs. As you scroll through my “Liked Songs” it's almost like a time machine. From my first day on Spotify June 25th 2015 to today. That's over ten years worth of favorites! I wonder what June will bring- and if any lucky songs will end up there.
“Photo album, but the color faded from it If I could go back and tell you how it ends,” - How Much Is Weed? By Dominic Fike.
As I get older, of course so do the people around me. So often the world seems frozen in place because of this. The changes become muted because of the frequency in which you see people or yourself in the mirror. Until you look back at the past, then you can see yourself and others in the freeze frames of times that are long gone.
My grandparents on both sides of my family have begun a purge of things. One of those things I have taken custody of is an album of photos taken during my childhood. The first picture in it is taken three days after my birth. My mother holds me, and she is 19. I of course can not imagine what she is like at 19 because I did not know her. But I know how vastly she has changed into the woman she is now.
Amidst these baby pictures, a picture of me on Halloween in 2011 dressed as a zombie. My sister and I had taken our old school uniforms and dirtied them, using costume makeup to make our faces pale and bloodied.
Half of the album is the first year of my life and this Halloween photo. The final third is when the years begin to scatter, and since it is my grandmother’s photo album, they become mostly snapshots of birthdays and Christmases. The album's pages begin to bulge with stacked pictures and despite being full, another envelope filled with more photos is stuffed in the back.
The most recent photo in the album is in 2019 before I graduated high school. In it I wear a jersey to a soccer team I am not sure exists anymore. I’m holding the itinerary to the England trip my grandmother gifted me for graduation. My dreams and things I worked for then, are so different than they are now. If I asked an 18 year old me what I would be doing today, she would have said “Your books are on the shelves of all the major book stores in the country and maybe you live in London.”
Surprise surprise, you work at a growing credit union and still live at home! While it didn't go as I expected, I have a great job and love the house I live in with my family! I am blessed that I am able to save a lot of money for the things I want. The traveling and concerts I go to would not be possible without the stability that my current life offers.
“Held on too long I think we jinxed it With words on our tongue” - “Talk” by Ralph Castelli.
My aunt told me not that long ago that she had heard that by telling others what you are going to do actually stops you from doing the things. “I’ll go to college in England” “I’ll work on my book” “I’ll learn Korean.” “I’ll move to Korea for a year” “I’ll apply to that job” Jinx. Jinx. Jinx. Jinx.
The stability and blessings that I have, often hold me back from doing things that I have always dreamed. Of course a lot of these dreams are quite unrealistic. Quitting my job and writing full time would be incredible. But then my income is gone. I have savings but how long would they last? I definitely wouldn’t be able to go on any of the trips I have planned in the upcoming couple of years. So of course I won’t just suddenly quit the job I have.
I do think that it would work out if I did. Maybe after a couple more years of working, and saving. Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz saying that in order to really do something, you have to stop letting things hold you back. Confidence comes after, you will always be telling yourself “maybe one day I’ll let myself follow that dream.When the timing is right, when I have enough money”, or whatever the excuse is.
I think if I keep giving myself these excuses, I’ll never end up following my dreams.
If you had nothing tying you down, what would you do?
Summer is the time for this sort of daydreaming. For windows down and wind in your hair. Thinking about where you’d go with no strings. Here is June, some jams to try while feeling the sun on your skin. Some of the songs I think that I’ll end up listening to on repeat this month are:
“Your mother’s, sister’s, lover’s heart is where there’s healing” - Girl Feels Good by FKA Twigs.
April showers are here! After forecasts of hot hot weather that's far too early- we have rain!! On the bridge of days leading to May we've had a little wave of chilly weather and rainy downpours! I love it, and could only wish for it to continue. In the last month our fire risk has gone up and billows of smoke in the distance carry on the wind. I love the gloomy days that encourage indoor activities and cuddling up to a fireplace. April was for me booked and busy, a glance into May and the summer ahead. In the last few years my summers have been filled with concert after concert, so far, I’ve seen Twice and the future is concertless. My repeating concert years are ending in trade for other travel.
My music taste still has its repeats. For April, I was always spinning:
- “Our Happy Place” - Tilly Birds
- “Breña” - A Perfect Circle
- “Ladies” - Fiona Apple
- “Don’t Think of Me” - Dido
Because I’ve seen so many artists in concert I am often considering who else I should be seeing, or who I would have liked to see if I could have. There are people who I could have seen that I didn’t put in the effort or money to see. Like I’ll be missing out on Jon Bellion’s upcoming shows, and FKA Twigs is also coming to my area soon and I won't be going. This year I have also started saving a lot more money than I have in the past. I am of course investing into the concerts of my future.
I skip a lot of my favorite artists' shows, mostly due to not wanting to spend the money or just prioritizing other shows that I would rather go to. K-pop will almost always take precedence. The community and the energy of those shows are just ten times better than almost all other concerts. There are shows I thought would feel similar, like Ashnikko. Her show was incredible but the crowd… not so much. A lot of kind people, but also a lot of people whom I cannot see myself wanting to engage with. Maybe people just get more rude when they’re drunk or high. I also sometimes assume what a crowd will be like and that influences whether or not I’ll want to go to a show. Sometimes I think you just get unlucky with the crowd that goes.
Once I saw Joji in concert, and unsurprisingly there was a significant increase in the amount of men that were at that show. This was in comparison to the heavily woman populated shows I frequent. It was different, the crowd was not as open to the soft ethereal quality of Rei Brown’s music as he opened. (One of my all time favorite artists) I heard booing and shit talking from the crowd as I sang along to all of his songs. This was a Saturday night show, and a friend told me that the Sunday show was the opposite, enjoying the vocalist’s aerial quality. I guess in that case I just got unlucky with the crowd.
The same way that I skip some of these shows I also skip the songs in my playlist. Honestly I don't usually regret adding a song to my playlists, but this time I did. The number one skip of April was “Remember To Dance (Little Things)” by Bruno Major and Adrian Berenguer. This song would last only a couple of seconds before I would shut it down. The lyrics themselves are pleasant and cute, but the intentional childlike piano just ended up annoying me. A lesson for future me.
“Childhood dreams Endless freefall is evidence of growth” - Growing Pain by TOMORROW X TOGETHER.
May, aside from the month of October, is probably my favorite time of year. Why? Not only is it my birth month but it is also my mother’s birth month as well. There is a lot to celebrate, including the mark of summer and school ending. Even though I am no longer in studies, May always carries the feeling of a chapter coming to an end and something new beginning. When I graduated high school, the day we turned our caps, also marked my eighteenth birthday. The same week I graduated University I turned twenty two. For the eighteen years of my life that I was in school May marked the end of a school year but also the start of a new year of life. This year I am turning twenty five which marks over a quarter of my life complete. That is terrifying, knowing that it goes so quickly, and each year will only be faster and faster than the rest. Free falling through life.
It’s scary also knowing how different I envisioned my future when I graduated high school. How different I envisioned my life when I graduated college. At graduation of high school I envisioned my five year plan as writing non stop and having already published a book. In college I planned to study Korean hard and move for a year to Seoul to teach. I did publish small stand alone pieces in a college literary journal, and I did go to South Korea for a month to celebrate graduation after college. Now, I am working at a local bank, which I never envisioned for myself. I am blessed to have a job that has the benefits it does but it doesn’t exactly fit in with the dreams I had for my future.
When I was younger, I imagined a romantic future. I said twenty five was the perfect age to get married, and I would have a kid before thirty. Now, I’m not interested in dating, and I do not want children. I thought for a blip of time that I would grow up to be like my dad and be a chef. It sounded fun. I do not cook. In elementary school I started writing a book. In middle school, one of my best friends told me her dream was to go to New York and be a journalist, and I decided that I should take my writing more seriously like her. I have pretty much never stopped clinging to that dream, even when I thought about teaching in Korea, writing was always something that I would be doing alongside it. I wonder now, if writing is something I need to let go. There are no dreams that call to me anymore. The childhood innocence is gone and everything seems unattainable. “You can do anything you set your mind to” seems so much more like fiction when you grow up into the real world.
“We get to live this right now I don't want to be that foolish” - Collapse by Y La Bamba.
My pessimism hits me hard. It’s something that I know I need to reverse. My dreams aren’t lost. Maybe they need to be revived, changed, altered, or maybe I just need to refresh my way of thinking. So many people say to live in the moment, to be present. This advice gets lost on younger ears. This advice doesn’t seem to hit until it's too late. It's hard to practice this in real time, especially when you aren’t actively living the way you deem as ideal. There are days this is easier. Like now as I write this. I have the privilege to sit at my favorite cafe. It’s colder in here than me and my mother would like. They’ve left the air on since it has been hot, but outside it is rainy and cold. At first our coffee and tea was warming our hands but we’ve been sitting here so long now that it is just room temp. My toes are starting to numb, but I’ve been able to write essentially this whole post in one sitting. A plum car drives by the wide open windows, a mom in a pastel yellow sweater and her small son walk in the grass across the street. Next to my mom is a fern who must have been thriving when it was sunny, but several dried up leaves dust the top of the chest it's sitting on. See that's not so hard. I take a deep breath and move on. I’ll try to not move through May too fast. I’ll make sure that I slow down as I move into twenty five years of age.
I won't blow out the candles until near the end of the month, so here are the songs I think will be on repeat for the remaining time I’ll be twenty four.
- “Fools Paradise” - Isaac Dunbar
- “So What” - TOMORROW X TOGETHER
- “Wake Up And Smell The Coffee” - The Cranberries
- Rose Golden- Kid Cudi and WILLOW
Here is the link to May!
Do you have any songs you have to hear during your birthday? I tend to make my May playlists up of songs that are my favorite, or just really fun songs in general. Hopefully you’ll find some bangers in this one.
“Don’t you ever change your mind Give me time to weigh this out” - Give Me Time by New Hope Club.
I guess I thought that winter was inevitable. Half the country is in blizzard like conditions, but here, where I live, the last week has felt like early summer. Our temps have been in the 70’s and when you get in the car you burn up. When I talk to people here about the weather, everyone, including me, says that the snow is still coming. We might get snow in May like we have in the past. But, honestly, I think we all just want to give ourselves a little hope that the drought we are inevitably headed towards will be quenched by heavy snow. I do think that we will get more winter, but less so than we imagine. Less so than ever before. (Prove me wrong mother nature).
All that, just to tell you that my songs are heating up a little bit. A little more pep in the step of the beats. February’s romance lingers, and spring is here whether I want it or not. March is taking over!! What does that mean… I don't know? Saint Patrick's Day is this month, and one of my best friends was born many years ago on this fateful month!
It’s time to say goodbye to the short lived month of February and the songs that will end up the least listened to. It passed by so quickly that I feel like I barely have enough feelings to write about it. A blur of sounds, my repeats for February were not really that repeated… woops. Here’s as accurate as I feel I can get for my repeat list:
“Parabola” by TOOL
“PEACE & VIOLENCE” by Faouzia
“Romeo” by PinkPantheress
“Please Don't Fall In Love With Me” by Khalid
Don't know what the heck I’m talking about? Here’s a link to my first blog post.
I do have very notable skips for February. “Black Coffee” by Julie London just fell short of the love I have for some of her other recordings. The song itself is lovely sounding but the lyrics hold it back for me. “Now man is born to go a-lovin’ A woman's born… to stay at home and tend her oven” Unfortunately regardless of her intention (which the tone is hard to tell in this song) it did not read as feminist so I kept skipping it!
“Therapy” by LONG/LAST is a great song made by a smaller alternative band. A week after I added the song to my playlist they added a video to the background of the Spotify player. I have a pretty strong stance against AI and I did end up skipping the song a few times because of the unattractive AI video that was used as the background.
Even though February was just a passing moment I am welcoming the March playlist with open arms. Music, at least for me, isn't really impacted by the vibes of March, aside from the change in weather. I don’t have a feeling about what it's supposed to sound like… other than I think it’d be nice to hike, or roll out a picnic blanket.
“And I’ve been waiting for the sunset Waiting on a sorry” - UNETHICAL by Faouzia.
My mom introduced me to Faouzia, and I am absolutely obsessed with her voice. “PEACE & VIOLENCE” ended up on the repeats for February, and I think it's only natural her hit song “UNETHICAL” follows after. Honestly I just want to keep hitting the re-wind button just to listen to it over and over again! She's not the only repeat for the upcoming month of March, but definitely my favorite so far.
Predicted repeats for the month of March:
“WASH” by Jon Bellion
“Mice” by Billie Marten
“UNETHICAL” by Faouzia
“Liquid” by Ashnikko
“It’s hard for me to go home Be so lonely” - To Be So Lonely by Harry Styles
I am not a dedicated Harry Styles fan by any means. I have not listened to his newest album and honestly am not sure that I will. However, I was at some point listening to his music consistently. When Fine Line the album came out I was listening to that and Harry Styles everyday. A girl I was friends with in college bought tickets to his show with me. Two for her and her friend, and two for me and my sister. It was going to be the time of our fangirl lives!!!
Covid hit.
Ugh I know, I didn't want to bring that mess up. It did unfortunately get the show rescheduled. I don't even remember how much time passed from when I bought the tickets to when I actually went to the show.
Harry Styles and I… not sure if we align on all of our views- and for me that's pretty important. Especially when I am engaging with the artist in more ways than through their music. During the pandemic I stopped listening to him as much as I had been, and I changed significantly as a person. I hadn’t talked to that college friend in months. My music taste had changed drastically and I was getting more politically active. We thought about selling the tickets. But hell, my sister and I knew all the songs so we decided fuck it lets go!
This was not my first concert, but it definitely ignited something in me. My sister and I lined up early, 12pm when the sun was at its highest. We sat on the sidewalk next to others who had been waiting a lot longer. It ended up being worth it as somehow, we managed to get a spot one person behind the barricade. We dressed up in matching outfits, I shaved my head and dyed my hair pink. My sister and I danced with the girls around us and sang our hearts out. Harry styles even sprayed us with his water bottle. It was exhilarating, and even now I can picture the stage and the people who waited in line hours before we did. I remember walking to and from our little camp outside and exactly how one of the girls behind us at the concert looked like. I remember thinking the lady guitarist was hot, and getting to see a coworker in the stands. The memories are selective, and I have a lot of the music on video but honestly the whole experience was fun not just the show itself.
For the last 4 and a half years I’ve been to 23 other concerts and this year I have 3 already scheduled. I've traveled to Tennessee, Chicago, California, and Texas and seen 17 different artists in this time. I’ve run into people at the airport that we met at previous concerts and made friends with people from other states. I've gone with different groups of my friends but we’ve made a consistent little crew for our K-pop shows. It’s a concert, but it's also a fashion show, a meet and greet, and a time for traveling. Concerts are what I save my money for, and I cant wait for my next show!
The March playlist can be found here. Give it a listen and tell me which artists you would see in concert. This month I am seeing Ashnikko!!
“Been searching for someone of my own kind” - Tomb by Angelo De Augustine.
The year is in full swing now. As I had expected, this new year has felt a lot different than the ones of my past. Instead of giving myself new year goals that require daily work (which is just exhausting), I instead have let myself ease into my routine. It’s working so far, and I can only hope to continue to see myself checking the boxes. January is cold and bitter, and unfortunately it will only stay that way where I live for months ahead. Months are usually associated with the holidays which reside in them, and of course February is the month of love. In this month’s playlist I’ve attempted to maintain the chilly vibes that reflect the below freezing temps, while also warming up a little with some love songs. If we are honest- most music if not all is a representation of love. Whether it be for a partner, family, life, the love for the art of music itself, or even the love of hating things. Art is a production of something that someone cared enough about to make something beautiful out of it.
So, I stuff February full of love songs, more so than any other month. The sappy, the cute, the serenades, this playlist is full of it, (a little heartbreak too). I am a romantic deep down, at least in my head. It’s mostly my life that I try to romanticize.
Before I move on to the February playlist, I want to give January a proper goodbye. My predictions on repeat songs were fairly accurate. Here’s an updated list.
“Eusexua” by FKA Twigs
“Lonely is the Muse” by Halsey
“Gifted Every Strength” by Loathe
“if you wanna” by WONHO
If you weren't here for the last playlist then here is the link to January.
With fifty songs to listen to for four weeks, some of the repetition does some songs in. Songs end up being a sort of filler, or a skip. This doesn’t mean a song is bad, or that I dislike it. I curate my playlists specifically to my taste and to the sound of the time. Inevitably there are songs I hear too many times or just have to be in a certain mood for. I want to be able to share those songs alongside my repeats.
One of my skips was “Take off” by 2PM. I first heard this song when I began watching the anime Blue Exorcist. I don’t know the exact time I started but likely some time in 2018. It was likely a turning point for me music wise, and if we think the butterfly effect is real it’s probably what led to me listening to K-pop in the first place. I have a lot of love for that song since it is the first song by a K-pop group I ever listened to, despite being a Japanese song.
“We Should Get Married” by Sports was another song that ended up on my skip list. This song is a song I think would play great at a wedding. It is one of my top songs out there, but every time it came on I found myself not wanting to get sick of it. So it became a filler. The songs I skip are hard to predict. Sometimes my favorite songs end up being the ones I get sick of the fastest.
“I wanted to do so many things but I kept being chased by time.” - Another Day by Stray Kids.
Don’t mind me if I get a little pessimistic here. I think I’m just feeling what everyone else is feeling. At 6:30 my alarm goes off. I get up, get ready for work, and then start my small commute. I am at work at 8:30 and on the days we get out the latest I am leaving at 6:30. I do get an hour lunch and two fifteens but during that time I really like to decompress from the stress of my job. So 12 hours of my day is dedicated to being or preparing to be at work. I get home and in order to get a decent amount of sleep I am in bed at 10 PM. Roughly three hours I get to myself..
Time is slipping through my fingers and honestly it feels pretty fucking hopeless half the time. I need the job that consumes my life. There’s a lot that I want to accomplish with very little time. I could “lock in” but honestly I’m tired. So there's my little rant. Maybe though, by writing it down, and getting it out I’ll actually do the things I want.
I want to go hiking more. I want to take a pottery class. I want to finish Baldur’s Gate Three. I want to organize my game station. I want to cook healthy meals. I want to play soccer again. I want to see more movies in the theater. I want to get a massage.
Of course I can do all of these things. They just require a lot of work. And I do enough of that. Whoops, I guess I’m a glass half full person. (At least today I am).
“Who do you love? Who do you love? In a sky full of red. You’re my light.” - OBLIVIOUS, by Jon Bellion.
Is anyone reading this a therapist?
There’s a lot of variables. I have a lot of different reasons, external and internal factors as to why I feel the ways I do. Why we feel the ways we do. I consider myself an introvert. I plan things and cringe at the thought of a spot on my calendar being marked. However, very occasionally I get excited for them. Looking at this cynically, I think as I am writing this I pieced together the reason for my excitement.
They always included time away from work.
No, no. Back to the serious lovey dovey talk I was going to have.
I love the people in my life. I enjoy quality time with my loved ones. The traditions of my family are a huge highlight of my year. Up and coming is Valentine's Day! Every year we have a fondue night all together to celebrate the day of love. I think it’s important to surround yourself with loved ones, or even treat yourself to a solo date when Valentine’s comes around. Of course the focus is on the couples, and the romance. It can, however, be whatever celebration of love that you want it to be. Such as boiling a pot of broth and layering sticks of various meats inside of it, and of course inevitably losing your cube of chicken when your grandfather's fondue stick bumps the 7 others in the pot.
So go and celebrate love! The way that you want to!
The whole February playlist can be found here.
A playlist full of love songs, I wonder how many will make you yearn? A few might get stuck in my head, replayed to sing along to my hearts content. Here is my predicted on repeat list:
titsay
stormborns
germansingergirl
2087
andulkaphoto
yousharknotpass