[melaniealeman]

The Top Albums of 2024 & 2025

Making my top album of the year posts has been haunting me. At the end of 2024, I found out I was pregnant, and the news occupied so much space in my mind that I didn’t have the energy to make the post as I usually do during the last days of the year. At the end of 2025, it was my beautiful baby boy’s first Christmas, and I suppose my mind will forever be occupied with him. A forever…

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[melaniealeman]

When you lose your shit, you lose your leadership. - Taylor Swift

[melaniealeman]

This is our last Christmas together. Life separates us. Those who Know Best decide that I belong in a military school. And so follows a miserable succession of bugle-blowing prisons, grim reveille-ridden summer camps. I have a new home, too. But it doesn’t count. Home is where my friend is, and there I never go. - Truman Capote - A Christmas Memory

[melaniealeman]

'I’ve always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don’t know it’s getting dark. And it’s been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. But I’ll wager it never happens. I’ll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are'—her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone—'just what they’ve always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.' - Truman Capote - A Christmas Memory

[melaniealeman]

In Summation by Taylor Swift

At this hearing

I stand before my fellow members of The Tortured Poets Department

With a summary of my findings

A debrief, a detailed rewinding

For the purpose of warring

For the sake of reminding

As you might all unfortunately recall

I had been struck with a case of a restricted humanity

Which explains my plea here today of temporary i n s a n I t y

You see, the pendulum swings

Oh, the chaos it brings

Leads the caged beast to do the most curious things

Lovers spend years denying what’s ill fated

Resentment rotting away galaxies we created

Stars placed and glued meticulously by hand next to the ceiling fan

Tried wishing on comets

Tried dimming the shine

Tried to orbit his planet

Some stars never align

And in one conversation, I tore down the whole sky

Spring sprung forth with dazzling freedom hues

Then a crash from the skylight bursting through

Something old, something hallowed, who told me he could be brand new

And so I was out of the oven and into the microwave

Out of the slammer and into a tidal wave

How gallant to save the empress from her gilded tower

Swinging a sword he could barely lift

But loneliness struck at that fateful hour

Low hanging fruit on his wine stained lips

He never even scratched the surface of me.

None of them did.

“In summation, it was not a love affair!”

I screamed while bringing my fists to my coffee ringed desk

It was a mutual manic phase.

It was self harm.

It was house and then cardiac arrest.

A smirk creeps onto this poet’s face

Because it’s the worst men that I write best.

And so I enter into evidence

My tarnished coat of arms

My muses, acquired like bruises

My talismans and charms

The tick, tick, tick of love bombs

My veins of pitch black ink

All’s fair in love and poetry

Sincerely,

The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department

[melaniealeman]

[melaniealeman]

zephyr in the sky at night I wonder

[melaniealeman]

connecting with this gem 26 years later.

[melaniealeman]

The Top Albums of 2023

Three thoughts I’ve had about music this is year: One, it is difficult to enjoy books about music, without actually hearing any. Two, from this YouTube video, this quote was straightforward, but revelatory: “Music makes you feel feelings, lyrics make you think thoughts, songs make you feel thoughts.” The third is not quite so easily expressed. A jumbled recurring thought that came to me while…

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[melaniealeman]

“Hora Loca” - Rawayana & Monsieur Periné - ¿Quién trae las cornetas? (2023)

Musiquita para el sol, playa y arena. Salud! 🍻

[melaniealeman]

And with this song Olivia Rodrigo has captured the truth about many an ex love interest:

“And now it don't mean a thing

God, love's fuckin' embarrassin'

Just watch as I crucify myself

For some weird second string

Loser who's not worth mentioning

My God, love's embarrassing as hell”

Love IS so embarrassing.

[melaniealeman]

It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over - Lenny Kravitz - Mama Said (1991)

[melaniealeman]

On repeat !

[melaniealeman]

Love this show and music.

[emmafallsinlove]

Aren’t you envious that for you it’s not?

[melaniealeman]

All of those moments you gave me shelter

Out of the swelter, out of the sun

Into an ocean, under the high tide

Howling by your side

Until the morning comes

“Shelter” - Broken Bells -

[melaniealeman]

The Best Albums of 2022

A slight reframing of a yearly tradition.

Since the first day of 2021, I’ve been trying to listen to all the digital music I own, which I’ve acquired since I was a little kid, and way before streaming was an option. Most of this music used to be CDs that I converted into MP3s. These CDs came from all over, many I owned, but most came through my hands from friends, family, Peace Corps volunteers, among others. Some I purchased, because I…

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