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I love this band, and by coincidence I found out that the single Souvenirs from their latest album Lion the girl had been remixed and had a video to go with it. And I adore this video as much as I adore the remix and as much as I adore the original. Simply wanted to share this amazing Midnight Movies remix with you, which is done by someone called Nick Zinner.

I once adored his voice, for many years, until he lost it, the divinity of his voice. He now is a casual rock singer with a great past but with little capacity to impress me like he used to impress me.
I am talking about Chris Cornell, I was one of the kids whom fell for the hit single, Black Hole Sun, of their breakthrough album, Superunknown, back in late 1995. At that time I first started discovering alternative music, and it started all there with Soundgarden, but before I knew they broke up. Luckily for me, Chris went on to a solo career, the music and the lyrics were as strange and intruiging and tempting as they always had been. Even when he went on to sing with the RATM guys in Audioslave he kept his high standard until their second album, which has some great songs, but it started to miss the magic Cornell’s lyrics always had. I didn’t buy the third Audioslave record, I won it, with an autograph of Chris on the disc, but I’ve never listened it from that disc, to be honest. All the greatness of the lyricist and singer Chris Cornell were teeming and the voice had left me. Not only don’t I listen to rock music like Cornell makes nowadays anymore, but the style the image he sets for himself it pushes me away. Of course it’s great that he’s happy with his new family, but he lost his modesty, the eclectic humm of a dreamer has been lost. He might be a big guy now, but the sad thing is I liked him better as the modest guy with the awesome voice.
I do dedicate this blog to him, the person whom has sung with an amazing band and wrote great songs and sang them with all his heart.
Here are four favorite songs on video

Late Spring last year I dicovered her, for which I am The Ditty Bops deeply thankful. Jesca was listed as one of their friends on their myspace page, any Ditty Bops friend can be a friend of mine I thought. So I went to read, listen, and watch what was on Jesca’s myspace page, and I liked it, I adored it, and I still love it. Especially her video for the song Big Fish gave me a really pleasant feeling, I was in love! So I went on a quest to download her beautiful music, which was hard, because there was to that date no official releases from her. Eventually Soulseek popped up some downloads from a radio-session, known as the KCRW morning becomes eclectic session, and from another website I got a number of live songs. Now I could survive until her debut album Kismet would be released in September that same year.
Though what did I do when Kismet was released in the States? Nothing! I didn’t download it nor did I order it. She was too dear to me to download it from Soulseek and she had some fierce competition from other beautiful artists those months after the release of Kismet. Yesterday though Jesca surprised me, I found Kismet in a record store in Utrecht. I was surprised because I thought she had only released Kismet in the US, but a closer look showed this was a European release. Well what else could I do besides buying the record, well of course there were a lot of other records there which I still want to buy, but Jesca’s surprise was too big to ignore so I finally have Kismet in my possession. Big Fish, the song that made me fall in love with her music isn’t on it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t show it you right here.

And as an extra treat I’ve added the video of her single Money to this post too!

They can sing and make music, they’re really good at it, that’s why I listen to their voices, to their music. I love them as artists, I love them as musicians, I love them because their voices soothe my heart, because their music carresses my soul.
I want to show my love for them, I want to show whom those beautiful women are. Today I’ll tell you about three of them, Chan Marshall (Cat Power), Regina Spektor, and Joan Wasser (Joan as Police Woman).

I first heard one of Chan’s songs on a Belgian radio station in 2003 when her ‘You Are Free’ album was released, I almost instantly fell in love with her voice and music, it’s lightness, it’s darkness, I still love it. The Belgian Radio station was difficult to receive on my radio, which gave an extra charm to hearing Cat Power on the radio, she wasn’t played on Dutch radio. I haven’t seen her play live yet, I do know her history of being somewhat absent during her gigs, but things have changed for the better I have heard. There will come a day that I will enjoy her music and her beautiful voice among the crowd at one of her concerts.

Mid 2005 a friend of mine introduced me to a singer whom made me set my first steps into the alternative folk genre, this was Regina Spektor. The beauty of Regina’s voice had invaded my veins as soon as I played the song which was sent to me over MSN. I bought the yet unofficially released Soviet Kitsch and craved to hear more of her adorable music, and wished to see her play live ever since. Even if I don’t get to see and hear her play live, I will always be willing to give my heart to this beautiful girl.

Regina was soon followed by Joan Wasser, she’s one of the first women after Chan whom soulfully caught my ears and made me swing and swoon. I can’t remember exactly when it was, and how, but it was the song Christobel, of the Joan As Police Woman album Real Life, that hailed Joan into my life. A day before my 24th birthday in 2006 I went to a concert of her, although she was sniffing a lot because of a little cold, the concert was incredible. Joan’s music also pressed my nose even further into the beautiful music of Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) along with the girls of CocoRosie, I adore Antony, but most importantly I’ll forever adore Joan! This song ‘Eternal Flame’ is one of those reasons for why I adore her.

What can I say? Little has happened these past two weeks, honestly, I don’t even have much reason to write an update now. So if you don’t mind, from now on I’ll only do the update once a month. After four months the wild water rafting (which is an exaggeration) has turned into bobbing up and down in a rowing boat on a calm lake. I have my emotional moments, the highs, the lows, but they’re few. Physically too, little happens over two weeks, so what’s left to write about. I have enough to write about none transitional issues, like my previous posts show, there’s always a connection with my transition, but no immediate connection to make it part of my diary. Hopefully I will have something to write about in another two weeks, when I’ll be on hormones for 5 months. It’ll probably be the general things, you never know though, there could be fireworks too.

And because I haven’t posted any music videos lately I have one here to make this post a little bit more interesting. It’s a song by Emily Jane White. She reminds me of Cat Power on her ‘You are free‘ album, which I totally fell in love with back then, so now I’ve fallen in love with Emily Jane White.

There is this Australian band which I discovered somewhere back in 2006 thanks to the Dresden Dolls, they’re called The Red Paintings and they have in my opinion a unique and spectacular sound. They have a single out from their forthcoming album both titled ‘We Belong In The Sea‘. Each one of you visitors to my site should watch the video of their new single. So go on click play!

This post is dedicated to one of my dearest friends, Jessie. We recently first spoke in realtime with eachother via video-IM and I’m so happy we have talked that I want to give her something. Something she can enjoy watching and listening that is. There’s one genre of music which we both like that’s the post-punk genre, so here’s some modern day post-punk bands that I discovered past year. I hope you enjoy them Jessie ^-^.

Romance - Paris is burning

Veil Veil Vanish - Midnight in the Rue Jules Verne

Blacklist - Language of the living dead

<3

Sophie

This last 2007 list is generated by my winamp player. I had my entire music collection most of the year on shuffle which resulted in a top 10 of songs which were played most since somewhere May 2007 when I last reset the history.

0. The Cure - the kiss
1. Muse - unintended
2. De Novo Dahl - push buttons
3. Jenny Wilson - common around here
4. Jenny Wilson - a hesitating cloud of despair
5. Laura Veirs - spelunking
6. Envelopes - it is the law
7. The Long Blondes - only lovers left alive
8. Midnight Movies - oh, twilight
9. The Red Paintings - i’ll sell you suicide

Since I bought my laptop in February 2007 I have been adding a lot of new music to my digital collection. I discovered most new music through myspace, bands linking eachother, and via myspace’s of labels. With most of these artists I created a crush on one special song of them, this is the list of the 50 most amazing songs I first heard in 2007!

1. Of Montreal – the past is a grotesque animal
2. Snowden – black eyes
3. Laura Veirs – spelunking
4. Keren Ann – lay your head down
5. You Say Party! We Say Die! – opportunity
6. Night Canopy – boom! it’s spring
7. Blood Red Shoes – it’s getting boring by the sea
8. Inara George – fools in love
9. Oh No! Oh My! – I love you all the time
10. St. Vincent – your lips are red
11. Alela Diane – pieces of string
12. El Perro Del Mar – this loneliness
13. Electrelane – in berlin
14. Envelopes – it is the law
15. Scanners – lowlife
16. Jesca Hoop – havoc in heaven
17. Susanna & The Magical Orchestra – love will tear us apart
18. Alina Simone – saw-edged grass
19. Erase Errata - cruising
20. The Tiny – dirty frames
21. Operator Please – just a song about ping pong
22. The Gossip – standing in the way of control
23. Broadcast – corporeal
24. M83 – a guitar and a heart
25. Division Kent – monsterproof
26. The Bastard Fairies – we’re all going to hell
27. De Novo Dahl – dinosaurs!
28. April March – chick habit
29. The Oohlas – across the stars in blue
30. Good Shoes – morden
31. The Long Blondes – only lovers left alive
32. Midnight Movies – oh twilight
33. Autolux – here comes everybody
34. Pony Up! – what’s free is yours
35. The Chalets – feel the machine
36. Dave Gahan – kingdom
37. The Pleased – we are the doctor
38. Two Ton Boa – cyanide
39. The Bird And The Bee – I hate camera
40. Wendy McNeill – such a common bird
41. The Ditty Bops – nosy neighbor
42. Silversun Pickups – common reactor
43. Peter Bjorn and John – young folks
44. Marissa Nadler – bird on your grave
45. Women And Children – virginia creepers
46. Mommy And Daddy – a good deal
47. My Latest Novel – when we were wolves
48. The Willowz – what’s wrong is right
49. White Rabbits – the plot
50. The Victorian English Gentlemens Club – stupid as wood

 I think most songs don’t originate from 2007 releases, but that wasn’t the point, was it? This is in my opinion one of the most remarkable list of songs I’ve ever put together, mostly because I’m loser at choosing best songs. Luckily my musical memory helped me a bit in finding out which song it was of certain artists that appealed most to me. Recently discovered music was a bit of a hassle, like White Rabbits, The Pleased and Marissa Nadler, that’s also why they’re lower on the list.
I’m now going to think if I can possibly think of even more music lists for 2007, maybe of certain genres… Though that would require me to find out the genres of all those artists, which won’t be easy for many of them. Ah well, I can always try.

This past year I’ve been to a number of amazing concerts of some the most wonderful, unforgettable, astonishing and divine bands and artists. This is my seen live list of 2007:

Pop Levi (February)
My Brightest Diamond (February)
Aereogramme (February)
Susanna and the Magical Orchestra (May)
Erase Errata (July)
Au Revoir Simone (July)
To My Boy (July)
You say party! We say die! (support: Appie Kim) (November)
St. Vincent (support: Windmill) (December)
Alela Diane (support: Alina Hardin) (December)

There’s only one disadvantage about going to concerts, I went on my own 80% of the time this past year. Meaning to say I didn’t find anyone to go with me, does this sound sad, it probably does. I’d love to have some more company next year, going alone doesn’t make a concert less beautiful, absolutely not. Having company makes it more of a shared experience, and I’m of the opinion that these bands I see live deserve to be seen live by a lot more people. I just don’t seem to get them along, and it would simply be ‘gezellig‘ if I had some people to come with me to live shows, having fun and buying drinks for eachother .
Alas, I’m already looking forward to 2008, though the agenda is still empty, I do believe I’ll be seeing some remarkable bands and artists next year.

The end of the 2007 is near, that means it’s time to make lists.
This first list is the album top 10, of the 10 most amazing albums released this year and bought or downloaded by me.

1. Of Montreal - hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?
2. St. Vincent - marry me
3. You Say Party! We Say Die! - lose all time
4. Night Canopy - of honey and country
5. Au Revoir Simone - the bird of music
6. Interpol - our love to admire
7. Pop Levi - return to form black magick party
8. Electrelane - no shouts, no calls
9. The National - boxer
10. Silversun Pickups - carnavas

Big absentee in this list is Jesca Hoop’s Kismet, I have songs by her which I enormously like but I haven’t bought or downloaded her debut record yet. If I had done that then at least the female folk singer-songwriters would be represented in this list, but helas, Regina’s album was released in 2006, Alela’s album is a re-release and Marissa Nadler hasn’t got the chance to overwhelm me as much as the others in this top 10.
You have to admit though that women musicians are well represented in this list 7 out of 10 have female members and 5 out of 10 have female singers. Yes, I’m quite pleased with my first 2007 list.

I am going to see Alela Diane play live right here in Nijmegen, I’m so thrilled, especially because I won the tickets. Somehow I seem to have a way in winning tickets for concerts of the most beautiful artists, like earlier this year for Susanna and the Magical Orchestra.

The concert is later this month at a venue around the corner of the student complex I live, and hey if you like to accompany me you’re welcome, I won 2 tickets ^-^ .

St. Vincent - Paris Is Burning 

I just can’t get enough of her, she’s amzingly beautiful and has a wonderful voice. Hoping to see her play life in a few weeks.