Top Albums

If I'm doing movies I should definitely do albums. All my reasons as personal but it doesn't mean you shouldn't check them out anyway.

Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra: Theatre is Evil.

This formative album came at a formative time for me. The last year has not been hell, but it was unrelentingly bad. I mean the kind of year that starts off poorly, then you see Prince. Then the high wears off and a friend gets into a car accident leaving his partner, toddler and still baking baby alone. Then a close friend decides to tear you a new one for something trivial. Then you do something unknowingly but so reprehensible that the shame doesn't leave you for months but oh, does that anger fester at your fast declining reputation. And all the while, bubbling under every little up and down is a panic attack. Lurking. Waiting for things to get just that little bit worse. Theatre is Evil empathised with all of those emotions (with added bass!) but amongst the darkness is this certain level of hope, either conveyed in the lyrics or the music, that just lifts you up. It made me think of people I hadn't thought of in years, of their actions and mine, and I've got to be honest, it's gotten me over a few hurdles in this short time it's been out.

Stand out tracks: The Killing Type and Grown Man Cry.

HIM: Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practise.

This album for me is a return to happier times. I was a year behind in listening to this one. By the time I'd gotten to it I was running in my lunch breaks, it was summer and the sun was beating down on me as I beat down on the riverside track on the edge of town. It reminds me of summer rain, the positive changes I was making in my life, achieving my goals and a general happiness which for months just stayed with me. I was excited about life. My love of this album is also two fold as I'd just recently discovered my friend Lanny loved HIM too, so I gave her a copy of the album and for weeks we talked about the songs and the film clips. I miss Lanny, but we have phone dates.

Stand out tracks: Foreboding Sense of Impending Happiness and Love the Hardest Way.


Romeo + Juliet

This compilation came out in 1996, but as I was 10 I didn't get onto it until sometime later (I was still in the throes of pop idolisation, a trend my mother sorely misses). Once again, this was a formative album for me. This was my jumping off point into the Alternative Rock genre which I still passionately love today. In one collection we have The Butthole Surfers, Radiohead, Garbage and Everclear. You also have the drama, colour and pace of (what I deem) Baz Luhrman's best film backing up the sour desperation and empty unrelenting anger of the songs. Even just *listening* this soundtrack is made of stunning visuals as you re-imagine Luhrman's Manchua. Des'ree's Kissing You will always make me cry, not shed-a-tear cry but proper sob-openly and wholly. It's crushing and it breaks you.

Stand out tracks: I honestly can't pick just one, like a child I love this album in its entirety for how it makes me feel.


More to come.

Why Don't You Talk To Me?

Why don't you talk to me?

Come say it to my face so we can leave this place. Why don't you talk to me?

So last years resolutions were the standard variations on the old staples: Lose Weight, Run Faster, Save Money. There was also the silent goal to Not Accidentally Kill Myself and the not so silent get everything in order to move to Melbourne. Well, what do you know? I survived my depression (but kept the increasingly awesome Panic Disorder)! I paid off my debts (but have $90 in my savings)! I completed a half marathon (but my sprint remains at a max of 14kmph for short spans)! I achieved my first goal weight (and maintained it for the year- without losing any more)!

I know, lofty heights right? 

This year I've really thought it through: I've got the standard variations of the old staples: Run more half marathons, lay the ground work for a marathon, save to travel and become some kind of bendy yoga goddess. My silent goals are to get my life in some kind of order to have a child in the coming years.

Guys, this might be the year I start to grow up.

I even flossed this evening.