Best Songs of 2017

2017 was a really rather miserable year, but hopefully 2018 will be better. It wasn't all that bad in terms of music, but I'm busy during the holidays and exam period, so I didn't have time to sort out best albums. I also didn't listen to as many as last year, so it would've been hard to really honestly rank them. These 'best songs', or rather, my (40) favourite songs, are also in order of release, so this list is not a ranking. The whole thing is on spotify, but if you want a little more explanation and notes on my favourite records of the year, read on.

Top 40 Songs of 2016

This is my last blog post for the year - my favourite 40 songs of the year. These are not actually the 40 songs I listened to the most - I tried to limit myself to 1-2 songs per artist so as to be more representative of what I listened to throughout the year. Here is the spotify playlist (with a few songs replaced, because spotify still doesn't have everything) - I think it makes for a nice playlist to listen to between the two holidays.

In any case, whether you read the (extremely long) music list below - Happy New Year!

Best Songs of 2015

Songs, songs, songs - it's even harder to pick out a top 40 than to pick out 10 albums. There's no such thing as a bad year or a good year for songs - there are always great ones out there. As with the albums, these songs largely reflects my personal taste - too weird for the common people, really not heavy enough for metalheads - and is largely independent of the actual "goodness" of songs.

As per usual, links are in the descriptions (the song titles), but the songs are available on 8tracks and Spotify (although 3 songs are missing in the latter). As per usual, the post is extremely long.

A Halloween Playlist

This comes with the usual warning: only for lovers of all things metal. Here you can listen to it on 8tracks, and after the break there's a track-by-track breakdown with youtube links, for those who don't want to listen to the whole length. (And in case 8tracks skips some songs, which it sometimes does.)

Autumn Playlist II

Here is everyone's long-awaited sensible weather - a temperature around 20 degrees, wind and sunshine and rain and scattered, fluffy clouds. I do like autumn as well as anyone (even if my favourite is still the summer warm), if not for else, then for the opportunity to dress in more than my shortest shorts and a breezy crop top. In other words, being able to wear my leather jacket.

Since I still lack a rain-proof pair of footwear, I cannot wholeheartedly look forward to now regularly having to step out of my house and go places. Yeah, autumn also means the start of school, which I regrettably have to say, I did not want to start yet. Every summer, I start out with loads of things to do, to paint, to learn, and in the end, do precious few of them. There's never enough time for my hobbies and there never will be, something I might as well just accept.

So, to lift the mood a bit, and also because it's a tradition of mine by now, here is a playlist for autumn, loaded with melodeath and progressive death metal.

Summer Playlist II

Hey, it's the summer solstice!

It's kinda fun that it's on a Sunday. I wish I was in some kind of stupid independent drama where I would go with my friends into the forest, up on a mountain, and wait for the sunset on the year's longest day. Accompanied by a metal soundtrack, cause that's what I'm all about.

Here it is on 8tracks.

Spring Playlist II

We've entered the astronomical spring with a solar eclipse, isn't that nice? Here wasn't much of a spectacle, especially since we didn't bother to get anything to view as little as we could have. I kind of forgot about it, even, but it was still noticeable - how the tone of the light changed just ever so slightly, how it was just a little too dark without any clouds to speak of. It was eerie in a very bright way, which made it all the more disconcerting.

I say this calls for a metal sort of spring. (I mean, how appropriate is the Shadows of the Dying Sun cover?) Anyway, to commemorate, here's a playlist (I've done quite some time ago, since this is a thing I do every changing of the seasons), vaguely spring-like for those who appreciate everything from pop-rock to metal. Well, mostly metal still.