goals goals goals
Wednesday, 3 January 2018 20:43![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
I don't usually make New Year's resolutions for various reasons, but this year I thought I'd give setting myself some concrete, accountable goals a try, not least because I am great at procrastinating on things I actually want to do. Also I need your help with one of them. :D?
1) Finish watching Orphan Black. It's right there on Netflix, self, what are you waiting for? (I've started on this one already, it's a good time.)
2) Listen to at least six new-to-me Big Finish audios.
3) Read at least ten things from my owned-unread tag on Goodreads. (In practice this probably means I'll be cracking on with the New Adventures. What could possibly go wrong.)
4) Finish at least one creative project a month. (This is the one I'm most wary of making an actual goal - I make things because it's fun and I don't want it to feel like a duty, but I am also PARTICULARLY good at procrastinating on this sort of thing.)
5) Listen to at least one new-to-me album a month. And this is where I'm looking for help! Rec me your favourite albums so I have somewhere to start?
1) Finish watching Orphan Black. It's right there on Netflix, self, what are you waiting for? (I've started on this one already, it's a good time.)
2) Listen to at least six new-to-me Big Finish audios.
3) Read at least ten things from my owned-unread tag on Goodreads. (In practice this probably means I'll be cracking on with the New Adventures. What could possibly go wrong.)
4) Finish at least one creative project a month. (This is the one I'm most wary of making an actual goal - I make things because it's fun and I don't want it to feel like a duty, but I am also PARTICULARLY good at procrastinating on this sort of thing.)
5) Listen to at least one new-to-me album a month. And this is where I'm looking for help! Rec me your favourite albums so I have somewhere to start?
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Date: 4 Jan 2018 00:10 (UTC)Music! Music is SO HARD. I basically only ever discover new music via vids, because even when people recommend me things I find it v hard to listen all the way through something I don't know unless it grabs me *immediately*. Also, I basically NEVER listen to entire albums - except for musicals like Hamilton and JCS - I just cherrypick my favourite songs. So there's loads of artists where I love, like, one or two songs and couldn't name any others of theirs. That said, there are a few non-musical theatre albums I do love and tend to listen to in their entirety, in order:
1) Graceland / Paul Simon (look, I never said I was up to date ok) - this is my FAVOURITE FAVOURITE FAVOURITE ALBUM IN THE WHOLE WORLD (sorry Vienna Teng, Aims comes a close second) and I love it to tiny pieces. It feels like the first day of spring to me, when it first starts to get warm and the sun comes out and people go outside without their coats and start looking tentatively cheerful again. <3
2) Aims, but you know that one :-P
3) Begin to Hope / Regina Spektor
4) Both My Head is an Animal and Beneath the Skin by Of Monsters and Men
5) Ceremonials / Florence and the Machine, but I suspect you know that one too
6) Alas I Cannot Swim / Laura Marling
....possibly you already know all of those, in which case sorry for not being v helpful!
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Date: 5 Jan 2018 21:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Jan 2018 01:23 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Jan 2018 14:22 (UTC)(one of which also includes lots of A+ Classic Who adorableness)
That sounds awesome!
I knew I recognised Crawled Out of the Sea! That vid is TOO CUTE TO BE ALLOWED. Also I just rewatched it and then I had to go and rewatch Ça Plane Pour Moi as well, which is such a delight. <3
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Date: 8 Jan 2018 10:16 (UTC)Here is the Doctor/River + Doctor/other people vid of loveliness, to Ghosts: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241186
And awwwww <33 you are v nice! Crawled Out of the Sea was so much fun to make. And lolllll Ça Plane Pour Moi, what a ridiculous thing that is.
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Date: 14 Jan 2018 16:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2018 10:27 (UTC)I don't know what kind of music you generally like, and you may have already heard these, but:
Ani DiFranco, Not a Pretty Girl - this has some of my absolute favourites of her songs
Vienna Teng, Aims
The Lumineers, Cleopatra (deluxe version)
Snow Tha Product, Halfway There...pt 1
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Date: 5 Jan 2018 21:58 (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2018 10:43 (UTC)In practice this probably means I'll be cracking on with the New Adventures. What could possibly go wrong.
I laughed more than I should at this. Although possibly unfairly - my now hazy memories are that they did reach a sort of more consistent and less bleak standard as they went on. But ha, yes. Oh, NAs... (Still, in compensation, Benny. <3)
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Date: 5 Jan 2018 21:59 (UTC)Benny makes up for so much. <3 I am slightly worried that I've already read all the good NAs, but we shall see.
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Date: 6 Jan 2018 08:48 (UTC)But other than that, I hated Deceit, but that was early on and because I didn't like the clumsy 'growing-up' of Ace - it got better after, so that wouldn't be so bad in retrospect. Other than that, all solid/good or forgettable in my now-vague memory, so I wouldn't be too alarmed. I mean, there will be the usual perils of being edgy, but that died off in the later ones at least!
(I'm amused at all your Targets. If you read them first, you can knock off half the list in like three days. You should do that and feel smug.)
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Date: 7 Jan 2018 14:24 (UTC)All my Targets are currently at my parents' house, but maybe I will do that next time I'm there! (I've never really got into reading the novelisations, but I should at least try a few.)
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Date: 7 Jan 2018 18:40 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2018 16:55 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2018 17:03 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2018 17:05 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Jan 2018 17:08 (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2018 11:05 (UTC)i can see you hvae sevenfold crown on your goodreads - this is sort of a big finish audio (except not by big finish) so maybe could double count. it's not as bad as everyone says! although it is bad.
bernice summerfield the inside story is very good, though.
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Date: 5 Jan 2018 22:02 (UTC)I really want to read that one! I didn't when I first got it because I wasn't caught up with the audios, but I think I am now, or close to it.
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Date: 5 Jan 2018 22:33 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Jan 2018 14:27 (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2018 22:04 (UTC)Albums I've been enjoying lately:
Chance the Rapper: Coloring Book. Came out in 2016 but I just started listening to it. It's SO GOOD.
Solange: A Seat at the Table (also 2016, I bought this last year but didn't listen to it enough)
War Paint: Heads Up -- makes me wonder if I actually like Prog Rock???
A few of my favourite albums:
Beyoncé: Lemonade
Indigo Girls: Become You
Stevie Wonder: Fulfillingness First Finale
Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
D'Angelo and the Vanguard: Black Messiah
Janelle Monáe: the Archandroid
(Also Hamilton and Vienna Teng's Aims, but I know you know those!)
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Date: 5 Jan 2018 22:05 (UTC)Thank you for the recs, they all look great!
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Date: 7 Jan 2018 18:08 (UTC)What kind(s) of music do you like? My music habits are all over the place, in part because of how I was brought up, but I've found all sorts of odd stuff over the years. I think you're brave to go for a complete album at a time - I often find that there are artists where I really like a handful of songs, no more than two of which will ever be one the same album...
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Date: 14 Jan 2018 16:57 (UTC)All kinds, and I'm deliberately trying to broaden my horizons a bit. I tend to find a few songs that I like, mostly from vids, but not know how to go beyond them.
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Date: 14 Jan 2018 19:43 (UTC)I've just had a quick rummage amongst my (very limited) CD collection for suggestions - I tend to pick up music either from vids or from movies, so my taste is all over the place for anything more modern than about 1950. I blame my upbringing...
Here are some things you might or might not find interesting...
Ani DiFrance - pretty much anything. Not A Pretty Girl is possibly my favourite album of hers, but I came across her via books and have a list of her songs in my head that I love - Falling Is Like This was my first ever vidsong, 32 Flavours is amazing, Untouchable Face is something I've wanted to vid forever, and You Had Time makes me cry.
Alanis Morissette - I think I own all of Alanis' albums (I need to check to see if there's been a new one in the last couple of years) but I love her early work, especially Jagged Little Pill. She was angry and outspoken and not going to be quiet, and it's glorious.
Amanda Palmer - I started out with Who Killed Amanda Palmer, and discovered I loved her music even though it does my head in completely by being so amazingly... random.
The Beautiful South - I first heard TBS when I was in uni, which is when I think Blue is the Colour was released, and I've always enjoyed them; I love how sarcastic and passionate the lead singer is throughout the songs.
Def Leppard - one of the most famous big hair rock bands of my youth. So many of the songs are great for dance vids of one kind or another, and they're old enough now that their albums are cheap - the Vault anthology is a good way to get most of their better songs.
Exodus - going out on a limb here, how do you feel about thrash metal bands? Exodos were one of the first bands on the scene and are largely mad, but a couple of their songs feel like things I should vid for something like Mad Max: Fury Road or possibly commentary on Donald Trump. Check out the lyrics for their song Fabulous Disaster and tell me it's not prophecy...
Joe Satriani - back when people thought I knew something about music, someone told me in all seriousness that Joe Satriani was the guitarist who'd knocked Eddie Van Halen off the rock guitarist of the year spot after years of him winning year after year. That meant nothing to me, but I discovered that Joe Satriani produced loads of instrumental pieces of music, many of which are really good. I'd recommend his Time Machine anthology, but a couple of the tracks form there worth checking out on Youtube to get a feel for what he does are "Summer Song", "Surfing with the Alien" and "Speed of Light".
Meat Loaf - my love for Meat Loaf is pure and will never die. Operatic rock with so much passion it leaks out of the edges, and music videos that look like episodes of Beauty and the Beast, and are up to 11 minutes long? Amazing.
Metallica - most of their heavier stuff (particularly their early work) is a bit too heavy for my taste, but the Black Album was their first major commercial success outside the heavy metal market, and the album I like the most and find most... accessible? (A lot of heavy metal seems to be angry and shouting while people kill guitars with power chords, but don't tell anyone I said that.) The first three tracks - Enter Sandman, Sad But True and Holier Than Thou are great for vidding, if you're feeling very... emphatic? ... about something. Nothing Else Matters and the Unforgiven are surprisingly melodic, and tend to surprise people in the same way that Guns 'n' Roses Sweet Child of Mine catches out people who hear it for the first time.
Poets of the Fall - a Finnish rock band (who sing in English) that I dearly love; some of their later music feels a little repetitive, but I particularly love their first two albums, Signs of Life and Carnival of Rust. I spent years trying to work out how to assemble the footage to capture Carnival of Rust for my BSG ship, because the song felt so right. I never did manage it, but you should check out the official video for Carnival of Rust - it's great, and I think won the Finnish award for music video of the year.
Puddle of Mudd - most more recent music has passed me by, but the first Puddle of Mudd album, Come Clean, got stuck in my head. Possibly it was because I saw the video for "She Hates Me" somewhere. I'm lukewarm on most of their stuff, but I think they've made a few very viddable songs.
Roxette - nineties (eighties?) happy europop for the win! I love this band. The first time I got to listen to a modern top 40 chart (at midnight, on a Friday, from Shadow Stevens broadcasting somewhere in Seattle and syndicated by my local radio station) Roxette were in the top 40 with the Look, and then I heard them in the movie Pretty Woman, and naturally became devoted. If you're picking up albums, I'd recommend Don't Bore Us - Get to the Chorus, as it's an anthology of their best early hits.
Whitesnake - because I can't give you just one big hair band :P My school years involved a lot of big hair bands, but never the ones that were popular with my class mates, because apparently I'm always two feet to the left. I have no idea why :P I like Whitesnake; they had huge hair, felt very strongly about whatever they were singing about, and were happy to be ridiculous. Then I discovered that Lois Lane (as played by Erica Durance) in Smallville loved them, and I felt vindicated musically for the first time in decades :P It might be best to go for a best of album, but Ready An' Willing is a good starting album.
Also, I've just finished playing Life Is Strange on the PC, and if the soundtrack for that is available, I'd really recommend giving it a listen.
I hope there's something in that lot that tempts you :)
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Date: 2 Feb 2018 21:21 (UTC)