Category: Music

5 Music Festivals I’d Like to See

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It’s that time of the year when one of the biggest music festivals, Coachella, returns. Although there are many music festivals happening all year round, April is the time of the year when I pay attention to them. Originally, it wasn’t for Coachella, but for a more local music festival that happens every April. (I’m not going to say the name of it for privacy reasons. If I say it’s name, you’ll know the area where I currently live!)

Since this is the time of the year when I think of music festivals the most, I wanted to write a list of my top five festivals I want to see. These are not the only music festivals I want or am willing to go to, but right now these are the top festivals I would like to attend right now. Also, I’m not going to include the music festival that is held in my area on this list.

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A Few Broadway Soundtracks I Want To Purchase

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Lately, I’ve been doing some major clean outs and organizing in my home. I found a lot of things I want to keep and others I want to get rid of. Even though I’m trying to decide what I want to keep and what I don’t want to, there are a few things I found missing from my collection. Some of them are music albums I never purchased!

Despite the holes in my music collection, there is one genre of music I’m the most upset about: Broadway musicals. I have always been a fan of Broadway musicals, but over the years I focused my interest in other things. Despite this, there are many soundtracks I wanted to own and believed I did, yet I didn’t. So, here are the musical soundtracks I want to own the most, yet don’t. Also, I want to own all the following soundtracks on CD. Not digitally. Yes, owning CDs will take up more room in my home, but I still like to own them in that format.

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Rock and Roll Beauty x Ozzy Collection at Ulta Beauty

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As Halloween gets closer, I wanted to talk about something beauty related I saw at Ulta Beauty. It’s not Halloween related, but to me, and probably many others out there, it wouldn’t be a stretch to relate it to Halloween!

While walking around my closest Ulta Beauty store, I found an end cap for Rock and Roll Beauty. If you never heard of Rock and Roll Beauty, here is a quote about the brand on their official website…

Rock and Roll Beauty is a privately owned company that started with the idea of bringing the founders love for music together with their passion for creating unique beauty products. Bring pop culture to life in a new collaboration made for fans, by the fans.

Rock and Roll Beauty marries nostalgia with talented designers creating limited edition collections skilfully curated to encompass the uniqueness of each artist.

The collection I saw available at Ulta Beauty is Rock and Roll Beauty’s limited edition collaboration with rock artist Ozzy Osbourne. Since the packaging and look of the products had a very Halloween look to them (Very appropriate for Ozzy’s style as a rock artist) I decided to take some photographs of the collection and write a post about the collection before Halloween. Continue reading “Rock and Roll Beauty x Ozzy Collection at Ulta Beauty” →

Camelot- Original Cast Recording Vinyl Record- What It Looks Like and Thoughts About Owning It

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This Sunday is the 75th annual Tony’s and I’m excited about it! I’m a theater fan most of my life and, after the pandemic closed Broadway and all theaters worldwide, I’m super excited about this year’s Tony’s. In order to celebrate (And release my theater fan side of me on the internet), I wanted to spend a week talking about musicals and other musical related topics. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make a post every day this week, but all the posts I will make will be musical or Broadway themed. For today’s post, I wanted to talk about the vinyl record version of the musical Camelot from 1961.

I found this record during a trip to Goodwill. The record still appears to be in playable condition, but as of the publishing of this post I have not tried to play it. I’m very happy to own it. I wanted to add vinyl records of musicals to my vinyl record collection, but all the ones I could find are too expensive or weren’t in good shape. When I found a copy of Camelot for sale at Goodwill, I happily purchased it. Despite not playing the record, I wanted to show what the original 1961 record looks like and talk about my thoughts about owning it. Continue reading “Camelot- Original Cast Recording Vinyl Record- What It Looks Like and Thoughts About Owning It” →

Movie Review: Riverdance: The Show (1995)

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When I was growing up in the 1990’s, I didn’t have many TV channels to choose from. Back then, I didn’t see it as a good thing. (Especially since I wanted to watch the Disney Channel all the time and we couldn’t get it!) Today, I’m happy I grew up with a limited amount of TV channels because it forced me to not rely on the TV for entertainment and it exposed me to TV shows and specials that I never would’ve seen any other way. One of those TV programs is Riverdance.

Saint Patrick’s day is coming soon, so I thought a review of the original Riverdance would make a great post to commemorate the holiday.
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2021 Birthday and Christmas Self Gifted Presents Part 1: Music

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Christmas is over and it’s almost the new year! I can’t believe how fast time has flown by. 2022 will be here before we know it! I know that I will be busy during this time of the year, so I decided publish a few posts I can write before this crazy time of the year. One of these posts is my 2021 birthday and Christmas self-gifted presents haul.

Every year, I find items I want for my birthday, but don’t want to ask others to buy for me. The reason why I don’t like asking for these items is for a variety of reasons, but it usually has to do with either my indecisiveness about if I actually want the item, the price is way too high for me to feel comfortable asking others to buy it for me, and/or it is a hard-to-find item. Whenever I find items I want but don’t like to ask others to buy for me, I usually buy them for myself.

This year, I had many music albums on my to-own list, but I was worried about the price and the availability of them. Also, I was unsure if I wanted to own the standard albums or the store exclusive versions of it. Because of this, I decided to do my own searching for the albums and see what I could find on my own. I was able to find three albums I wanted in versions I wanted to own. I still would like to purchase more store exclusive versions of two of the albums, but I’m happy to own the versions I purchased.

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Full-Length Nutcracker Performances That You Can Watch on YouTube Now- 2021

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It’s the time of the year when ballets all over the world are performing the classic Christmas ballet, The Nutcracker. 2021 is the first year when audiences will be able to watch the performances in person after the start of the Corona/ Coivd-19 pandemic started in 2020. Even though many ballet companies are holding live performances of the ballet with live audiences, there are still many ballet companies that posted the full show of their Nutcracker performances on YouTube to watch. Here are my favorite versions of the ballet that can be see as of the publishing of this post.

Disclaimer: All the videos I will linking to and talking about are posted on official YouTube channels of the ballet company. If the links are broken, that mean the video was removed after I wrote this post. Continue reading “Full-Length Nutcracker Performances That You Can Watch on YouTube Now- 2021” →

Book Review: Wicked: The Grimmerie, a Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Hit Broadway Musical

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Many years ago, I was a huge fan of musicals. One of the musicals I was a huge fan of was Wicked. Back then Wicked was new and the only merchandise available where I lived was the soundtrack featuring the original Broadway cast and a book called Wicked: The Grimmerie, a Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Hit Broadway Musical.

Since Halloween is coming later on this month, I wanted to write some posts that are more Halloween themed. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to all the Halloween themed possessions. Instead, I decided to write a review about Wicked, The Grimmerie. After all, the musical is about witches, magic, and premiered on Broadway on October 30, 2003.
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Music Review: Shania Twain Greatest Hits (2004)

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Recently, I’ve been under a lot of stress and wanted to listen to music that made me feel better. Usually that means I listen to 80’s music, specifically soft rock and power ballads, but this time I wanted to listen to some familiar country music. While looking through my CD albums for something to listen to, I found my copy of Shania Twain Greatest Hits CD. It’s been a while since I actively listened to Shania’s music so I decided to listen to it. While listening to it, I began to feel much more at ease about life, and I also felt inspired to write a review about it.

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My Favorite Songs from Soundtracks- Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles Future Soundscapes I

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While working on posts for this blog, I rediscovered my love for certain songs from movie, TV show, and other soundtracks. Listening to them brings me joy, so in the spirit of sharing my love of music, I decided to write a series of posts sharing my favorite songs from certain soundtracks and why I love them so much. I hope to write posts about whole entire soundtracks, but I’m unable to do that right now. So, for now, I’ll share my favorite songs from certain soundtracks.

The first soundtrack I wanted to share the songs from is Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles. It is an anime about a princess named Tsubasa who looses her memories. She and her best friend from childhood, Syaoran, must travel through space and time to find these memories, which are manifested in a feather with special powers. Along the way, they meet and join forces with Fai D. Flourite and Kurogane, who help them find feathers. In addition to them, they also encounter other characters from previous and then current stories by the manga artist group Clamp, who created Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles.

Although the story is very complicated (Think of the Marvel Cinematic Universe crossovers and intertwined story lines except for anime and manga), there is one thing that non anime fans and anyone uninterested in watching the story will enjoy: The soundtrack.

There are multiple soundtracks uses in the anime series, but the one I wanted to talk about in this post is called Future Soundscapes I. Future Soundscapes I is written by Yuki Kajiura, who wrote both the music and lyrics to the songs on the album, except for the songs Blaze and Loop. The album contains the music used in the first season of the anime. Included on the album are the songs Blaze and Loop, which were the opening song and ending song respectively. You can read more about the soundtracks for Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles on Wikipedia here and the soundtrack for season 1 here. Continue reading “My Favorite Songs from Soundtracks- Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles Future Soundscapes I” →