Playlist 2017
December 2017
Rogue One Soundtrack - Michael Giacchino
I know, I know, it should be Christmas songs for December. But I'm a sucker for Star Wars, and just had to celebrate the new movie by adding the Rogue One soundtrack to my playlist.
Rogue One has to be my favourite Star Wars of recent years, and even though John Williams didn't do the music I think Michael Giacchino did a fantastic job capturing the essence of the universe through his music.
November 2017
Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac
I made a horrifying discovery over the Melbourne Cup long weekend. My partner and I drove through central Victoria to visit a friend and I was in charge of the music. Imagine my shock when he told me he didn't like Fleetwood Mac! The horror!!
As a result, I've been listening to a lot of this amazing band in an effort to make him realise that he actually LOVES them. I'm not sure it's working, but it still makes it onto high rotation on my writing playlist this month.
October 2017
Vitamin String Quartet - Geek Wedding Collection
No, I'm not getting married (but if I was I would definitely be using this music). I was in the excellent Harry Hartog Bookseller in Canberra the other day, and a violin version of some very familiar music came on, reminding me of many hours running around Hyrule in my youth. I am the first to admit to being a Legend of Zelda geek (my phone ring tone will attest to that) so I had to ask the staff what cd they were playing.
They directed me to Vitamin String Quartet on Spotify, who have an enormous catalogue of music. I'll be spending the next month crawling through their back catalogue, but for now Geek Wedding Collection is on high rotation.
September 2017
Wagakki Band
I was lucky enough to spend the first half of this month and I absolutely fell in love with them. I would describe their sound as a traditional music/rock fusion - they use traditional Japanese instruments like the shamisen but the music is very modern rock pop. Not to mention the main singer, Yuko Suzuhana, rocks the most beautiful outfits.
Colour me totally obsessed.
August 2017
Despacito - Luis Fonsi
Yes yes, I know, but come on, it's a damn catchy song and I didn't know Justin Bieber was involved until I got addicted to it. I've pretty much had it on repeat all month. I'm not even going to bother posting a link, seriously who hasn't heard it by now?
July 2017
Digimon: Japanese OST
I wasn't planning on this being my musical obsession for the month, but I've recently been converting a bunch of old cds to mp3s (I know, so old school) and stumbled across an old 'mixtape' a friend made me in high school. Aside from having some truly fantastic 90s JPOP on it, it also had a bunch of songs from Digimon season 1 & 2 in Japanese - which I was absolutely obsessed with as a young teenager.
Listening to it now takes me back and reminds me of the frenzied writing sprees my friends and I would do. Hoping that putting this in my playlist for the month will bring inspire the same levels of output!
June 2017
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl soundtrack
I will admit to always having a soft spot for the Pirates of the Caribbean series. I binged watched the original three this weekend in preparation for the new one, and was reminded how much I enjoyed the music. It's going to be my battle writing music for June, but please, hold the rum.
May 2017
Reimagining Miyzaki
Stop everything! Melbourne music producer GHOSTING is releasing a Studio Ghibli inspired mix tape on the 12th. These movies have some of my favourite music to write to, it's so chilled out and whimsical so hearing someone doing something knew with it is always exciting. Keep your ears open for this new hip/hop inspired album, and check out the Spirited Away demo below.
April 2017
Write Your Way Out
One of my favourite podcasts to listen to is the Australian Writers' Centre - So You Want to be a Writer. Val, one of the presenters, is as obsessed with Lin-Manuel Miranda as me. So imagine my excitement when she spoke about his new spotify mixtape on the pod, and it's all writing based music to get the juices flowing. Perfect music to inspire me this month.
March 2017
Zenkai Girl
I binge watched this entire Japanese drama over the Labor Day long weekend - sometimes I just get really obsessed with a show!
So naturally the opening and ending songs have made it on to my playlist for this month. We have "Ai ga Aru" by Every Little Thing, and "Tsubasa ni Koi" by Kanjani8. I'm not normally huge on Kanjani8, but there's something about this song that just gets stuck in your head (probably helps that it's generally playing over some terribly dramatic event at the end of an episode).
Listen to Ai ga Aru on YouTube
Listen to Tsubasa ni Koi on DownVids
February 2017
Moana
After my long, long (oh so long) obsession with Hamilton, it's only fitting my new favourite tunes are from Lin-Manuel Miranda's work on Moana.
My favourite has to be Maui's "You're Welcome", but for writing you can't beat the Mancina instrumentals.