Essential Songs For Existence 12: The Man Who Can't Be Moved

I first discovered Irish band The Script (comprising of lead vocalist/pianist/guitarist Danny O'Donoghue, guitarist Mark Sheehan and drummer Glen Power) when they supported a Take That concert I went to when I was about thirteen with my parents, my aunt, and a couple of my mum's friends (I know, I was such a cool kid). They clearly made a good impression on my mum, because she later bought their second album Science & Faith. I'm sure it won't take much to work out from there what occurred to that album.

The song that I am recommending is not from Science & Faith, however, it is from The Script's self-titled debut album. The Man Who Can't Be Moved is an amazingly beautiful song, so full of feeling that it sometimes makes me want to cry slightly. It reached Number 2 in the UK charts - I'd say deservedly so, but really it probably should have reached number 1 - and you can find proof of it being one of my favourite songs by checking its play count on my iPod (167, the fourth most played song out of a little over a thousand on my iPod).

I'll then continue by saying that the top three most played songs on my iPod are also by The Script, the title song of Science & Faith being top. From that same album I also recommend (apart from, you know, all of them) Dead Man Walking, If You Ever Come Back, and Nothing. From The Script (their debut album), I recommend The End Where I Begin, If You See Kay and We Cry.

Science & Faith and its lead single For The First Time was unfortunately not as successful as The Script was with The Man Who Can't Be Moved and We Cry, but the band found more commercial success with their third album #3 and the single Hall Of Fame, which featured will.i.am. #3 is certainly not my favourite of The Script's albums, but I am particularly fond of the songs Millionaires, Six Degrees Of Separation and If You Could See Me Now (I dare you not to have your heart broken by this song, written about the deaths of Danny O'Donoghue's father and Mark Sheehan's parents).

(I'll make this one the last paragraph, I promise) What I love about The Script, as you may have noticed, is the emotion they put into their songs, and my God do they write some good songs with fantastic lyrics, too. I went to see them live last year, and they were absolutely phenomenal. Also, The Voice UK is just not the same without Danny O'Donoghue. I just thought I'd put that out there.

Songs On Repeat

Occasionally, there is a song that I like so much I play it on repeat. This evening, there has been not one song that I have played on repeat, but two, and both by INCREDIBLY talented singers. :) Much love for these songs already.

Essential Songs For Existence 5: Bohemian Rhapsody

Even if you hate this song, you simply have to sing along to it. And of course no playlist entitled Essential Songs For Existence could possibly be complete without the legendary Queen. A truly amazing song - and I believe it was voted the nation's all-time favourite music single a year or two ago. A deserving winner, too! There is nothing more awesome than Bohemian Rhapsody.

Essential Songs For Existence 4: Women

We're back to the influence of my dad's taste in music for this choice. This band is, for me, a kind of local band; I was surprised to find out a year or two ago that they were from the nearest city to me, not America, like I'd always assumed. My dad actually said he once saw them walking out of a pub not far from where we live, but didn't realise who it was until afterwards.

Anyway, Women, from Def Leppard's best selling album Hysteria, is what I would personally say is their most famous song, unless it's Rocket or Pour Some Sugar On Me, or Love Bites. Or Animal or Armageddon It or Hysteria. My brother (who is now a bigger Def Leppard fan than my dad) tells me that they released seven singles from Hysteria, however, my personal favourite, Gods Of War, is one of the couple of songs that weren't released. (If you want to know why I like Gods Of War, it's the guitar. I just love the guitar.)

Hysteria is undoubtedly Def Leppard's best album (it sold over 20 million copies - which surely answers the question of why you should really know who they are), but that isn't to say that their other albums aren't good too - my brother tells me that Pyromania almost sold as well as Hysteria did. In fact, my brother has made me listen to some of their other albums, and the more I listen, the more I like what I hear. Apart from the songs I already mentioned, I would recommend Love and Hallucinate from Songs From The Sparkle Lounge, To Be Alive and Disintegrate from Euphoria and Photograph and Too Late For Love from Pyromania. As for any other albums of theirs, I haven't listened to them.

I'm sure my brother will be pleased that I actually listen to what he says sometimes, and have put some of his crazily detailed knowledge to good use. :)

Essential Songs For Existence 2: Summer Of '69

I'm sure that whenever somebody mentions Bryan Adams, everyone - especially those who remember the early '90s (which, of course, I don't, but still) - thinks of Everything I Do (I Do It For You). But I'm going to talk about a different song by Bryan Adams. My mum is a huge fan of Bryan Adams and has been since she was a teenager, and because of her influence, Bryan Adams' songs were the soundtrack to my early teens as well. Between my mum and I we have his entire collection of albums and I have seen him in concert twice. So for me, an Essential Songs For Existence playlist would be void without him.

Summer Of '69 may not have stayed at number one for sixteen weeks when it entered the charts, but it's still one of Mr Adams' most famous hits, and it's an awesome song. My personal favourites are not any of the famous ones, however, no matter how good Heaven, Cuts Like A Knife, etc are. I could list a great many songs here (Mr Adams' career does, of course, span thirty years), but my absolute favourites are: Thought I'd Died And Gone To Heaven from that most famous album Waking Up The Neighbours, Home Again from the previous album Into The Fire, and I Was Only Dreamin', a less known song from Adams' 2004 album Room Service. I could go on: Hearts On Fire, Heat Of The Night, Fearless, On A Day Like Today, Please Forgive Me... but I think I've given you quite enough song recommendations for one day now. :)

Time For A Story

Last year, I went to Germany on work experience with my school. Because it was a school trip, we were made to write diaries in German. Here is a small extract from mine (after my teacher corrected it):

Mittwoch, den 28. November (Wednesday the 28th of November)

...Emma hat mir ein schönes Lied mit ihrem MP3-Spieler gespielt und jetzt schreibe ich mein Tagebuch. (...Emma played me a beautiful song on her MP3 player and now I'm writing my diary)

Are you wondering what the beautiful song that my friend Emma played me was? What a shame, because I'm going to tell you anyway. In fact, I'm not, I'm just going to post a video with the song on it, so that, if you haven't heard it before, you can have the same experience as I did a year ago today (except minus the canteen of a German youth hostel, five other students and two German teachers).

On this day last year, I was introduced to the awesomeness that is Nightwish, and thus, in a more indirect manner, I was introduced to a genre - symphonic metal - that I had never heard of before, and yet that I would come to love. So I thought I would write a small tribute to that moment in time: the moment that the awesomeness that is Nightwish first touched my ears. Thank you, Emma, and thank you to whoever started the discussion about music over dinner, although I'm sure you don't remember just as much as me. Also, thank you to Evanescence, for writing a song (Bring Me To Life) that my mum would hear and like, and which would lead her to buying your album, which would eventually lead to me hearing it and deciding that I liked rock music, which would mean that I would be able to appreciate Nightwish when I finally came to hear it. (Also thank you to Evanescence because I still think you're awesome, and also because you led me to discover my other favourite band, Within Temptation, who are also symphonic metal)

If you liked Storytime, then I recommend you listen to Amaranth next - as it was the second Nightwish song I ever heard. :)

Talking To Friends

The one thing that usually happens when I talk to my friends, even when I talk to them on Facebook, is that things go crazy. Well, talking to one friend, Ross, today led to two things that are a bit crazy.

Firstly, I discovered pirate metal. It's metal, perhaps slightly similar to symphonic metal, except that it's all about pirates - you know, the swashbuckling ones from like the Victorian era, like in Pirates Of The Caribbean. It's absolutely insane, and quite awesome. I would say that if you like Nightwish, you may well like Alestorm, which so far is the only pirate metal I have heard.

Secondly, we started a new blog. It's a blog about writing, and the idea is for it to become of sort of online writing community; a small, cosy one. It's called "Surprise Duck!", because we're mad like that. It's only just starting out, we have posted two things, and so far nobody but us has seen it. But anyway, it's there now, and the link to it is going in my list of links down on the left. :)

Music Recommendation: For My Pain...

I believe that many people in the metal world, especially the symphonic metal world, will have heard of Finnish songwriter and keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen's band Nightwish - they're pretty big, and that's because they're pretty damn awesome. But compared to Nightwish's huge success, not many people seem to have heard of Holopainen's other band, "For My Pain...". I only discovered them maybe about half an hour ago through Mr Holopainen's website; I have been a Nightwish fan for almost a year now and I haven't heard of For My Pain before. It seems they only released on album, "Fallen" in 2003, but the website doesn't list a date for the band breaking up, so technically they're still around here... somewhere. Maybe.

Firstly it is necessary to point out that For My Pain... is not Nightwish. The most obvious difference is the vocals; male vocalist Juha Kylmänen sings for them as opposed to Tarja Turunen (or later Anette Olzon or Floor Jansen). There are obviously other differences - I do not think I would class this as symphonic metal like Nightwish, the style is quite different - but I haven't listened to them enough to be able to spot them.

Either way, I have listened to a couple of their songs and they seem pretty good. Personally I prefer Nightwish - by a huge margin. But still, it isn't bad, and is quite possibly underrated. I think most of the songs from the album Fallen are on YouTube. I personally like the songs "Dancer In The Dark" and "Tomorrow Is A Closed Gate" although I haven't had chance to listen to them all yet. But basically, if you like Nightwish, or in fact any sort of metal, go and listen to For My Pain...

The Time Lords?

So I found this song here, right here (please click here and press play on the thing that says "listen"!) on tumblr and I reblogged it. I since found out that it's a real song, called Doctorin' The TARDIS, by The Time Lords.

Except it's not.

Because HERE is the original (below) and the song which plays from the link above is NOT the same. Notice the different introduction? Notice the different guitar-y bit? Notice the verses with lyrics? Those are not in the original, it is not the same.

Now, I'm not saying anything bad about either song. I just have a question I want to ask.

And my question is this: where on Earth did the one in the top link come from? I looked up covers of the original song and none of them match this one. So who made it and where did it come from??

And more importantly: WHERE CAN I DOWNLOAD IT???

In the meantime, if you don't know the answer to these questions, which you probably don't, just listen and bask in the awesomeness of a song about Dr Who. :)

Song Recommendation: Paradise (What About Us?)

I was literally in hysterics when I heard about this song coming out. It is the new single (released about two months ago now, I think - I'm only just getting around to blogging about it) of Within Temptation and Tarja Turunen. You might wonder what sets this song apart from other songs - what exactly had me hyperventilating, when the song wasn't even out yet? Well, Within Temptation are awesome. They are my favourite band. Fair enough, you might think. Nightwish are also awesome, they are my second favourite band. What does that have to do with anything, you might ask. Well Tarja is the ex-lead singer of Nightwish. Tarja is also awesome. And awesome + awesome = CRAZY AWESOME! Knowing that a song that was practically a collaboration between my two favourite bands was like a dream come true.

And "Paradise (What About Us?)" well and truly lived up to expectations. It's amazing. (Dr Who fans - notice that there's a sort of background noise in the build up that sounds kind of like a TARDIS?) I think I am slightly in love with it. This song on repeat = perfection. I simply cannot wait to hear Within Temptation's new album (rumoured to be out in January, I believe), and Tarja's new solo album has been out since August, methinks.

TO READ: Bitterblue

SPOILER ALERT FOR GRACELING

(also, click here for a series of letters between the characters of Graceling and Bitterblue set before the beginning of Bitterblue, written by Kristin Cashore)

The third instalment in Kristin Cashore's The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy is Bitterblue, set eight years after the first book Graceling and on the same side of the mountains as the aforementioned novel - in the kingdom of Monsea, where young Queen Bitterblue now rules, still attempting to help her country recover. This book most certainly has the most complicated plotline of the series, and the darkest themes as well.

Bitterblue is the coming-of-age story of a young queen struggling to find herself and to take control of a kingdom she is supposedly in charge of. Feeling disconnected from the people she rules, Bitterblue begins to sneak out into the city at night to hear stories of her late father, a corrupt king, and it is there that she meets Teddy and Saf - two young men known as truthseekers who use thievery and publishing to try and put right what they believe to be wrong in the world, although there are many who would take extreme measures to silence them. And so it is just as the web of lies set up to make her transition to the throne as a ten-year-old is beginning to fall apart that Bitterblue starts spinning her own web of lies to hide from her advisors that she is trying to uncover the truth, and to hide from her newfound friends the power she truly wields.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Bitterblue; I loved seeing characters we met in Graceling return and I very much liked how relatable the character of Bitterblue is - she might be a queen, but that doesn't mean she can't get just as annoyed and confused as the rest of us (what I would like to know is, who had she been hanging around with who would teach her to use the word "balls" as a curse word?). Of course I particularly love Cashore's writing style, and her use of humour (there are a number of brilliant quotes I could point you to which I found rather amusing). Overall, I would say that Bitterblue is my least favourite in the series - however, please consider that there are only three of them, and that they are all favourite over pretty much all other books I have read.

TO READ: Fire

Fire by Kristin Cashore is the second in her The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, however not only is it technically a prequel to first in the series Graceling but it isn't actually set in the Seven Kingdoms at all. In a land bordering the Seven Kingdoms to the east of an impassable mountain range known as The Dells, approximately forty years before the events of Graceling. This is, I think, my favourite book. My one favourite, ever. (And such a pretty cover the British edition has!!)

In The Dells - one of only two kingdoms known to its people, the other being the northern sea-faring land of Pikkia - there exists extraordinary creatures which can appear as any species, be it cat, mouse, wolf, raptor... These monsters, as they are called, can be distinguished by their unnaturally vibrant colours, and have the ability to take control of others' minds, which is added to the almost hypnotic effect their beauty has on some.

Seventeen-year-old Fire (so named for her flaming hair) is the only human monster alive, and is hated by many - sometimes for jealousy, sometimes for her father's legacy, but mostly for her venomous mind. Fire hides herself away on her late father's estate in a remote corner of the kingdom, where her kind-hearted neighbour raised her along with his son Archer, Fire's lifelong friend, in the hopes of deflecting all attention. But Fire isn't safe, not even here.

The Dells is a kingdom still recovering from a king corrupted by Fire's monster father Cansrel, and the throne of the current King Nash is unstable, and the threat of war is looming from all sides. Despite the royal family's obvious distrust of her, Fire's gift would be invaluable, and Fire is not her father. This is the story of Fire's fight to prove herself; to stay true to herself and to do what she feels is right and pay back the innocent prince Cansrel tried so many times to kill. Because underneath her otherworldly beauty, Fire is just as human as everybody else.

I wholeheartedly recommend that anyone and everyone reads this book - whether you're male or female, old or young. Partly because of a blog post I just found. I was going to comment on it, but then it became a bit long so I shall be posting it separately. But whether you'd rather read something fast-paced, or something political, or something romantic, or something magical, READ THIS BOOK.

Finally, I'd like to just direct people to a blog post that Kristin Cashore wrote about Fire and why she wrote it. Also, please find the list of awards and raving reviews for Fire here. :)

TO READ: Graceling

And at last, I've got to recommending what is probably my favourite series of books: The Seven Kingdoms trilogy by the wonderful Kristin Cashore (whose blog is here). Graceling is the first in the trilogy to have been published, and is Cashore's debut novel, although in the story's timeline it is not the first chronologically.

Graceling is set in a fictional Medieval-esque world made up of seven kingdoms: Nander, Estill, Sunder, Wester, Monsea, Lienid, and the Middluns. In this world, some people - called Gracelings - are born with extra-special abilities and are marked by having one eye a different colour to the other.

One such Graceling is Katsa, the niece of the king of the Middluns, who is Graced with killing, and is used by her uncle as a weapon to fuel his fearsome reputation. Sickened by the gruesome tasks she is forced to do, Katsa also works for a secret organisation called the Council, which she started herself, to do good and help people in order to balance out all those she has hurt and killed.

It is on a Council mission to rescue the kidnapped father of the peaceful king of Lienid that Katsa stumbles onto a dark mystery that will lead her on a journey of survival and self-discovery across the Seven Kingdoms in the hopes of putting right a world gone wrong.

Winner of several awards and nominated for many more, Graceling is a gripping and fast-paced coming-of-age novel for young adults, beautifully written with a touch of romance and humour, as well as believable characters who I myself have become incredibly emotionally attached to over at least five readings of this book. It's also due to be adapted for the big screen, by the makers of Life Of Pi; it's a film I'm very much looking forward to, I just hope they do it the justice it deserves.

Also, while browsing Kristin Cashore's blog for the link to the post in which the film was announced, I found this awesome post (if you read it, remember to read some of the comments too, as Cashore comments to answer peoples' questions with more wonderful insights). I swear it's the most inspirational post for writers EVER. Another of my favourites is this one; Kristin Cashore has some of the most brilliant advice for writers, I could actually spend all day finding links to posts from her blog that would be helpful to anyone aspiring to be a novelist (she is seriously inspirational).