For some reason, the Ciao Cafe always struck me as a bit of a clique. I've been around (on and off, because I can't stick to anything - motivational problems, moi? Nah...) Ciao for six years now. Jeez, six years. As you can tell by some of my early reviews (no, no, please don't look, just imagine) this was back when reviews were very short, the bare minimum, sadly, and there was no such thing as the Ciao Cafe. Anyway, so I disappeared for a while (as I'm prone to doing) and returned to discover All About Mes and the likes...
And so moving on...
Eventually I made a Ciao Cafe review and to my delight, nobody stopped by to remind me I did not belong in the Ciao Cafe Clique, and so I was encouraged to rant (sorry, not rant - participate) more...
And that brings me to the songs thing.
Right, so looking at my last.fm profile, I see my ten most played songs are:
♫ 1000 Oceans - Tori Amos
♫ A Sorta Fairytale - Tori Amos
♫ Amber Waves - Tori Amos
♫ Josephine - Tori Amos
♫ Me and a Gun - Tori Amos
♫ Lust - Tori Amos
Do you see a pattern?
♫ Another Girl's Paradise - Tori Amos
♫ Northern Lad - Tori Amos
♫ Woodcat - Tunng
♫ Datura - Tori Amos
Right, so that's it, nine Tori tracks and one by Tunng. Review over...
Ah, but I doubt that review even meets the minimum word criteria, so it can't be over... besides, we can't have all Tori tracks in the Top Ten Songs thingy, even if she is the most beautiful singer in the whole wide world, and I mean that. I absolutely adore Tori. I have 128 songs of hers (so my iTunes tells me, I didn't just count them, though I would, for this, of course, if I had to, but I didn't...) which is 8.7 hours of that fabulous voice, taking up 664.4MB of space on my hard drive. Oh, but she is worth every byte, every bit even...
But anyway, so I need to at least try and limit Tori to one track (oh, please, TWO, just two...) and find another nine artists I like a tiny fraction as much as I do Tori.
Okay then, so my top artists, according to tracks played and recorded on my last.fm profile...
1.Tori Amos (surprise!)
2.Shivaree
3.Alanis Morrisette
4.Libera
5.Sinead O Connor
6.Jewel
7.David Bowie
8.Sigur Ros
9.John Lennon
10.Sheryl Crow
And still, I'm stuck. Because there are so many truly beautiful songs. So many songs that mean something to me. So I will have to think about this for a while. Of course, I am delving into my music collection as I do it... which consists of 32 genres, 829 artists and 209 albums (and they're just the ones I have on here, I'm yet to put on the truly wonderful, sadly departed but even more sadly back together again, Take That... oh remember those days? Anyone my age will... but okay, moving on).
So this is going to have to be a pick and mix, now... favourite songs:
♥ In tenth place then, but certainly far from final! We have Life by Des'ree. This song reminds me of a bad compilation album I bought when I was about seventeen. Seventeen was a magnificent time in my life - well isn't in everyone's? It was the year I got my first, and only, broken heart.
It was shattered into a thousand pieces and I honestly thought it was the end of the world, right then. People said to me "but you were happy before you even knew him, you can go back to that", but I didn't want to! Wah!! I know I had been happy before, but I had never experienced anything to beautiful, so amazing, so heart-wrenching as my time with him. Oh to be seventeen and to be in love. I look back now, and think "huh, why?" but back then it was painful. I wrote my first book because of that break-up. It was called Getting Over Jason, though I didn't know a Jason and his name had been Richard. Smith. Feel free to go and kill him for breaking my heart... but anyway, get over him I (eventually) did, and fun returned to my life, and this album was a favourite among my friends and I, just sitting in my bedroom, playing on the playstation (the original playstation, none of this PS2 or PS54 fancy stuff) and drinking vodka and anything my parents had in the fridge. Happy times... and my choice was between this or the oh-so-depressing Travis, Embrace, James, Macy Gray or Gabrielle albums.
♥ Ninth: Life on Mars? Or Thursday's Child by David Bowie. This is also a memory from being seventeen / eighteen. I had a best male friend then, from college. Well, heck, I was doing a computer course with only two other girls, I needed a best male friend. He was called Richard too. Best not say anything too bad about this one because he reads my ciao still, I think. He was a mad David Bowie fan while I loved John Lennon back then. He used to torture my poor eardrums with David Bowie all the time. You know when you're a teen, and you had one of those walkmans? They didn't even have a radio, and to rewind to listen to the same song repeatedly (as you do) you had to take out the cassette, put it back in the other way, fast forward it, and then put it back in again, just to listen to your song again. You shared earphones and walked along the street connected to each other in such a fashion, for three and a half minutes until it was time to go through the whole rigaromole again. But, isn't it funny how you always knew exactly how much fast-forwarding the other side of the cassette needed? Oh, but if you were really clever (and I wasn't) you could make the cassette so that the same song was on both sides, at the exact place needed so there was no fast-forwarding, you just turned the cassette around... no, we had no brains, we didn't think to just put the same song on repeat in the first place... but anyway... one day, Richard and I and a few others went to a house party. He sung Life on Mars? on the karaoke and his hopeless rendition of it somehow made me fall in love with David Bowie. Then David Bowie brought out Thursday's Child, a huge flop, but I loved it and still do.
♥ Eighth place: Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, Allison Crowe or anyone who's ever done it. I absolutely adore that song, and I know not why. I only heard it for the first time last year and it was sung by Sharon D.
Clarke who plays Lola Griffin. It was just amazing, and I sat staring at the screen, at this woman, such a feisty character, singing such a beautiful song. So I remembered a few of the lyrics, googled them, and discovered this amazing song. And now, I think I have about ten versions of it. Fantastic! This song, too, had led me to listen to other songs by Jeff Buckley, and his dad Tim Buckley, and Leonard Cohen, all of which are equally as amazing. This song is so popular, it even has its own wikipedia page, where I learn that it's been released by way more artists, such as Bono, Bob Dylan, Damien Rice and The Dresden Dolls, than I knew about prior. Apparently, too, there are Jewish religious references in the song, as well as sexual...
♥ Seventh: Wound Down by Elu. I only recently heard of Elu, but their music is very nice. You can go and get five tracks free, from the music section of download.com, which I suggest you do if you like Fiona Apple, Shivaree, Tori Amos etc (well I had to give Tori a mention, I've not said her name for three paragraphs and you might forget her). The information on Elu compares them to Enigma, Enya and Sting, though, so what do I know? Either way, they're good. Their most popular song is Liddie's Bay. I say their, but apparently it's just a he, and his name is Jeff Mettling. He's good though, and if I ever get married again (oh God), I will have him their playing...♥ Sixth, then: now are you still reading? Anyway in sixth place we have Sanctus by Libera. Libera are a classical choral group of boys, who are just great. They play in London, in Saint Philip's Church which would be just totally amazing to see live. Wow. One day I will go. Originally they have been called Angel Voices, and a host of other names, but seem to have settled on Libera these days. Some of their songs, like Sanctus, my favourite, are sung in Latin. Their songs are reminiscent of classical composers such as Debussey (another favourite of mine) and Beethoven, though they use drums and a sythesizer with some of their songs now.
See my pictures for a great pic of them...
And some lyrics:
Locus iste a deo factus est,
In estimabile sacramentum
Sanctus, Sanctus
Benedictus qui venit in Domine
Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabbaoth,
Pleni sunt coeli et terra Gloria
Benedictus in nomine
Qui venit in nomine
Libera was a recent discovery for me too. They, along with several other (mostly paltry, hehe) artists were recommeded on a forum I participate in. Type in "Libera" and "myspace" into google and you will be able to find some of their songs for free download.
♥ Fifth: China Girl by Pete Yorn. This is their most popular song but I love most of Pete Yorn's stuff. No memory with this one, I'm afraid, but he is brilliant. Actually, I got this album just because I thought I might need to listen to something other than Tori Amos, Shiveree or Alanis Morrisette et al., so I bought this, and love it. Pete Yorn is a Jewish American singer-songwriter and guitarist and he reminds me of Belle and Sebastian and Counting Crows.
His most popular songs are Strange Condition (which was in the film Me, Myself and Irene - and he also had another song chosen for Shrek 2) and Just Another, but I always like the lesser-appreciated ones more. Oh well. As with all these artists, go off to myspace to listen to them for free.
♥ Fourth is Beautiful by Paul Simon. Everyone likes Paul Simon, though. 'Nuff Said. Well I would like to have a memory for this, but I just don't. But I love this song (today, anyway). Paul Simon, of Simpn and Garfunkel fame, but an astounding artist in his own right, is of "Hungarian descent". Wow, did you know that? I didn't. You can find his official website and go off and listen to samples of every song on his latest album, Surprise.
♥ Third is Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf. I have been an on-off lover of Meatloaf since I was fourteen. Before that it was Diana Ross, quite seriously. I love Theme From Mahogany and maybe that should have this third spot, instead of Meatloaf... and that was when I realised that Take That were featuring way too much in my life. So I liked Meatloaf. Bat Out of Hell first, then Two Outta Three Aint Bad, and then this one. And this was because it was a duo karaoke attempt of me and my friend, Adam. See, I've always had male friends. Best male friend right now is called Neil and we have been good mates for ten years! So I loved this song. Then I went off it... loved it again, etc etc. And then, I watched Meatloaf's film, and felt so sorry for him that I went and bought about six of his albums. So now I have a handful of Meatloaf albums, and that means I must listen to them at least once a year, otherwise they become part of the "Things I have wasted my money on" list (which is way longer than this review is, believe me). But I do like this song. I like Bonnie Tyler, and all of Meat's "friends" actually...
♥ Second is Gong by Sigur Rós. Sigur Rós are an Icelandic post-rock band with shoegaze and minimalist elements. The name (pronounced "si-ur rose") is an Icelandic girl's name, and means "victory rose." The band is similar to other Icelandic bands, such as múm and Amiina, and they are similar (sound-wise) to Broken Social Scene and Radiohead. Sigur Rós sing such amazing ethereal, emotional music and have such unconventional song structures that it would be impossible for you not to love them. Sigur Rós consists of Jón þór Birgisson, Kjartan Sveinsson, Orri Páll Dýrason and Georg Hólm. My favourite song by them, which was exceptionally difficult to choose, since they're all so good, is Gong, from their album Takk, which is actually their most popular track. I have liked these forever and ever and can't even remember first hearing of them, though it was no doubt from a film, since they have featured in a few films, including Vanilla Sky.
♥ And first place, of course, must go to Tori. I have spent the whole of this review-writing time trying to work out what my favourite song of hers actually is, but I think I am going to go with Winter.
Her most well-known, and probably popular song, is probably Cornflake Girl. Similar artists (of whom, I love all , too) are Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan, Björk, PJ Harvey, Garbage, Aimee Mann and Jewel. I love this song because it's about Tori's relationship with her dad, and, as far as I know, the only song she actually cries whilst singing it. It's very powerful, because of that. A very, very close second is 1000 Oceans, which I just adore more than I could ever express on here. And Northern Lad is very special at the moment, as well. At the age of 21, Tori was a part of a band called Y Kant Tori Read, who were unsucessful. She went solo shortly after... Tori calls her fans (who are very loyal, because she is just so fantastic) "ears with feet". Aww, bless her, isn't she a goddess?
Just to recap, then. My Top Ten Songs:
♫ Winter by Tori Amos
♫ Gong by Sigur Rós
♫ Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf
♫ Beautiful by Paul Simon
♫ China Girl by Pete Yorn
♫ Sanctus by Libera
♫ Wound Down by Elu
♫ Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley
♫ Life on Mars? Or Thursday's Child by David Bowie
♫ Life by Des'ree
Thanks for reading! Please ignore ratings, as usual... ■
Y Kant I Listen to Good Music 
Fab read!