Taylor Swift, how do you expect your fans to speak now when after every concert you leave them speechless?
If you were impressed with her first headlining world tour "Fearless," then you would be speechless after witnessing her second world tour "Speak Now." Taylor Swift out beat all her other concerts with more sets, costumes, dancer, instruments and even special effects. If you are iffy on Swift to begin with, the "Speak Now" tour will convert you.
Not only did she sound amazing, the show itself was unbelievable. Swift opened up with "Sparks Fly," got a little feisty for "Better than Revenge," and got a little sentimental on the piano in "Back to December," laced with "Apologize" by One Republic and her second album song "You're Not Sorry." The melancholic sounds actually made you sympathize with her. Her musicianship was so strong at the concert, you couldn't help but say, "Aw Tay Swift, we feel bad for you breaking Taylor Lautner's poor fragile heart."
Each song had it's own digital backdrop it help transform her song into a Broadway-esque show. Swift brought "Speak Now" to life with a wedding ceremony, which she crashed in order to "speak now." "Back to December" brought December to July with snow fluttering on screen and on stage.
Her voice was strong (stronger than what people at home hear when she sings on TV) and broaden her musical skills to multiple instruments such as guitar, piano, banjo and she even broke out the good ole ukulele for "Fearless" mixed with "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train. Those stuck on the opposite side of the stage got a great surprise when Swift walked through the floor from the main stage to the end stage decked out with a fiber-optic tree where she sang "Fearless," "Last Kiss" and "You Belong With Me." Fans stormed the floor, in hopes to catch a better view of the country singer. Then, just like what she does best, Swift hopped off the stage and hugged her fans on the other side of the floor, made her journey towards the main stage, and finished off "You Belong With Me."
Sparks flew when she sang "Dear John" (literally) as fireworks lit up the Quicken Loans arena to highlight her rage towards a certain singer named John. Then the stage settled down for a piano ballad and a chorus of strings for an intro to "Enchanted."
She dedicated "Long Live" to her fans before she came out for her encore. She went old school with "Fifteen," showing pictures of her band when they were fifteen and pictures of them now on the screen.
And if that wasn't enough to make the night the best night of the summer, Swift hopped on a little platform and hovered over her fans, making sure everyone got close to her even in the worse seats.
With great sets, props, intros into beloved songs, instruments and Taylor Swift herself, the "Speak Now" tour is definitely puts a new meaning to her lyrics "this night is flawless don't you let it go."
Sometimes you wake up, and you already know the day is gonna suck. Sometimes people are just mean to you for no apparent reason. Sometimes you feel like your dreams and ambitions will stay dreams and ambitions instead of turning into your new life. Sometimes things just don't go your way.
So, you had a bad day....(and that's all I will ever quote from Daniel Powter's obnoxious song)...we've all been there. So instead moping and turning emo--because no one wants to be the emo kid in the group--reach for your headphones....or just remember, "Harry Potter" comes out this Friday, so life can't suck that bad, right?
Need a pick-me-up song? There are a billion out there. But I will suggest the 10 best ones--or the 10 that I listen to. 10 songs for 10 pick-me-up reasons. Heartbroken? Life sucks? Dreams shattered? Insecure? Don't want to grow up? There's a song for that.
10. "Mean" by Taylor Swift
Karma's a bitch, especially when you piss of Tay Swift.
9. "Unaware" by My Favorite Highway
For those who don't feel good enough.
8. "Always Love" by Nada Surf
For those angry people who need to simmer down. Don't be a hater...make love not war.
7. "You're Making It Come Alive" by My Favorite Highway
Life is awesome...if you give it a chance.
6. "World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies
The title is pretty self explanatory.
5. "Wishing Well" by Airborne Toxic Event
Wanting more out of life?
4. "Lose Yourself" Eminem
Not really a pick-me-up so to speak, but more of a badass inspirational, go-out-and-get-what-you-want kind of song.
3. "Change" by Taylor Swift
If someone tells you you can't do something, listen to this song, get inspired, and prove them wrong. And if you want some extra pick-me-up power, do the Tay Swift hair flip.
2. "Fix You" by Coldplay
Chris Martin will try to fix you....for any kind of mood.
1. "Swim" by Jack's Mannequin
Just the perfect pick-me-up song for any kind of mood. And the musical god Andrew McMahon sings it so it gets extra points.
1. You can pack in a couple hundred people in a 92 degree theater and not have anyone leave because it's too hot.
2. You play your Baldwin piano the majority of the concert, but you somehow are more entertaining than pop artists with pretentious sets. And you like to jump off your Baldwin occasionally to spice things up.
3. You use two microphones while sitting playing the piano. You're that amazing, one microphone isn't enough to capture all your talent.
4. You're the lead singer of Jack's Mannequin.
Andrew had people cheering for him while Lady Danville and Steel Train opened up for the band. Hundreds of people dripped sweat in the Omni Theater in Toledo to see one band, one piano and one mastermind behind the piano rock music. Tickets only cost $20, but the show could have fooled you into thinking it was worth more. And they didn't even need dancers, backgrounds or costume changes to do that.
Jack's Mannequin opened with "Annie Use Your Telescope," and played all of their well-loved songs that made the high leveled testosterone guys plow their way in the middle at their failed attempts to start a mosh pit. "Bruised," "The Mixed Tape," "Swim," and the one that seems like the crowd surfing induced, "Bloodshot," which even makes Andrew climb on top of his piano, dance around and then jump back on stage.
The band quickly felt the effects of the radiating heat. Drenched in sweat just like his audience, McMahon said that Toledo was the hottest show they ever had.
"It's hotter than the devil's armpit," McMahon told the crowd. "But we're going to fight through the heat."
And they did.
They surprised the audience with a couple new songs before mentioning that their third album will come out sometime in the fall after the three year wait since their second album "The Glass Passenger" came out in the fall of 2008.
The band ended the performance with "Made For Each Other/You Can Breathe." The crowd chanted, "one more song," and within two minutes, the band took their spots and played three more songs for an encore, including the ballad "Hammers and Strings," "Dark Blue" and "La La Lie" where McMahon ended the night playing his harmonica.
Tell me it doesn't take a supreme being to make a jammed pack, non air conditioned theater filled with hundreds of people forget about their stench, dehydration and profuse sweating and cause them to huddle even closer to the stage, jump to the beat of music, and walk out of the show saying, "God, that was amazing."
A new summer is born, which comes with about 40 new songs that you'll constantly hear on the radio. How will you spend the summer of 2011? Will you still pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?(Please don't.) Will you become a California Gurl? Is my love your drug? Do you wanna be a billionaire so freakin' bad? But the real question of the summer will be will you kick it in the front seat or the back? (Ok, I'm sorry I referenced Rebecca Black).
Hard life questions.
It's time to start making those summer playlists right now...if you haven't already. If you're not a radio fan and/or are getting really sick of hearing "The Lazy Song" on every single radio station this summer, hopefully my summer song selections will help you. Because I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty tired of hearing about Bruno Mars throwing his hands in his pants and chillin' in his Snuggie. Too much information if you ask me.
So I have complied a list of summer songs (because I have nothing better to do with my time), all summer related because who doesn't love a song about the best season, warm weather, and endless nights? Five songs for your sentimental summer nights by the bonfire. (Or with this weather, five songs for those rainy summer days.) Five songs for your hot summer day. Hopefully a couple these songs will spark your interest. If not, well, I tried and you can go back to Bruno Mars and maybe he'll teach you how to dougie.
For those clear, star gazing summer nights.
1. Thunder by Boys Like Girls
Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer. Do you know you're unlike any other? You'll always be my thunder
2. Summer Again by The Afters
As she falls I try to catch her for one last touch of warmth from summer. As one thing leaves to becomes another again. I remember when oh to be with summer again
3. Dusk and Summer by Dashboard Confessional
She looked deep into you as you lay together quiet in the grasp of dusk and summer.
4. Tim McGraw by Taylor Swift
Just a boy in a Chevy truck that had a tendency of gettin' stuck on backroads at night. And I was right there beside him all summer long. And then the time we woke up to find that summer'd gone.
5. "Riding the Brakes" by Awake and Dreaming
Her name’s California and we have got chemistry, fusing our hearts, with sunsets ‘til 10, and streets where we’d hang out ‘til quarter to 4 in the AM. Then pass out with our clothes on beneath the piers and boardwalks and wake up to the waves.
For those warm summer days to blast through your rolled down windows.
1. 21 and Invincible by Something Corporate
And it's been autumn since the day that I met you. If I hit bottom must I crawl out alone? And I don't wish to know the secrets of summer at all.
2. All Summer Long by Kid Rock
It was 1989, my thoughts were short my hair was long, caught somewhere between a boy and man. She was seventeen and she was far from in-between. It was summertime in Northern Michigan.
3. American Honey by Lady Antebellum
There's a wild, wild whisper blowing in the wind calling out my name like a long lost friend. Oh I miss those days as the years go by. Oh nothing's sweeter than summertime and American honey.
4. Penny and Me by Hanson
Cigars in the summertime under the sky by the light I can feel you read my mind. I can see it in your eyes under the moon as it plays like music every line. There's a rug with bleeding dye under the fan in the room where the passions burning high by the chair with the leopard skin under the light. It's always Penny and me tonight.
5. "Growing Up" by The Maine
Photograph, remembering the summer. It takes me back to Southern California. Where the girls would all pass on the boardwalk and laugh at our desperate attempts and our sunburned backs.
It's weird to think that all you need to hear is the music from a movie to spark your emotion. In scary movies, it's the steady beat or the short staccato notes that trigger you to curl up and cover your eyes. It's the melancholic sounds that make you sob at the end or make the end even more satisfying than the director or actors could. It's because music makes a movie and without it, movies wouldn't be one of the most popular forms of entertainment. Way back in the Charlie Chaplin days of movies, when talking was non existent, music is what carried the story from beginning to end. Has there ever been a movie without some form of music? No.
Some movies have made their music so famous that people can recognize the song more than lines from the movie. When you think of "Titanic," sure you think "I'll never let go, Jack" or that sudden jolt of anger because Rose didn't move over on that stupid door to save a gorgeous Leonardo DiCaprio Jack Dawson to lay beside her. But you also break out to "My Heart Will Go On." When you think of "Jaws" you instantly thinking "dun dun. dun dun. dun dun dun dun." Or "Star Wars" you start humming the main theme.
Some scores are just so beautiful and great and I have rounded up the 10 that make their movie a hundred times better.
10."Latika's Theme" by AR Rahman from "Slumdog Millionaire"
9. "Main Theme from Castaway" by Alan Silvestri
8. "Neverland (Piano Variation in Blue)" by Jan. A.P. Kaczmarek from "Finding Neverland"
7."Theme from Forrest Gump" by Alan Silvestri
6. "Theme from Jurassic Park" by John Williams
5. "Theme to Cider House Rules" by Rachel Portman
And yes Michiganders, this the the Pure Michigan theme, long before those commercials took over the TV and radio.
4. "Surface of the Sun" by John Murphy from"Sunshine"
3. "This Land" by Hans Zimmer from "The Lion King"
2. "Hymn to the Sea" by James Horner from "Titanic"
Justin Beiber. Lady GaGa. Miley Cryus. Linkin Park. Ke$ha. Just a few polarizing names in the music industry. You either love them or hate them. There seems like there is no in between when it comes to these artists. These artists are known for being the worse musicians or the most successful, whatever your take is. Have you ever asked yourself, "how in the world did these people get signed?" You're not alone, many people have wondered the same thing too. It's a fact they are no Celion Dion, John Lennon or the next Beatles, but someone saw some talent in them for them to be some of the hottest musicians.
10 most hated artists. 10 wonderful underrated songs that might, maybe, not a guarantee, but could possibly change your mind on them.
1. Ke$ha
Let's start with the girl who has just as many haters as she does fans. You know her as the white girl who raps in her drinking songs, the dirty one that bathes in glitter and carries around a tooth brush and a bottle of Jack wherever she goes. But before her music producer Dr. Luke ruined her upcoming career, the girl who spells her name with a symbol of currency actually sang normal music. Here's the other side to the party animal, minus Dr. Luke, auto-tune, drinking and glitter. It's Kesha, spelled with an "S."
2. Lady GaGa
Despite the fact she's a five time Grammy award winner, people still hate Mother Monster. It doesn't matter if she was accepted into the most prestigious music school in the country, Julliard, or if she was accepted into NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, people see her as the 21st century Madonna wannabe. If you just strip away her outlandish outfits, you get Stefani Germanotta. And because she's a little out there, people see her as this crazy, bubble wearing wannabe. "You and I" will be on Lady GaGa's third album, on sale May 23.
3. Justin Bieber
Apparently the world doesn't like overnight Canadian Youtube sensations discovered by Usher. Or 17 year old boys who like to wear purple sweatshirts, shake their shaggy brown every five seconds, ride Segways, and release 3D documentary concert films. If they did, then they would like Justin Bieber. But even though he taught himself how to play the piano, guitar and drums all before he was 13, people still think he's ruining today's music. Hate him all you want, but you can't say he sucks at playing the drums.
If that little clip doesn't convince you, maybe this Justin Bieber song will.
4. Katy Perry
She kissed a girl and she liked it. She would rather not by a push up Victoria's Secret bra, but instead a cupcake bra that spews out whip cream. Is her blue hair too flamboyant for you? Well, she just has that bold personality, and it seems like with many artists, their bold personality, like Lady GaGa, makes people hate them even more. Maybe "I Kissed a Girl," "Hot and Cold" and "California Gurls" aren't the right songs to show her artistic talent, but she has plenty of other songs that do.
5. Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift is not as hated as Ke$ha, GaGa and Justin Bieber, and yes, she did suck at her 2010 Grammy performance beside legend Stevie Nicks. But at least Swift is one of the very few artists today who never used auto-tune, she plays guitar and piano, and gasp, she actually writes her own songs. Yes, she has a whole album where she didn't need help from one co-writer, her third album "Speak Now." Some people don't like her voice, some people don't like how she started out country and then turned pop. But this song is an older one when she didn't let pop music convert her into a country-pop singer.
6. Miley Cyrus
Dun. Dun. Dun. Oh no, can it be? Ah, it's Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus is like Brussels sprouts, no matter how many times you listen to her, you're never going to love her because she's just that bad. But there is one song, if you don't watch the music video to see her pouty face and snaggeltooth, where she actually sounds quite decent...for a Miley song.
7. Rihanna
Umbrella, ella, ella, ay, ay, ay, in a nasally voice, oice, oice, ay, ay, ay. When Rihanna decides to thicken up her voice, she has the potential of not sounding like a donkey. Yes, her songs are overplayed catchy. They're your guilty pleasure, so don't say you don't blast "Umbrella" and "Rude Boy" when you're home alone.
8. Justin Timberlake
It seems these days Justin Timberlake is striving for an Oscar than a Grammy. Maybe he should stick to singing songs about sex and his womanizer ways and his attempt to beatbox. (It's sad to say Wikipedia calls that an instrument, which is why you shouldn't rely on that site for facts.) But there is one Justin Timberlake song where he doesn't rap or beatbox. Although it's on his first solo album, it sounds like his N'SYNC days, you know, when he actually sang.
9. Pink
She may have a hard exterior and what seems to be like an infinite number of songs that take over the radio. She might have tattoos running up her arms and additional space on her husband. During the early 2000s, when acting punk was "in" thanks to Avril Lavigne (too bad Miley wasn't a little older then), Pink hit her peak in her career. Her raspy voice and "rock songs" are an acquired taste, but there's one song that peels away her "I'm all tough, so don't mess with me" image for a more sensitive one.
10. Linkin Park
A lot of people hate Linkin Park because all their songs sound the same and they use the same chords and chord progressions in every single song that is about how they hate their life, the hardships they face, or them complaining about something. Yes, this song is them complaining about something, but when I first heard it on the radio, I didn't even know it was them. If they made songs more like this where they experiment with different chords on their guitars, maybe people will start to love them.
But the real, unanswered question is, how did Nickelback and Rebecca Black get signed? That will always be one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
This blog is inspired by that wonderful cover that Miley Cyrus did of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." And by wonderful I mean god awful.
But let's not dwell on those covers that put the original song to shame. Most covers are indeed that, but there are some better than the originals. Doing a successful cover can be done. You just need this thing called talent and a voice, and you're already on your way to becoming successful. So let's go through the slush pile of Youtube and pick out the best of the best.
1. "Born This Way" by Maria Aragon.
She's only 11 years old, but I like her version better than Lady GaGa's. I'm sure most have seen her since Lady GaGa posted this on her Twitter and even invited Maria to sing the song during one of her concerts. Talk about a successful cover.
2. "Paparazzi" by Greyson Chance
Ellen already signed him, and he's a legit artist now because he has his own VEVO channel on Youtube. Everyone and their brother has seen this video, but it's just so good.
3. "Love the Way You Lie" by Helena and Maria
I just discovered them a couple days ago, but these twins really know how to sing. Eminem should have found them instead of Rihanna.
4. "Firework" by Tyler Ward and Alex Goot
If you watch covers on Youtube frequently, then you have come across Alex Goot and especially Tyler Ward, who seems like the King of Youtube Covers. "Firework" is getting overplayed on the radio, but these guys don't make it sound that annoying anymore.
5. "Love Story" by Gabe
This cover is two years old, but it's just so good. Taylor's Swift's "Love Story" from Romeo's perspective. So clever. So good. He even got appraisal from Taylor Swift on Twitter.
6. "You're Not Sorry" by Lexie Hayden
She definitely has a stronger voice than Taylor Swift.
7. "The Cave" by Tyler Ward and Megan Nicole
Except for I don't understand the random air guitarist for a split second in the video.
8. "Hallelujah" by Justin Robinett and Michael Henry
This song is one of the most covered songs, but this version is the best. The secret: the harmonies.
9. "The Harold Song" by AZsinger 62
The kid looks like he's 12, and although I love this song so much because it's one of the very few songs we actually get to hear Ke$ha sing, I think I might like his version better than hers.
10. "Airplanes" and "Brick by Boring Brick" by Justin Robinett and Michael Henry
The guys who sung "Hallelujah" have more hits on this song than Tyler Ward does on this song. They are the only two people who are allowed to pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars.
