Because I love these things... Stolen from a_lovesuicide ♫

You can learn a lot about someone by the music they listen to. Hit shuffle on your iPod or mp3 player and write down the first 25 songs. No cheating or skipping songs that are shameful. That is the fun!

1. "Goodbye" by SR-71 (which is hysterical since I've been NaNoing to this on repeat lately and the first thing a randomized list does is give me this...)
2. "Goodbye" by My Darkest Days (...ahahaha.)
3. "Soaked (Glam Nation Live)" by Adam Lambert
4. "Doubt & Trust (instrumental version) by access
5. "Bleed" by The Dreaming
6. "Goin' Down" by Three Days Grace
7. "The Summer Epic 2011 - Part 09" by Shane V!
8. "The Home of Dragons" by Yoko Shimomura
9. "This Week the Trend" by Relient K
10. "Demon Warriors/Final Kombat" by Georgeo Clinton
11. "Revolution" by Len and Rin Kagamine
12. "Make Me Real" by she
13. "Gone Too Soon" by access
14. 哀歌 by 岩垂徳行 / "Elegy" from Grandia II (Noriyuki Iwadare)
15. "All About Lovin' You" Bon Jovi
16. "Get Back In My Life" by Maroon 5
17. "Shifting Islands" by halc, Insixfour, ProtoDome (Sonic the Hedgehog: SOUND OF SPEED (Overclocked Remix))
18. "Everywhere" by Accomplice
19. "Waking Up" by Sonic Team/Shadow The Hedgehog: Lost And Found
20. "Music" by Madonna
21. "This Ain't A Love Song" by Motley Crue
22. "World So Cold" by Three Days Grace
23. "Toda Pasion" from Gitaroo Man
24. "Better Sorry Than Safe" by Halestorm
25. "Sahara" by Slash (featuring Koshi Inaba)

...which just shows I've got a little of everything in my big melting pot music lists. oDo ♥

I like the LJ writer's block once and awhile, but never actually use their format for it since it drives me crazy.

I'll just answer the question on my own~

What is the first line of your favorite book?

"I heard the mailman approach my office door, half an hour earlier than usual."
~Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Not the most exciting first line ever, but Harry Dresden is one of my favorite series and I get such glee getting people addicted to it. I've read Storm Front so many times that I'm on like...I think my fifth or sixth if not seventh copy of it. It's just a good first book and I love it.

And since that's not really anything to go off of - have the rest of the opening which I will always love.

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There's obviously more to it - but I always love awkward conversations so... yes. Go buy it, I promise it's a great series if you like modern fantasy at all. ♥

I have to share this because it amuses me and it was the highlight of my day.

I was helping a customer at work today and through the casual conversation you have with them, part of my job is to ask them if they have one of our member/discount cards (in hopes to sell one to them if you know, they don't have it).

Right as I'm asking him this, I hear his phone go off: which is a ringtone of none other than Legend of Zelda's Navi screaming HEY!



And without missing a beat, I managed: "Well, besides the fairy in your pocket, that is..."

He turned beet red as we shared a nerdy laugh together and he went on his way.

I love being a geek sometimes.

Working in a bookstore is sometimes a bad thing.

Okay, it's often a bad thing - especially when employee appreciations are going on.

Today's haul included (besides a cute tote and a card for my stepdad):

~Holly's Inbox by Holly Denham (something I've read but I don't own, and I'm not going to own the second without having the first...It's fluffy, hilarious crack romance stuff. Read it on a whim. Told through emails. It's hysterical)
~Holly's Inbox: Scandal in the City by Holly Denham (book two of the first one listed)
~M or F by Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts
~Mage in Black by Jaye Wells (book two of Sabrina Kane series - first one is Red Headed Stepchild)
~Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin
~Another One Bites The Dust by Jennifer Rardin (Emma has been trying to get me to read this series forever now)
~Divine Misfortune by A. Lee Martinez
~Degrees of Freedom by Simon Morden (book three of Petrovitch novels)
~Mind Your Own Beeswax by Hannah Reed (book two - Buzz Off was the first, Hannah is actually a local author, this one is more for my gram but I'll read it when she's done)
~World of Warcraft: The Shattering by Christie Golden (UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNF CHRISTIE GOLDENNNNNNNNNN)

...I'm also amused that five out of all of these books are by my favorite publisher: Orbit - who does amazing fantasy novels. *_* ♥

I'll probably start The Shattering after I finish up Stormrage by Richard Knaak, since I'm a whore for Golden's work after Vampire in the Mists and her take on the Arthas tale. ♥

Day 23. The first artist on your 'desert island' list

If I was stuck on a desert island and I could have only picked three artists to have with me - the first would have to be Shinedown. Their music is something that I really enjoy, no matter the mood, and it always gets me energized in pretty much whatever I'm doing. So if I had to survive on a desert island, Brent singing to me would keep me going, I think. It might be moody music, some people might not enjoy it because it's loud rock, but it'd be something that I could enjoy while like, building a shelter or some shit.

Some of the faves:

Junkies for Fame:


Devour:


Diamond Eyes:


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Day 22. An artist who's music you enjoy but dislike personally.

I'm really not one of those people who actually keeps up on musician's lives. As long as they make music and I enjoy it, that's all that really matters. I've had friends who go a little overboard with their following celebs, artists, etc to know I want nothing to do with it.

So the only one I can really go with here is the only one that I find myself rolling my eyes at when I get any wind of it at all (usually from outside sources who bring it up in conversation as like I said, I don't go looking for celeb news).

As much as I enjoy her music, I'd have to say Lady Gaga. There's just so much of the "LOOK AT ME I'M SO FUCKING SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE I'M SO WEIRDDDDDDDDDD" that I can take from celebs. The music's good, but my opinion of Gaga has slowly gone down the tubes. If only just because some of her new stuff is kind of...questionable on what's an 'homage' and what's not. But I usually just ignore it so whatever! /finished answering meme question

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Day 21. An artist you would love to go see in concert

I'm lucky enough to have already seen some of my favorite artists in concert already: Shinedown (which was like a Niki glee-gasm all night), Disturbed (also totally amazing), Nine Inch Nails, etc. It's always surprising to people that these bigger rock bands actually come to my little city, but the Midwest has a lot pretty huge rock following. So every so often I luck out and get wind of something epic coming up and being able to enjoy it.

While I've missed Daughtry when he came here and I'd love to see Adam Lambert in concert, I would really enjoy seeing Within Temptation in concert. They've always been a band that I've enjoyed but I've yet to hear them live, even on a live album.



This is from one of their newer albums, just came out at the end of March, which I really enjoy. This song is one I've been listening to over and over again. They have a pretty awesome sound and I'd love to see how badass their concerts must be.

Some other favorites are:

"What Have You Done Now"



Stand My Ground:



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Day 20. A song/artist that touched you deeply

I'm one of those people that listens to music to create or try to inspire myself to do something with my own talents. One of the things that I do is I sort of...picture everything in my mind as if you would see it in a movie or television (kind of a way of storyboarding, I suppose). I do it for a lot of my writing, especially action or fight scenes. It's one of those things that I think has always lent me an added bonus to writing believable action at least.

And since I can't just pick one, once again - I'll go with a couple.



Kotoko's We Survive just seems to resonate with something deeper - I always seem to smile a lot when this plays. I think it's a terms of pacing in the beat and the way that it just flows in my mind when trying to think of things that would work well with the piece.

To me, that's how music touches me - if I can create to it.



This one is one of my absolute favorites. Enigma is one of those bands I've had growing up and it was always hard as fucking hell to find their stuff - Mom usually had to order their work for me and I like, cleaned the house or something to pay her back for the CDs.

I listened to the MCMXC a.D. album of theirs forever. It's so good. ;w; ♥

Another guilty pleasure is Mike Oldfield for me... but his stuff is really hard to find too. He's most well known for Tubluar Bells which most people will recognize if you've ever seen the old horror movie The Exorcist.

I only have a few of his albums, but my favorite one is Songs of Distant Earth (this link is 55min long / whole album there), which is a bloody masterpiece... I listened to it forever and drove my mother crazy with it. It's one of those albums that just kind of tells a story on its own...



Ascension is one of the later tracks, but I always enjoy it. ♥

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Day 19. A song/artist you can put on endless repeat and not get tired of listening to

Man. To pick just one is hard. So I'll rate the top three... BECAUSE I CAN!!!!

The first being the one that sits at the top of my Last.fm profile - which should be a surprise in a way, considering that I'm usually miss hard rock junkie but...



Imitation Black is one of those Vocaloid songs that I just can't stop listening to when I get into it. It's haunting, powerful and the actual video for it is really nice because the animation is freaking awesome. Sadly, it's hard to find the actual Vocaloid PVs on YT because they get yanked down - but you can see the animation here with some of the Vocaloid fansingers - who are also amazing. The Clear dubs are usually fantastic.



The second that I'd have to go with is Gackt's Redemption:



Because who can resist a man in cornrows and leather pants. (3~ That and his voice is amazing.

And finally - there's Access' Edge.



When I first got into them, this was the only one that I kept listening to - over and over and over again.

ENJOY!!!

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Day 18. A song/artist you just cannot stand

I don't even want to link it because it drives me up a tree. |D

But the Lady Marmalade song from Moulin Rouge sung by Aguilaera, Lil' Kim, Mya and Pink is something that I automatically will skip, switch channels or whatever I need to get away from the damn song. It was overplayed to death around here when the movie was really big and to this day I still kind of kneejerk at it. Which sucks because the movie's music was amazing, except for this song, I just can't deal with it.

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Day 17. A song/artist you were sure you'd hate but wound up loving

When you've worked retail as long as I have, you tend to generally deal with the batshit crazy fans of any sort of fandom that may come near your specialty store. Considering that I've always worked with some sort of print media, books, magazines, etc - I've seen a lot of shit from people that I'd love to take a baseball bat to if I could get away with it without landing in jail. And I could go off on tangents forever about the brainless masses related to books, but those are other rants.

Back to the point. I am not an American Idol fan. Being in said retail work, picking 'shows' to watch and get into that are on prime time never works because I have a rotating schedule. They've never been something that I've been into. I've never gotten into that show even if there have been decent singers that have popped up because of the show and I've ended up liking (Clarkson, Daughtry, etc). If anything, I know the rule of thumb with Idol people - is that the runner up will be the more popular than the actual winner. Or at least the top three. It seems that the winner of the show? You never hear of after it. Which is fine, because I get sick and tired of hearing about the damn show, blah blah blah.

I knew about Adam Lambert for being on Idol. I also knew how fucking batshit women older than my mother were over the man. That and the speculation that he was gay, blah blah blah, it's in the past now. Basically, I had to deal with people every damn day coming in looking for shit, magazines, books, paraphernalia, and getting really annoying if we either didn't have it or ran out. Case in point: the Rolling Stone issue with him on the cover with the snake. Very nice eyecandy.

I wanted to buy every single one of them just so I could set them on fire in front of the idiot women who bitched me out because we didn't have more than three copies of it in a damn mall bookstore. Magazines were limited because we usually didn't have the demand for them, so it wasn't my fucking fault. But that's retail for you.

Needless to say, I hadn't heard his music - I hadn't even given it a shot since it was shoved in my face, you couldn't get away from it, and I'm honestly one of those people that if you try and jam it down my throat, I'll tell you to fuck off and never go near it until the fans either calm the fuck down or it dies down enough to tolerable levels around me. I figured I'd hate it because of the hype - so I stayed the hell away from it.

It wasn't until a friend was talking about it to me, calmly and mentioning that she had one of his singles in her head all day that she linked me and my crew to it. And proceeded to get all of us addicted to it in one night. It was catchy, rock/pop mix and he had a really good voice. And I wound up loving him.

Still do - looking forward to the new album.

And since I enjoy linking people to music - here are a few I enjoy. Voodoo and the Mad World Acoustic Cover.





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Day 16. An album/artist you were looking forward to and were really disappointed by

I usually test out albums online before I buy them, usually listening to samples on sites to see if I like the sound before I shell out the money for it - but I had been looking forward to Tarja's album when I heard that she had broken away/kicked out of Nightwish, which is one of the bands I really liked. I had always enjoyed the sound of her voice.



But this album was a huge disappointment to me. I'm not really even sure why anymore. I listened to it once or twice and then it went in my storage box of CDs and I haven't unearthed it again. Maybe I was expecting more awesome rock or whatnot but it just didn't resonate with me at all. I honestly haven't given any more of her solo stuff a shot, so maybe the sound changed, but I didn't enjoy My Winter Storm (which is apparently her second album according to the internet).

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Day 15. A song/artist that matches in your mind with a completely unrelated memory or activity

This one was a bit hard to try and figure out, but I'd have to go with Rammstein for this one.



This song always makes me think of walking under fireworks. I think it's the tempo and when the bursts of sound pop up, but I always think of fireworks when I hear it. Dunno why. XD It just kind of happens...

The beat is the walking and the little bursts are the fireworks exploding.

Either that or I was listening to this song when watching fireworks on the fourth of July or something. NO IDEA. oDo!!!

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Day 14. A song/artist that reminds you of someone

I'm a very visual person and I usually use music for character identification in my writing and everything - but to really answer the question, I would have to go with Pearl Jam. My friend Emily was always the sort of indie music protester sort when we were growing up and every time I hear any Pearl Jam music, I always think of her since she thought they were doing some good with trying to make messages with their music.

I only have the Yield album myself - mainly for the following songs. I loved Do The Evolution since it's completely animated and disturbing as shit, which makes you kind of question what the hell is going on in the world. That and I never forget the dance scene/solo with Death in this vid.

Do The Evolution:


Brain of J:


Good stuff though - controversial music was always interesting to listen to and think about.

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Day 13. A song/artist you don't want anyone to know you enjoy

Well, there are a few artists that I could actually put here but... one's too popular to really put here because EH, the other was sort of one-hit wonder in the states, and I'm going to go with that one. Since people give me shit for listening to it once and awhile. Looking them up online actually made me buh, since there's more albums out there than I would have thought. I only had the one when they were playing them a lot over here...back in the late nineties.

And that's Chumbawamba.

Otherwise known to US kids as "that band that made the I GET KNOCKED DOWN! /shoves people over" song.

It's kind of hard to describe their sound, because honestly, it's kind of eclectic - which I do really like about the band. The Tubthumper album is the only one that I have but I've always enjoyed it when I feel like hitting up the nineties kick of my CD collection.

You have the generally bouncy sort of Tubthumping song, then get a moody one like Outsider...

That slips into damn near rock-punk like Mary, Mary which apparently made it into the Stigmata movie and I had never realized.

To an almost jazz-trance song like I Want More

They're just one of those bands that has really can't be defined and I think that's why I like them a lot.

But damned if people gave me shit about it all the time. |Db

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Day 12. A song/artist no one would expect you to enjoy

I had to think about this for a bit since I'm one of those people that likes to share music no matter what with people. |Da

Only one that I can think of that might be shocking to people outside of close friends is Aqua. Since, you know, I'm pretty much your typical HELL YEAH ROCK MUSIC YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

FEAR THE 90'S ZOMG WTF MUSIC VIDEO!



So there. Ha.

My poor mother had to deal with sugar pop that's not-so-secretly-dirty or loud, screaming music when I was growing up.

oDo It was awesome. ♥

Which just makes me go gleeeeeee since they just released a new single of How R U Doin? so YAY MORE CATCHY MUSIC 8D!!!!

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Day 11. A song/artist that you used to like, but now dislike

...huh, this took some thought because I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to music, but I guess if anything, I would have to go with a general 'dislike' of Matchbox 20.

I used to really enjoy them, even saw them in concert wayyyyyy back when. And now they're just kind of 'meh' for me. Some of their songs are still okay to me, but I usually will switch the channel or skip the song if it comes on like, Pandora or anything. 8\ I dunno, I just don't care for them too much anymore.

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Day 10. A song/artist that you used to dislike, but now like

I had to think about this one but... I would have to go with Mika.

The music industry was shitting themselves over Grace Kelly and it was...so overplayed everywhere that I just couldn't even give it a shot. I don't know how long I actually ignored the singer because I couldn't stand the song at all, but eventually it either died down or I promptly forgot about it.

Until I stumbled upon the Flash animation of Shadow dancing to the opening of Love Today and it was all downhill from there, since it was catchy as hell and I wanted to hear more.

And then there's Rain...



Which I never get sick of listening to. (3 Mmm. ♥

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Day 9. A song/artist you wish more people knew about

Easy.

Robert Miles.

He had one or two hits in the States in like...early nineties or something, but his music was really fucking hard to find as he's an Italian DJ/pianist who is bigger over in Europe I believe. People will probably recognize his songs Children and One and One that were really popular around then...

From the Dreamland album: Fable was just...stunning. (3



This one is one of my absolute favorites: Maresias, from the 23AM album, which is one of those awesome flowing albums that sort of blends together as it moves on. It wasn't as popular as his Dreamland album but it was still awesome. (3~



If anything, this prompt is reminding me that I need to put his music onto this new computer...

FJKSDLFJKLSDFJKLSDFKLSD ALTHOUGH LOOKING IT UP IT LOOKS LIKE HE HAS A NEW ONE IN THE WORKS OR WAS JUST RELEASED FOR THIS YEAR SKLFJSDKLFJKSDFLJKSDFLKSDFLKSDFLJKSDFLJSDFKLJSDKLSDFJKLDSFKLSDFJL SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW MUST FIND IT OH GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.

BEST DAY EVER. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

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