Twilight: Thank You for the Music!

I've been at home sick for most of this week and today I'm feeling a little better. Not well enough to go to work (don't be silly... It's Friday after all!) and I am SO bored of sitting around doing not a hell of a lot. Fan fiction counts as being productive, right? Anyway, I starting thinking - as you do - about my next blog post. I decided a twi-music review was in order, so here goes!

Warning: this post is looooong. Apparently I have too much time on my hands.

Since falling into the twi-vortex, my mind has been opened to loads of fantastic music thanks to the soundtracks of the movies, the playlists that loads of fuckawesome fic authors post, and of course, recs from my twi-friends.

SOUNDTRACKS

This week, I replayed all three movie soundtracks. I rank them, as albums, in the following order:

1. Eclipse
2. Twilight
3. New Moon

I was planning to list one standout favourite from each soundtrack. Hmm, seems I'm not capable (with the first two, anyhoo) of narrowing them down! Trying to focus here on bands I either hadn't heard of, or didn't know that well pre-soundtrack.

ECLIPSE
Hands-down favourite - Florence + the Machine: Heavy in Your Arms

I have the Lungs album - highly recommend. Although, part of me thinks that Dog Days are Over might have been a more appropriate choice for Eclipse, yes?

Other top choices from Eclipse
Battles: The Line; Vampire Weekend: Jonathon Low; UNKLE: With You in My Head; Black Keys: Chop & Change; Metric: Eclipse.

TWILIGHT
Hands down favourite - Collective Soul: Tremble for my Beloved

I had heard of Collective Soul, like, back in the day, when I didn't really 'get' music - but this song spurred me to download Seven Year Itch - and I love every track!

Other notable mentions from Twilight:
Rob Pattinson (OMG really?) Never Think and Let Me Sign; Iron & Wine: Flightless Bird, American Mouth.

NEW MOON
Hands down favourite (although there were slim pickings) - Thom Yorke: Hearing Damage

The only other songs I can recommend from the NM soundtrack were from Muse and The Killers. As the aim of this post was for me to learn about new music, and these are two of my all time favourite bands, that's all I got!

I won't start on the scores of the movies (yes, I have them too) but may I just say that Howard Shore did a fantastic job in Eclipse, particularly how he wove the Metric song through the score. I loved it!

EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO TWILIGHT

There are several bands that I now LOVE and have properly discovered thank to the twi-verse. Top mentions:

Muse. I love Muse. I know loads of other people do too, but I REALLY love Muse. They played at a festival here last summer that I didn't get a ticket to, and I could hear them playing from my house. That's pain, people. The Resistance is one of my all time favourite albums; and as for singles - my top three are Supermassive Black Hole; Undisclosed Desires; Hysteria and Uprising. (yeah, so that's four. Sue me).

100 Monkeys. I knew Jacksper was in a band, but until I 'met' TwiredJen and Jaymes805, I didn't really KNOW Jacksper was in a band, if you know what I mean. After following these ladies (on twitter, not like a stalker) I was soon curious and recently downloaded Grape. Fantastic album! My top three songs of theirs are probably Orson Brawl; .38 Special and Wings on Fire. I am clinging to hope that they might be playing live when I am in the States in a few months, so that I can see what all the fuss is about for myself.

Recently, I sent out a music rec request email to loads of my twi-friends. I knew I could count on Jenny Jerkface to hook a brother up. And hook me up she did! The email was massive (like, a novel. Thanks JJ)

Although there were a MILLION bands on JJ's list, the one with the most enthusiasm behind it (aka number of exclamation marks) was Man Man. I'd never heard of Man Man before I heard JJ talking about it on Twitarded (or maybe twitter). Regardless, I checked them out on YouTube and downloaded what Jenny said was their most 'palatable' album: Rabbit Habits. I love it!

JJ's list also included bands like Mumford & Sons (LOVE Sigh No More), The Arcade Fire, The National and Iron & Wine. I can't wait to continue my education!

AND FINALLY

A couple of Kiwi recs for you all.

The Naked & Famous: These kids are doing so well. They're plaing SXSW this year! All the way from New Zealand! I love them, and their debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You. Check out Young Blood:

The Hot Grits: I first went to see these guys live because a friend of a friend is in the band. They are awesome! About 11 or 12 of them on stage (usually) just rocking out... at times completely randomly. I love it! I think the 100 Monkeys and Man Man fans amongst us may just be interested.

*Note: this music video was recently banned in NZ for 'innapropriate content'*

Aaaannnd I'm spent. Got any good recs you'd like to share? Go on, you know you want to...