10 Songs I'm Loving Right Now!
While some people like to find a quiet corner in a coffee shop, I prefer to do my weekend writing at the bar. What’s better cranking out a fun, fresh blog post about music than sitting on a stool at a local brewery, sipping beer and listening to live music? Not much, right? It’s a little cold in here as the temperature is in the mid-50s and they have the doors open for people to hear the band. Nonetheless, the beer is good and so am I. Happy Sunday indeed!
As per usual, I’ve been busy sifting through Spotify recommendations and playlists looking for fun new music to listen to. Lately, I’m finding that my music mood falls mostly between the country and pop spectrum, with a few outliers here and there. I’ve come across lots of good music in the past months, which is good because I love shaking up my everyday music playlist with new songs I’ve stumbled upon.
It’s been a minute since I’ve shared a look into my music playlist, so I figured I’d put a quick blog post together to give you guys a glimpse into what I’ve been listening to lately. Hopefully I share a song or two or three with you that you like and add to your own playlist. Or my music preferences won’t be your flavor, and that’s okay too! Either way, keep scrolling and let’s chat about music.
(Side note, limiting the list to 10 songs was NOT easy! I feel like I’m turning a cold shoulder to all the other good songs on my playlist haha.)
I actually stumbled upon the acoustic version of this song first. I loved the slow, acoustic take on the song, but I went to Spotify looking for the original version in hopes it was a little more fast-paced. Lucky me, it was just the kind of poppy perfection I was looking for. I love how the lyrics of heartbreak are disguised by the synth pop beats. After all, my favorite kind of heartbreak songs are the ones that you sing along to without realizing that what you’re singing along to is something sad. The words are true feelings here: “What am I supposed to do? / What am I supposed to do, / In case I miss you?”
This song song gives me total Avril Lavigne-esque vibes, which is a-maz-ing! Listening through Halsey’s new album, this song stood out to me as a contender for the top spot (competing with songs like Without Me and Graveyard of course). 3am goes hard on feelings of being insecure and anxious when you spend time relying on others for validation. We’ve all been there and can relate to this I’m sure: “My insecurities are hurting me / Someone, please come and flirt with me / I really need a mirror that'll come along and tell me that I'm fine.”
This song is so cute, cheesy, and perfectly poppy. It reminds me a lot of my current relationship in that I super adore Alex in all he does. I’m the proud girlfriend smiling beside him in all this accomplishments. He completes me, I compete him. The words in the bridge of the song couldn’t ring truer: “'Cause you're always on my team / And I know, I know / That sometimes I make it really, really hard to be.”
Though I’ve never been to LA, this song reminds me of the bind I find myself in living here in North Carolina. First off, I love North Carolina — there are so many things I love about my life here that I know I don’t have back home (friends, oceans, mountains to name a few). Yet I find myself thinking a lot about the simplicity of life back in Wisconsin surrounded by friends and family that are near and dear to my heart. The familiarity of life and my love of all things Wisconsin brings me to a love and hate relationship with North Carolina. My favorite and most relatable lyric from the song is this: “But if I let down my hair in the ocean air / Will Tennessee be mad at me?” Can you relate to loving and hating a place at the same time? Maybe I’ll elaborate on it more in a future post.
Somebody Like That, Tenille Arts
A lot of people know this song from The Bachelor, but lucky for me, I had heard it previously to the episode it was aired on. Tenille Arts floats the boundry between country and pop that I’ve really been digging lately. This song in particular reminds me of everything I wished for when I was younger: “I want / That all in, fallin' / Keep the fire burning like the first time feeling no matter what / If I'm gonna love / I'm gonna love somebody like that.” Lucky for me, I’ve found my somebody like that (insert happy face here).
This song illustrates the classic situation where you know someone isn’t good for you, yet you find yourself loving them anyways. The lyrics are 100% accurate to that situation: “It's sad but true / I'd go to Hell and back if I could go there with you / What do I do?” I love the slow-to-mid pop pace of this song; it fits well on the back end of my playlist.
As humans, we feel the responsibility to shield ourselves from threatening, vulnerable situations, both physically and emotionally. I love that Selena wrote a song about feeling and being vulnerable. Vulnerability is something people don’t talk about enough, yet feeling comfortable enough to be vulnerable in any given situation is so important. Nothing rings truer than this: “If I show you all my demons / And we dive into the deep end / Would we crash and burn like every time before? / I would tell you all my secrets / Wrap your arms around my weakness / If the only other option's letting go / I'll stay vulnerable.” This song is one of my favorite’s from Selena’s new album Rare.
“Are you faking every smile? / So am I, so am I.” This song reminds me of something you’d hear on Paramore’s After Laughter — an everything is fine but not fine kind of fake happy vibe. This is a groovy pop add, glad I stumbled across this song and band on New Music Friday a few weeks ago!
Giving You Up, Kameron Marlowe
I’ve been listening to this song nonstop lately and it’s probably one of my favorite country music songs out right now. Giving up on an old love (or friendship) and turning the pages forward to the future — this song is beautifully written, thoughtfully constructed, and perfectly executed. My favorite lyric from the song is this: “I'm letting go of all the things that held their grips on me / With you being my first priority.” I know first hand that it can be hard to say goodbye to those you love and care for, but the moment you realize you’re better without the people bringing forth toxic energies into your life, the better and stronger you become as an individual.
Let’s Be Friends, Carly Rae Jepsen
Okay, okay. Carly Rae Jepsen is one of my favorite artists. Not only does she find ways to release top notch pop albums (see Emotion, Dedicated), she also finds ways to integrate fun and relatable themes into her songs. Forget Call Me Maybe, Let’s Be Friends in the friend zone instead! This song is a mood. I think we can all relate to the “let’s be friends” catchphrase: “Let’s be friends then never speak again / It’s cool we can just pretend we’re friends and never speak again / See you soon, hope we can remain good friends.” It’s been awhile since Carly has given us something to groove to; consider this a blessing, friends!
Listen to these songs and more of what I’m listening to right now on my current Spotify playlist.
Cheers!
JB