Author: Patrick

New York City kid, aspiring graphic artist and soon to be photography hobbyist. Former Android user, heavy critic of iPhones and Apple in general.

Top 30 Favorite Songs of All Time: #25 “Headphones On” by Skiggy Rapz

(Pronounced skih•jee raps) Skij…-who? He’s Dutch!

“There are only two things I can’t stand in this world… People that don’t tolerate other people’s cultures… And the Dutch.”–Nigel Powers in Austin Powers: Gold Member

Just poking fun. This song made the list because no one knows Skiggy Rapz, who am I kidding. I barely even know any other song besides this, and I feel like I should get to checking out the rest of his beats since I love this song so much.

The song has a really summer vibe, and when I finally compile enough skateboarding footage, this will be used in my video part. (Who knows, it may be posted here sometime. Maybe.)

I don’t even think this is one of his more popular songs. But whatever, it’s one of my favorites.

Top 30 Songs of All Time: #26 “Heartstrings” by Mitchell Grey

A young band, a great band. You guys that have been following my posts in particular should know from my Earworms that I like to listen to many, many, many different things.

This band was introduced to me by the same YouTube singer that introduced me to the John Mayer song I posted about yesterday. She did a cover with Mitchell Grey, and I loved the guy’s voice so much.

The song is about letting go of past relationships, something I believe people have trouble with.

The music video to this song is really special to me. The urban scenes were shot in my old stomping grounds of Elmhurst; Queens NYC, New York. The red awning? Top Line Supermarket. The park? Broadway park. I’d know the look of those apartment bricks if my eyes were closed. *AFTERTHOUGHT: I FREAKING HATE THE BOYFRIEND’S HAIR. THE HELL IS THAT RAT SHIT?*

Top 30 Favorite Songs of All Time: #27 “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” by John Mayer

I am, in no way, shape, or form a John Mayer fan. In fact I know nothing of the man except he made this song, and it’s quite good.

I only heard about this song because a girl on YouTube did a cover of it, and I thought it was really relaxing.

Upon hearing the Mayer version, I downloaded it without hesitation.

The only video for this song is of the live in L.A performance video, and it is great quality. And from what I’ve heard, he is much better live than in studio.

Enjoy. (Damn, how I wish I could sing and play the guitar the way he does. I’d be a media jackass, too.)

Top 30 Favorite Songs of All Time: #28 “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park

Linkin Park. My favorite band of all time. A song that reminds me of one the coolest movies of all time.

This track is off of Minutes to Midnight, one of the lesser liked of the 5 LP albums (that of course, excluding tour albums and the collaboration EP with Jay-Z and the remix album). It was used as the theme song for the first Transformers movie, which was, in itself, incredible. Megan Fox.

The song really has nothing to do with Transformers, however. The song sends a message about how as humans, we need to restart. We need to show we are capable of doing better, because we’ve destroyed our beautiful planet, and hate and war and poverty are still prominent worldwide. The first step to a better world is to forgive and start fresh.

The song begins with a piano solo (which pleases me, as it is my instrument of choice), and it it goes heavy with drums for the rest of the song. There’s no rapping by Mike, but Chester’s fantastic voice more than makes up for it.

Enjoy the sounds of one of LP’s best songs.

Top 30 Favorite Songs of All Time: #29 “Gold on the Ceiling” by The Black Keys

A real rock song. Off El Camino, “Gold on the Ceiling” has been used in numerous advertisements including in the teasers for one of my favorite shows, Swamp People. I heard it being played at MSG and on ESPN NBA Sunday Showcase, too. The song is really good, guys and gals. Really good.

Let me remind you that this list is not compiled in any order, it is just numbered appropriately as so you can go through the list with ease in the future.

Here’s the song.

Top 30 Favorite Songs of All Time: #30 “This Too Shall Pass” by OK Go

You guys and gals ready? It’s high time for me to kick off my Top 30 Favorite Songs of All Time (in no particular order, posts are just numbered from 30 to 1). I decided to start this column on the 2nd of March due to the fact that March is a 31 day month.

OK Go is a band known for going all out with their music videos (expect at least 2 or 3 of their songs here on this majestic list), and “This Too Shall Pass” has over 39 million views on YouTube, not including all those lyric videos that have at least 500 thousand views each.

The song is really catchy and is one of those that you can’t help but bob your head to the beat. If you listen closely, you’ll hear a trumpet in the song, and in fact, I’ve began to see a trend that songs that have a trumpet in them tend to please my ears a lot more. I’ll expand on this later. You’ll see for yourself, as well.

The music video for “This Too Shall Pass” is insane; it involves a Rube Goldberg machine and lots and lots of colors. In the wise words of one of my favorite artists, Kanye West, “That shit cray.” You’ll say something along those lines, too, once you’ve laid your peepers on this insane production.

The music video for “This Too Shall Pass” :

Laggy Computers: Rant

Cheap computers. The Big Cheese hasn’t exactly built a cheap PC, but he’s built one he can afford and not scream at himself for it.

I, on the other hand, am here typing on my extremely incompetent hunk-o-junk purchased by my father two Black Friday’s ago.

While yes, it can handle everyday tasks like browsing the interwebs, typing up documents, watching movies/listening to music, all that stuff. But it can’t handle any of it if you run two at a time.

I personally opt for Google Chrome as my web browser because I know it’s damn stable. I usually have Facebook and Tumblr open at all times and using Spotify for my music needs. Maybe I’ll have Google Drive open on a third tab so I can type up a report or draft a new article or blog piece. That’ll all be fine, but if those 4 things are happening, scrolling up and down becomes a shit hole, typing has a 4 second delay, and music will buffer about 95% of the time. What’s the point of being able to have multiple tabs open if you can’t seamlessly go through the multiple tabs? I might as well be using a 90’s Mac.

The worst, however, is trying to edit pictures. Lightroom is a big, big, big, big, big application. I understand that. But if I have Facebook open (JUST FACEBOOK), Lightroom will cause my computer to overload. I can’t scroll, I can’t type, I can’t do ANYTHING but wait for the thing to load.

If the computer could run more than three applications at a time, I’d be so happy.

I failed to mention earlier that the computer didn’t even come with built in WiFi. Since it is in my basement, it has no ethernet cable to connect to either. We had to purchase a separate WiFi key, which upon start, does not even connect to the correct WiFi location (and trust me, I’ve tried COUNTLESS times to reset it and get it to connect to the correct one).

I wish I could afford to build a new computer like The Big Cheese.

As an impatient teenager, this is hell. No one likes hell.

Earworm: “Eyes Like Sky” by Frank Ocean

Ah, an unreleased song. Songs that artists maybe intended to place on a prior EP or LP and are/were maybe holding it off till the next album… I love them. I also love being one of the first of the inevitable hundreds of thousands or millions to listen to it.

I follow a blog all about Frank Ocean on tumblr, and late this weekend, I happened to have been scrolling through my dash and stumbled onto this unreleased gem. I downloaded the song, and went to sleep. Little had I known that I’d even heard it before Billboard had heard it! When I woke up, Billboard hadn’t posted anything about the leaked song, and about an hour after I’d awoken, Billboard posted about it.

Anyway, the song. I love it. It reminds me of a lot of his older work (The Lonny Breaux Collection, a conglomerate of songs with a rather unique sound), I wouldn’t be surprised if this were one of the songs that shouldn’t have been a part of the collection but never made it. Maybe it was even a snub from Channel Orange; you never know, because unless you’re the artist or the producer, you truly never know.

Actually, it makes more sense for the song to be a snub from Channel Orange that was actually a part of his Channel Orange Sessions. Most people tend to believe that, actually.

Apologies in advance if you take a listen and the song won’t play; UMG has gone on a copyright tear and actually has taken down several of the videos that had the song. Oh well. This is a good, unaltered version for you all:

Earworm: “Never Gonna Give You Up” by The Black Keys

So the past weekend was all about the Grammy’s, and The Black Keys was one of the many winners of the night.

They’ve been one of my more favored bands for a while now, purely based on how raw their sound is. They’re truly a rock band.

Today, during my Portfolio class, I listened to this gem and it’s been stuck in my head since.

The jazz, the rock, the amazing vocals… Just ecstasy.

No, this is not a Rick Roll.

Earworm: “Nothing Like Us” by Justin Bieber

It’s a first, ladies and gentlemen.

The first Justin Bieber song to ever make it to the Earworm category.

A moment of silence for the amount of respect The Big Cheese had for me, because it probably all died in the moment he read the title of this post.

I highly doubt that I’ll be a fan of his work from this moment on, but Justin Bieber does deserve some respect. Gotta admit, he can sing (this is subjective), regardless of how feminine he may sound. Now, his chart topping pop songs are ridiculously irritating, but who are we to talk? He’s rich, has talent (which, again, is subjective), and probably gets more girls in one day than any of us do in a year.

I don’t mind Bieber anymore actually, but I do not like those Beliebers. They’re horrendous. No offense if you are one. But I very much dislike you.

The only reason I’d caught wind of this song at all (again, I don’t follow the Biebz), is because of a few of my favorite YouTubers making covers of the song. I first heard the AJ Rafael and Cathy Nguyen version, then I listened to the JR Aquino rendition, and I didn’t think the lyrics were too tacky, so I decided to give it a listen.

To my surprise, I actually didn’t hate it. In fact, I liked it. It wasn’t stupid, and his voice wasn’t highly annoying for once, so I gave it a chance to settle in my brain.

Soon enough, it joined my Spotify playlist, much to my chagrin.

Anyway.

Here’s the song.