Music I Like: Marian Call

OMIGOD, you guys. I just squeed so hard I scared the cats. I went to check my email tonight, and I received this message in my inbox (abridged, slightly):

"Hi Amanda!
This is Marian, out of the blue, ages after you originally wrote me.  Sorry....I just wanted to tell you that I spent a little time on your blog today, and it is sweet and lovely and gave me happy feels.  I hope you will keep writing when you have time....
Marian"

I wrote to her to tell her I was going to review her album (an oversight I am mortified about and shortly going to correct) and then MARIAN CALL READ MY BLOG AND I CAN ONLY FEEL SO MUCH JOY. What? You don't know who Marian Call is? Then I get to tell you all about her!

She is this amazing songwriter from Alaska. I first heard her stuff quite about two years ago. I don't even remember what I was searching for, I just remember that I stumbled across this amazingly nerdy and wonderful album, Got To Fly. The music is all (execpt the first track) inspired by Firefly and the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. I can't stop giggling when I listen to "It's Good to Have Jayne on Your Side" and there is so much emotion and tenderness in the River Tam inspired "Dark Dark Eyes" that it gets me every time. The first track, "I'll Still be a Geek After Nobody Thinks It's Chic" is an amazing rally cry for nerd girls everywhere. The title track, "Got to Fly" is the most fun and acurate telling of the mentality of sci-fi/fantasy fans. The final track, and ode to YoSaffBridge titled "It was good for you too" even has Christina Hendricks' approval.

Then she came out with Something Fierce. And she blew my mind again. "The Avocado Song" has to be one of the most fun songs ever written. "Dear Mister Darcy" is my favorite song to sing on the album, and sometimes I just crank it and wail away. "Whistle While You Wait" has such a good message of not giving up or losing yourself on your road to success. The heartbreak in "Early is as Early Does" is so real and yet never overwhelming. And "Anchorage" makes my heart sing. 

Look, I'm not a music critic. I'm not qualified to go on about the complexity of the melody, and I have no idea about the technical side of music making. All I know is this: if you want to listen to some damn fine music by an amazingly talented and fearless woman, you need to check out the albums above as well as her debut album Vanilla, her most recent release, Live in Europe, and just everything else on her Bandcamp page.  And next time she's in Philly, anyone want to go with me?

I'm going to go back to grinning and hyperventilating now.

Day 6: Big Girls, You Are Beautiful!

I just wanted to share a video that i adore, that I found when Googling the phrase "big girls are beautiful." The song is by Mika, a British singer who is fabulous. If you get a chance, listen to some of his other stuff. I recommend "Grace Kelly," which is about trying to get people to accept you for who you are, "Relax, Take it Easy," which, near as I can tell, is about devotion and the need to mellow in a relationship, and "Lollipop," which is just fun.

So follow the link to "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) by Mika.


And remember, no matter who you are, how much you weigh, or what you look like, there is beauty in all of us. Maybe you have a particularly great smile, or kind eyes, an amazing rack (yeah, I said it. Flaunt it girl!). Maybe you have the best hair in the world, or curves that would flip an SUV. Whatever it is, find it, and love it. If you can find even ONE thing about you that is beautiful, you will start learning to see the beauty in the rest of yourself.

This goes for the guys, too.

*MUAH*