♕ : ELIZABETH'S TOP PLAYED SONGS OF 2013 : ♕
It's bitterly cold outside, our Christmas tree is a hodge-podge of whatever light sets we could find that weren't burnt out, and the super intelligent people in casa de Elizabeth totally forgot to purchase champagne to toast in the New Years with, which is fine because all that really matters is the segment they play about the Funniest Commercials of 2013, anyway.
HAPPY NEW YEARS!! :D
So last year I did a thing for you guys. This year I decided I should also do a thing. Thus, a thing for you!
Because nothing's quite as constant year to year as your dependency on music to get through it, right?
It's interactive, even! You can click on a button, and it will put some music on your device!
See what I did there? You know this is a serious post because I opened Photoshop for it.
♕ : ELIZABETH'S TOP PLAYED SONGS OF 2013 : ♕
a chronological listing of phat beats fit for a queen
wow big font. such music. very formatting.
ready?
okay.
Million Dollar Gold Digger : Lana del Rey vs Kanye West : ♕
you're screwed up and brilliant look like a million dollar man
so why is my heart broke?
So you know how those people you always envy who make those photosets that will kindly link you to a youtube video that you never click on because you're too busy reblogging the graphic so fast the Internet spins? Well, the real reason you never click on those little [x]'s is because sometimes you'll find a song and you'll never get your life back. This was the case with a Mark Zuckerberg-centric TSN graphic and I and this mashup. How perfect.
Clowns in the Building : Blaqstarr feat. M.I.A. : ♕
gun's in the building, they told me
I know it's a universal rule that if you love a thing, never look at its tag on Tumblr, but M.I.A. is one of the few exceptions I make, because where else am I going to find unreleased tracks and remixes and mashups? BASICALLY, if M.I.A. features in it, I will want to listen to it. Clowns in the Building is only, like, a minute and a half long -- which, tbh, is probably the reason it has so many plays on my iTunes.
Weighty Ghost : Wintersleep : ♕
you can't kill something that's already dead
so leave my soul alone
This one isn't exactly new to me in 2013, it's been floating around my iTunes for awhile, but that's what we invented Shuffle for, right? Otherwise we'd never find those songs again. I originally got this off a mix full of foot-stomping, hand-clapping songs. It's surprisingly upbeat and rousing for such a wintry song. I got a coffee shop clapping to it once last March. It's that kind of thing.
Waltz with Vampires : Fired Earth Music : ♕
instrumental
In case you feel like remembering why you love people and the things that they make, here's a tribute video to the best moments of the science fiction genre. This song features in the second half.
Endurium : Biosphere : ♕
instrumental
It turns out that ambient sound is my jam. Or lack of jam, as the case may be. There may or may not have been a point in my life where I lived in 8track's dark ambient tag. Endurium's one of the gems I trawled out of that, though.
My Body is a Cage : Peter Gabriel : ♕
my body is a cage
that keeps me from dancing with the one i love
Speaking of 8tracks, though! I was first introduced to this song through this Cesare/Lucrezia mix (which! While we're talking about the Borgias, oh my god, this was such a good year for highly murderous, corrupt siblings in love, let me doodle hearts all over everything.) If you think it's just some slow, sad Peter Gabriel song, you are sorely mistaken -- everything gets epic toward the 2:45 mark. And then during a Skype session, I was asked to talk about The 12 Labors of Sean Parker and I had this song going in the background, so some part of me is always going to connect this song with that fic and that moment.
Run Boy Run : Woodkid : ♕
run boy run
this world is not made for you
I was at the movies with mccarthyism and when this song got used in the previews, I turned to her and wailed WHAT IS THAT??? and she was like IT'S FROM TEEN WOLF HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT? and I don't even remember what we went to see, because all I remember is I NEED TO FIND THAT SONG IMMEDIATELY. So this song comes in as my 3rd most played song of 2013, because it is just, just EVERYTHING I love in a song. It's fast, it's dramatic, it builds up to a full orchestra, it's the kind of song you FEEL in your chest as it pounds, and I'm so glad Tumblr latched onto it as a Nico di Angelo song, because oh my god.
Bad Girls x Callisto : M.I.A. vs Brillz : ♕
live fast die young
bad girls do it well
If you don't think M.I.A.'s Bad Girls was the best thing that happened last year, well, obviously you are allowed to have your own informed opinions and experiences, but let's talk about how much I love this song and how many remixes of it I've managed to accumulate. Of the new ones I've collected this year, this mashup tops the rest in terms of play count.
Bring the Noize : M.I.A. : ♕
truth is like a rotten tooth
you've got to spit it out
AND COMING IN AT MY MOST PLAYED SONG OF 2013, drumroll, please!! If you decide to go ahead and download the whole .zip at the end of this post, you'll find yourself with both the single and the album version, because obviously it's very important that you have both.
Gangnam Eye Joe : Rednex vs Psy : ♕
oh my god, you know how the song goes, don't front
Who said mashups couldn't be pure art.
Blood Sugar : Pendulum : ♕
we come tonight to bring you
the sonic recreation of the end of the world
Friends, lend me your ear, for I have breaking news: soxdamnxcute makes the best mixes. I got this song from this electronica mix she did for the Cthulhu mythos, and you know how sometimes with mixes there's really only one song that grabs you? With Kat, it's all of it. I TRUST HER TASTE. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO PICK A FAVORITE.
Blood on My Name : The Brothers Bright : ♕
when you're cursed you're always hoping that a prophet would be grieved
oh, lazarus, how did your debts get paid
If we're going to talk about 2013 in terms of fictional characters, then ngl, it was kind of Nico di Angelo's year. I was scrambling to finish Children of the Moneywort Tree for ohmeguro's Incest Big Bang challenge before House of Hades came out, because new canons always mess with WIPs, and so for that, I slammed a pair of headphones over my ears and put Blood on My Name and Run Boy Run on repeat for about two weeks straight.
Me and the Devil : Soap&Skin : ♕
and i said, "hello satan,
i believe it's time to go"
Southern gothic was a tag that got pretty popular on 8tracks there for awhile, and I was absolutely, 110% there for that. Who doesn't love that Gospel-gone-dark kind of sound? It's a good sound for a swampy summer, hot and stewed. I put Me and the Devil in particular as the opening track on a Sabriel fanmix, so that's my strongest association with this song. (Is it just me, or did mixing become harder after the advent of 8tracks? Like, you really have to pay attention to how each song sounds going into the next when you put it on 8tracks, where before you could get away with throwing a .zip together and letting people pick and choose what they'd like. I've got a couple mixes in progress, and sometimes it feels like surgery, I swear to god. BUT. More importantly! LADY NECROMANCERS.)
The Dark Knight/Inception : Hans Zimmer : ♕
instrumental
Oh, look, it's another mashup! Who's surprised? Anybody? Nah, didn't think so. This song blends together the main themes from The Dark Knight and Inception, and is absolutely fantastic if you're writing, say, an emotionally-charged action scene in a superhero fic. Which, oops, I did 81k of this year.
People (Riton Version) : M.I.A. : ♕
encrypt it, code it
i'll put it on your laptop
So somebody took an unreleased track of M.I.A.'s and sampled it for their own sound. I was sold pretty much instantly.
Devil's Spoke : Laura Marling, Mumford & Sons, & Dharohar Project : ♕
all of this can be broken
all of this can be broken
hold your devil by his spoke and spin him to the ground
You know how sometimes you'll find a song at just the right point in your life that, later, it doesn't matter who you've become or what you're doing, when you listen to it, you're transported back to that time and the person you were? Like somehow a song became part of your identity as much as a change in hair color or a language would be. This is going to be one of those songs for me. Like, it defined me there at the end of summer, lifted me straight up onto my tiptoes every time I listened to it. I'd just come back from a trip to Texas to see altogetherisi that became a straight drive up to Minneapolis for my brother's wedding, I'd just finished The Book Thief and I was obliterated, haunted, and completely charged by that book. And then mccarthyism linked me to this song: Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling collaborating respectfully with a group of Indian artists, and I fell hard.
The only reason why Devil's Spoke doesn't top my list in terms of playcount is because I have three different versions of it. Combined, that's over 1000 plays. Your download at the end of this post will include Laura Marling's original version (sans the wild banjo strumming and the Rajasthani elements,) the live version from the iTunes festival, and the album version.
To Darkness (The Full EP) : Laura Marling, Mumford & Sons, & Dharohar Project : ♕
perhaps i'll be a bird one day if i'm good enough
and i'll get up and fly away and give up all this love
And here's the full EP, all four songs, all twenty minutes, because it by itself accumulated enough plays to warrant a spot all its own on this list :D When I get my hands on high-quality screencaps from The Book Thief, you better watch out, because I am going to be one of those people that makes lyrics-oriented graphics for pretty much every song.
Diamond Thrones : Rihanna vs Ramin Djawadi : ♕
we're beautiful
like diamonds in the sky
Why yes, White Panda took Rihanna's "Diamonds" and mashed it up with the Games of Thrones theme, and now it, too, can be yours. You're welcome. (If I ever do a Hazel Levesque fanmix, this will be on it. Just saying.)
Tell Em [Diplo Remix] : Sleigh Bells : ♕
did you do your best today?
did you do your best today?
My second most played track of this year! If you are a person of good taste, you will drop what you're doing and listen to this bitch anthem mix of soxdamnxcute's. As per Kat's usual, the whole mix is pretty damn affirming and kind of makes you want to go out and kill a dude. This song in particular got me through the month of November, which is easily my least favorite time of the year: I'd jam my earbuds in first thing in the morning and put this song on repeat until I got to work, and by that time, I'd be awake and bouncing on my heels and ready. DID YOU DO YOUR BEST TODAY?
Y.A.L.A. : M.I.A. : ♕
that's why they invented karma
BOMBS GO OFF WHEN I ENTER THE BUILDING. You only live once, right? So why do you keep doing the same shit? Because you know what you need in your club beat: allusions to the Hindu elements of reincarnation.
Awakenings : Grayson Matthews : ♕
instrumental
Watch this. There, that's all you needed to do. You're welcome.
Double Bubble Trouble : M.I.A. : ♕
uh oh, you're in trouble
i step up in the game and burst that bubble
I KNOW, I KNOW, if we're going to talk about the albums of 2013 that blew everything else out of the water, then Beyonce's surprise drop in December tops everything that came before it, everyone else go home, etc, etc, but MATANGI WAS ALSO A THING THAT HAPPENED IN 2013 AND I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. You know what I'm really looking forward to in 2014? ALL THE REMIXES THAT ARE GOING TO HAPPEN. I AM SO READY.
Team the Best Team : Doom Tree : ♕
remember that road we take?
swear the devil's backbone would break?
SO. I haven't really talked about fandoms yet so far on this list, because with the exception of The Book Thief and PJO, music was a little more detached from my fandom experience this year than it has been in previous years? And also, I didn't devour much in the way of new material in 2013, but! Welcome to Night Vale is definitely a thing that happened to me. (And, and, and, the amount of people who came out and said, "oh, I knew you and WtNV would be a good match" after I wrote fic for it was kind of the best thing, like, a really great thing to hear, okay, I'll stop talking.) Like most people, it blindsided me out of nowhere, because it was suddenly ALL OVER MY DASH and I was like, "what? what is this? excuse me, what's covered in jellyfish?", only to find myself completely charmed and sold on it the second that song about waiting for the bus came up in the second episode. And that song probably deserves a spot on this list, too, but lbr, when it comes to sheer number of plays, here's the weather from the First Date episode.
Who We Are : Imagine Dragons : ♕
they say we're crazy
I made a friend at work!! The kind of friend where you take your breaks at the same time so you can sit together and take turns sharing earbuds and eating the cookies you stole from Scott the arborist's office and yelling enthusiastically about how Max Vandenburg and Liesel Meminger absolutely do not need to get married later in life but how cool it would be if they did and also how Ben Schnetzer needs to scandalously expose collarbone more often, that shit is fantastic. She gave me this song! It's a December song. I don't know how else to describe it. It's a snowfall, low light, December song.
very scrolling wow well done here you go
♕ : DOWNLOAD : ♕
alternate download link
HAPPY NEW YEARS!! :D
So last year I did a thing for you guys. This year I decided I should also do a thing. Thus, a thing for you!
Because nothing's quite as constant year to year as your dependency on music to get through it, right?
It's interactive, even! You can click on a button, and it will put some music on your device!
See what I did there? You know this is a serious post because I opened Photoshop for it.
♕ : ELIZABETH'S TOP PLAYED SONGS OF 2013 : ♕
a chronological listing of phat beats fit for a queen
wow big font. such music. very formatting.
ready?
okay.
Million Dollar Gold Digger : Lana del Rey vs Kanye West : ♕
you're screwed up and brilliant look like a million dollar man
so why is my heart broke?
So you know how those people you always envy who make those photosets that will kindly link you to a youtube video that you never click on because you're too busy reblogging the graphic so fast the Internet spins? Well, the real reason you never click on those little [x]'s is because sometimes you'll find a song and you'll never get your life back. This was the case with a Mark Zuckerberg-centric TSN graphic and I and this mashup. How perfect.
Clowns in the Building : Blaqstarr feat. M.I.A. : ♕
gun's in the building, they told me
I know it's a universal rule that if you love a thing, never look at its tag on Tumblr, but M.I.A. is one of the few exceptions I make, because where else am I going to find unreleased tracks and remixes and mashups? BASICALLY, if M.I.A. features in it, I will want to listen to it. Clowns in the Building is only, like, a minute and a half long -- which, tbh, is probably the reason it has so many plays on my iTunes.
Weighty Ghost : Wintersleep : ♕
you can't kill something that's already dead
so leave my soul alone
This one isn't exactly new to me in 2013, it's been floating around my iTunes for awhile, but that's what we invented Shuffle for, right? Otherwise we'd never find those songs again. I originally got this off a mix full of foot-stomping, hand-clapping songs. It's surprisingly upbeat and rousing for such a wintry song. I got a coffee shop clapping to it once last March. It's that kind of thing.
Waltz with Vampires : Fired Earth Music : ♕
instrumental
In case you feel like remembering why you love people and the things that they make, here's a tribute video to the best moments of the science fiction genre. This song features in the second half.
Endurium : Biosphere : ♕
instrumental
It turns out that ambient sound is my jam. Or lack of jam, as the case may be. There may or may not have been a point in my life where I lived in 8track's dark ambient tag. Endurium's one of the gems I trawled out of that, though.
My Body is a Cage : Peter Gabriel : ♕
my body is a cage
that keeps me from dancing with the one i love
Speaking of 8tracks, though! I was first introduced to this song through this Cesare/Lucrezia mix (which! While we're talking about the Borgias, oh my god, this was such a good year for highly murderous, corrupt siblings in love, let me doodle hearts all over everything.) If you think it's just some slow, sad Peter Gabriel song, you are sorely mistaken -- everything gets epic toward the 2:45 mark. And then during a Skype session, I was asked to talk about The 12 Labors of Sean Parker and I had this song going in the background, so some part of me is always going to connect this song with that fic and that moment.
Run Boy Run : Woodkid : ♕
run boy run
this world is not made for you
I was at the movies with mccarthyism and when this song got used in the previews, I turned to her and wailed WHAT IS THAT??? and she was like IT'S FROM TEEN WOLF HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT? and I don't even remember what we went to see, because all I remember is I NEED TO FIND THAT SONG IMMEDIATELY. So this song comes in as my 3rd most played song of 2013, because it is just, just EVERYTHING I love in a song. It's fast, it's dramatic, it builds up to a full orchestra, it's the kind of song you FEEL in your chest as it pounds, and I'm so glad Tumblr latched onto it as a Nico di Angelo song, because oh my god.
Bad Girls x Callisto : M.I.A. vs Brillz : ♕
live fast die young
bad girls do it well
If you don't think M.I.A.'s Bad Girls was the best thing that happened last year, well, obviously you are allowed to have your own informed opinions and experiences, but let's talk about how much I love this song and how many remixes of it I've managed to accumulate. Of the new ones I've collected this year, this mashup tops the rest in terms of play count.
Bring the Noize : M.I.A. : ♕
truth is like a rotten tooth
you've got to spit it out
AND COMING IN AT MY MOST PLAYED SONG OF 2013, drumroll, please!! If you decide to go ahead and download the whole .zip at the end of this post, you'll find yourself with both the single and the album version, because obviously it's very important that you have both.
Gangnam Eye Joe : Rednex vs Psy : ♕
oh my god, you know how the song goes, don't front
Who said mashups couldn't be pure art.
Blood Sugar : Pendulum : ♕
we come tonight to bring you
the sonic recreation of the end of the world
Friends, lend me your ear, for I have breaking news: soxdamnxcute makes the best mixes. I got this song from this electronica mix she did for the Cthulhu mythos, and you know how sometimes with mixes there's really only one song that grabs you? With Kat, it's all of it. I TRUST HER TASTE. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO PICK A FAVORITE.
Blood on My Name : The Brothers Bright : ♕
when you're cursed you're always hoping that a prophet would be grieved
oh, lazarus, how did your debts get paid
If we're going to talk about 2013 in terms of fictional characters, then ngl, it was kind of Nico di Angelo's year. I was scrambling to finish Children of the Moneywort Tree for ohmeguro's Incest Big Bang challenge before House of Hades came out, because new canons always mess with WIPs, and so for that, I slammed a pair of headphones over my ears and put Blood on My Name and Run Boy Run on repeat for about two weeks straight.
Me and the Devil : Soap&Skin : ♕
and i said, "hello satan,
i believe it's time to go"
Southern gothic was a tag that got pretty popular on 8tracks there for awhile, and I was absolutely, 110% there for that. Who doesn't love that Gospel-gone-dark kind of sound? It's a good sound for a swampy summer, hot and stewed. I put Me and the Devil in particular as the opening track on a Sabriel fanmix, so that's my strongest association with this song. (Is it just me, or did mixing become harder after the advent of 8tracks? Like, you really have to pay attention to how each song sounds going into the next when you put it on 8tracks, where before you could get away with throwing a .zip together and letting people pick and choose what they'd like. I've got a couple mixes in progress, and sometimes it feels like surgery, I swear to god. BUT. More importantly! LADY NECROMANCERS.)
The Dark Knight/Inception : Hans Zimmer : ♕
instrumental
Oh, look, it's another mashup! Who's surprised? Anybody? Nah, didn't think so. This song blends together the main themes from The Dark Knight and Inception, and is absolutely fantastic if you're writing, say, an emotionally-charged action scene in a superhero fic. Which, oops, I did 81k of this year.
People (Riton Version) : M.I.A. : ♕
encrypt it, code it
i'll put it on your laptop
So somebody took an unreleased track of M.I.A.'s and sampled it for their own sound. I was sold pretty much instantly.
Devil's Spoke : Laura Marling, Mumford & Sons, & Dharohar Project : ♕
all of this can be broken
all of this can be broken
hold your devil by his spoke and spin him to the ground
You know how sometimes you'll find a song at just the right point in your life that, later, it doesn't matter who you've become or what you're doing, when you listen to it, you're transported back to that time and the person you were? Like somehow a song became part of your identity as much as a change in hair color or a language would be. This is going to be one of those songs for me. Like, it defined me there at the end of summer, lifted me straight up onto my tiptoes every time I listened to it. I'd just come back from a trip to Texas to see altogetherisi that became a straight drive up to Minneapolis for my brother's wedding, I'd just finished The Book Thief and I was obliterated, haunted, and completely charged by that book. And then mccarthyism linked me to this song: Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling collaborating respectfully with a group of Indian artists, and I fell hard.
The only reason why Devil's Spoke doesn't top my list in terms of playcount is because I have three different versions of it. Combined, that's over 1000 plays. Your download at the end of this post will include Laura Marling's original version (sans the wild banjo strumming and the Rajasthani elements,) the live version from the iTunes festival, and the album version.
To Darkness (The Full EP) : Laura Marling, Mumford & Sons, & Dharohar Project : ♕
perhaps i'll be a bird one day if i'm good enough
and i'll get up and fly away and give up all this love
And here's the full EP, all four songs, all twenty minutes, because it by itself accumulated enough plays to warrant a spot all its own on this list :D When I get my hands on high-quality screencaps from The Book Thief, you better watch out, because I am going to be one of those people that makes lyrics-oriented graphics for pretty much every song.
Diamond Thrones : Rihanna vs Ramin Djawadi : ♕
we're beautiful
like diamonds in the sky
Why yes, White Panda took Rihanna's "Diamonds" and mashed it up with the Games of Thrones theme, and now it, too, can be yours. You're welcome. (If I ever do a Hazel Levesque fanmix, this will be on it. Just saying.)
Tell Em [Diplo Remix] : Sleigh Bells : ♕
did you do your best today?
did you do your best today?
My second most played track of this year! If you are a person of good taste, you will drop what you're doing and listen to this bitch anthem mix of soxdamnxcute's. As per Kat's usual, the whole mix is pretty damn affirming and kind of makes you want to go out and kill a dude. This song in particular got me through the month of November, which is easily my least favorite time of the year: I'd jam my earbuds in first thing in the morning and put this song on repeat until I got to work, and by that time, I'd be awake and bouncing on my heels and ready. DID YOU DO YOUR BEST TODAY?
Y.A.L.A. : M.I.A. : ♕
that's why they invented karma
BOMBS GO OFF WHEN I ENTER THE BUILDING. You only live once, right? So why do you keep doing the same shit? Because you know what you need in your club beat: allusions to the Hindu elements of reincarnation.
Awakenings : Grayson Matthews : ♕
instrumental
Watch this. There, that's all you needed to do. You're welcome.
Double Bubble Trouble : M.I.A. : ♕
uh oh, you're in trouble
i step up in the game and burst that bubble
I KNOW, I KNOW, if we're going to talk about the albums of 2013 that blew everything else out of the water, then Beyonce's surprise drop in December tops everything that came before it, everyone else go home, etc, etc, but MATANGI WAS ALSO A THING THAT HAPPENED IN 2013 AND I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. You know what I'm really looking forward to in 2014? ALL THE REMIXES THAT ARE GOING TO HAPPEN. I AM SO READY.
Team the Best Team : Doom Tree : ♕
remember that road we take?
swear the devil's backbone would break?
SO. I haven't really talked about fandoms yet so far on this list, because with the exception of The Book Thief and PJO, music was a little more detached from my fandom experience this year than it has been in previous years? And also, I didn't devour much in the way of new material in 2013, but! Welcome to Night Vale is definitely a thing that happened to me. (And, and, and, the amount of people who came out and said, "oh, I knew you and WtNV would be a good match" after I wrote fic for it was kind of the best thing, like, a really great thing to hear, okay, I'll stop talking.) Like most people, it blindsided me out of nowhere, because it was suddenly ALL OVER MY DASH and I was like, "what? what is this? excuse me, what's covered in jellyfish?", only to find myself completely charmed and sold on it the second that song about waiting for the bus came up in the second episode. And that song probably deserves a spot on this list, too, but lbr, when it comes to sheer number of plays, here's the weather from the First Date episode.
Who We Are : Imagine Dragons : ♕
they say we're crazy
I made a friend at work!! The kind of friend where you take your breaks at the same time so you can sit together and take turns sharing earbuds and eating the cookies you stole from Scott the arborist's office and yelling enthusiastically about how Max Vandenburg and Liesel Meminger absolutely do not need to get married later in life but how cool it would be if they did and also how Ben Schnetzer needs to scandalously expose collarbone more often, that shit is fantastic. She gave me this song! It's a December song. I don't know how else to describe it. It's a snowfall, low light, December song.
very scrolling wow well done here you go
♕ : DOWNLOAD : ♕
alternate download link