Monday, November 3, 2014

[Review] Mom's Records

First, I have to admit being born into an artsy family. My dad is good at drawing (mostly simple sketches of inanimate objects) and my mom is very fond of music. When I was 9 years old I enrolled in art class and the instructor taught me the basics of drawing and painting. I befriended oil pastels and acrylic paints. I was really good at drawing and painting but my interest in visual art didn't last long. As I grew older, I realized that my drawings became more and more absurd that I ended up giving up on drawing. 

Speaking of music, it was my uncle who introduced me to piano for the first time. Looking at some photos in old photo albums of my family, it's known that I played piano for the first time when I was three years old. Thanks to my mom, I learnt some basics of piano from her. Back then I had a toy piano which sounded like honky-tonky one and as I grew older, my mom bought me portable keyboard and eventually, an upright piano. My mom supported me a lot, encouraging me to enroll in music class. All the things that my mom has done has grown a huge interest in music in me. I've grown up into a musical person. 

Being a musical person makes me sensitive to music around me. My mom has a large music collection and back then she listened to her collection of '70s and '80s music a lot--an exposure to '70s and '80s music for me. When going out with my friends and having a nice coffee at a coffee shop where some oldies-but-goodies music is played, I'd be like "Oh this music is the one my mom listens to at home", leaving my friends confused. It's kind of funny to realize that when I was a kid, I didn't like such music. I found it boring--mom listening to Arjan Brass' "Leonie" while slowly enjoying his coffee (and sometimes, singing along and.. well honestly I find the song somewhat creepy), or my uncle going to disco and dancing to Summer's "Last Dance", wearing extravagant clothes. Now every time I listen to '70s and '80s music, especially disco ones, I reminisce my childhood listening to the songs and seeing my mom singing along while doing something like sewing clothes or baking a cake. What a classic picture of 90s family. 

I made a playlist of '70s and '80s music on 8tracks entitled 'Mom's Records'. The playlist contains some fancy 70s & 80s music inspired from my mom's records collection. The playlist was published in August and has so far reached 213 plays (well I need more plays to make it gold!). 



Well ten tracks of oldies music won't kill you, right? Or perhaps that's not enough, ar?

There are five songs out of ten from the playlist which I like the most. Richard Sanderson's "Reality" is the first track in the playlist (well the position may change but I put it in the first anyway). The slow disco track is the soundtrack of a 1980 French comedy movie titled La Boum. The song is sweet in nature and I think it's kind of popular among Koreans for the song appears in several Korean dramas. Andy Gibb's "I Just Want To Be Your Everything" is such a cute disco track. The tempo is moderate--which is faster than Sanderson's "Reality"--and the composition is somewhat merrier (at last for me). Lionel Richie's "My Love" is another cooling down moment in the playlist (and I should have not put "Reality" in the beginning actually for some reasons). I heard the song for the first time from the radio and asked my big brother to get the music for me and voila! He got it. For me, the best time to listen to this sweet ballad track is during afternoon tea time but first make sure that it's a sunny afternoon. Every time I listen to the song, I remember my big brother and.. yeah.. it's just.. oh I miss him so much.

He is so damn busy! I kind of curse his tight schedule.

I include Donna Summer's "Last Dance" in the playlist because I think I need something faster and more cheerful to balance the atmosphere (because slow ballad tunes can eventually become lullabies for me and that'd be so uncool to fall asleep and miss the rest of the tracks while trying so hard to enjoy the whole playlist). "Last Dance" is a perfect track to have some cute and energetic disco dance with your friends and beloved one. The track is used in Charlie's Angels movie; it's in the scene where Natalie dances in a high school reunion party. And... the last track of my very favorite tracks in the playlist is Samantha Sang's "Emotion". The song is so popular that it is covered by many artists (well my favorite cover version is MYMP's version, which was performed live in a radio program).

You can listen to the playlist online and reveal by yourself the rest of the songs included in the playlist. I'd love to hear any comments about the playlist. 

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