Home of the "Cure For the Mondays" mixtape. A weekly mixtape available for free download every Monday, of mashups, remixes, covers and more! Also a resource for good music and occasional personal rants.
Music with substance. 'Cause it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to be good.
Wonky Pop supports Indie artists. Send your songs to wonkypopp@gmail.com for posting submission.
As I’ve previously mentioned, I like funkified Christmas music. And those that challenge traditional Christmas hymns and the classics are winners in my book. Crystal Theory’s Chillout Christmas album is the combination of Esthero & Mandalay(now I am gonna have to pull their album out!), a true vibe to put you into a candy cane trance. Listen to White Christmas below.
You should already be aware of the amazingIt Gets Better campaign. So many celebrities, musicians, and everyday people have come together to let the youth today know that it will get better - the bullying, of any type, will stop and you will leave all of that behind you. You will become a better person - a bigger person. We here at Wonky Pop want the youth of the world to know - gay, straight, bisexual, black, white, Christian, muslim, whatever walk of life you come from - that it will get better. Shake off the words that hit you hard and knock you down. Dust yourself off and continue to move forward. Life will get better. Thank you Todrick Hall for this incredible message via song.
Let’s face it. I have been and always will be, a small town boy from Minnesota. Though I may live in San Francisco now, I can’t get forget my upbringing. And to be honest, I hope I never do. I’m thankful for my large palette for musical flavors. I sometimes wish I shared the same for food (though that could be dangerous). Which is why with every heaping of pop, there’s gotta be a little bit of country.
Sara Evans is getting ready to release her new album sometime next year and I’m in love with her first single A Little Bit Stronger. She’s just released the video - simply done, but I could do without the short “web cam” clips. I can’t get over the uniqueness of her voice for a country singer - if she wanted to, she could be a strong pop ballad singer, next to the likes of Celine Dion and (old school) Mariah Carey. If you haven’t heard her rendition of Westlife’s No Place That Far, then you’re definitely sitting there thinking I’m nuts for even making such a statement. I mean hell, if Shania Twain can do it, so could Sara!
I can’t live without music in general therefore there are so many albums that I would classify as ones I Can’t Live Without. One that immediately comes to mind would have to be Fumbling Towards Ecstasy by Sarah McLachlan. This is the quintessential, melancholy, rainy day album. However to me, it defines a period in my life where I struggled with the fact that I was painfully shy and introverted. This was the first album that I ever bought that effected me profoundly on such a deep level.
I remember when I first heard the song Possession on the radio- I couldn’t believe how pure and honest her voice was. Beyond Possession, the whole album really spoke to me. There was one song in particular on that album titled Elsewhere that was the definition of my life. There is a verse, The quiet child awaits that day when she can break free of the mold that clings like desperation. That quiet child was (and still is for the most part) ME. I can recall sitting in my room for hours with that album playing on my Aiwa Boomboxand trying to learn every song on my flute. I wanted to be able to sing like her, with the tonality that she had and the ease of which she could switch from a chest voice to a falsetto….I still wish I could sing like that….but I thought that if I couldn’t do that, I would sing through my flute.
As embarrassing as this all is, I really feel it was the first album that shaped my current taste in music. To this day, when I put on that album, I completely become that same person that I was….sitting in my room, in my McLachlan-esque world. Oh, and if you want to hear some insane vocal range, listen to Fear below….amazing!
Reliving the Moment: Another new series we are going to feature on the blog are moments we just have to relive again and again and again! Our contributors are going to get personal and emotional…and they may even cry (or make you cry in the process). At the very least, they’ll jog your memory with some of the best moments in music history.
Amazing. Melissa Etheridge and Joss Stone paying tribute to Janis Joplin at the 2005 Grammys. This was Melissa’s first public appearance since being diagnosed with breast cancer 6 months prior. While still bald from chemo she strutted her stuff on stage as if screaming to the world, ‘I will not let this define me.’ Following suite, she gave a performance that will clearly go down in history as one of the best Grammy moments of all time. This was true women empowerment at it’s finest. It gave new meaning to the lyrics I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough. Keep on rockin’ girl.
In early 2000, unless you were like me and just couldn’t get any rest, you didn’t know who Lifehouse was or even familiar with the song Hanging By A Moment. They aired their first single from their debut album No Name Face on VH1’s Insomniac music videos. If you were being played between the hours of 4am and 11am, you were probably not that well known. But it was a way to get your music out there, for those college students like me who just happened to be awake. For some good reason, their song struck a good note with me and I couldn’t get enough.
Though starting as a Christian Rock band that frequently performed at Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Malibu, Lifehouse hit the mainstream in 2001 with Hanging By A Moment. The single even beat out Alicia Keys & Janet Jackson on the Billboard Hot 100 that year for #1 hit. It has sold over 4 million copies worldwide and still is one of their most stand-out albums since the band’s creation.
No Name Face will be an album that I will never retire. Besides their first hit, other songs that really resonate with me are Breathing, Simon and of course the power ballad Everything. I remember hearing Everything for the first time, while sitting in my car at a campus retreat. Maybe it was the hollowness of the first few verses, or the wayJason Wadepoured his heart into the chorus, but it really hit home. I remember sobbing uncontrollably and just letting myself go. I had all of this pent up agression and self loathing and this song was just what I needed to get it out.
I’ve been fortunate to see Lifehouse perform more than 5 times in my lifetime and I hope they continue to grow and mature as a band. Not once have they let me down at a live show and every album has its own story to tell.
No Name Face is that album that really shows one just how powerful music is and can be. Whether you are spiritual or not, this album will go straight to your heart and into your soul. I’m not being cheesy, I’m being real. Seriously, just listen.
