New Song I First Heard in 2014 – Donna the Prima Donna

I heard this song for the first time today, Donna the Prima Donna by Dion and the Del-Satins. They sure don’t write’em or sing’em like they used to!

I wanna get a group together and learn this!

Continue reading

The Better 30 Day Song Challenge for Facebook (A Variation)

There is a Facebook Community (sort of like a wiki on Facebook after enough people are part of it) called the 30 Day Song Challenge, with over a million users who “Like” it! The idea is that you share a song of certain meaning to you each day on your Facebook profile. It’s a great idea, this song a day sharing thing. I’ve created a few myself earlier this year without knowing about this concept, with the 28 great love songs in February and Top 10 Bob Dylan songs leading to his 70th birthday in May 2011. Both were intended to be theme focused, though, unlike this meme that is more about variety.

However, despite being about variety, the 30 themes for the Facebook 30 Day Song Challenge were a bit too similar, repetitive, anti-climatic and dated for my liking, and also not universal enough:

Continue reading

Best Songs I Heard for the First Time in 2010

Most people do not hear most of the songs they know for the first time in the year the song was released. If anyone did, I would feel very sorry for them for missing out on all the great songs of the past from before they were born, or even great songs each year they lived they would have missed.

What most people don’t do is reflect each year on the best songs they heard for the first time that year. I’ve blogged some of mine, but not all so this is my entire collection for 2010 which could fit on a CD if I made one.

After several years of discovering a ton of jazz and older music, then tunes from musicals, so that they made up most of the songs in my list for recent years , I am back with an eclectic set that reflects my true musical tastes and philanderings across genres. I even have not only one song from the current year, but two! A song from the year of the list was something I didn’t have for several years. I did find newly released songs I liked a lot in those years, but they didn’t compare to a variety of jazz and musicals standards I discovered in those years.

But before I share my list, let me ask you the same question as I answered to write this post. What were the best songs you heard for the first time in 2010?

I’d love to know so please do leave a comment. I can add the links to videos so people can hear what you’re talking about, if you would like. But if you don’t want to do it here, maybe write a blog post like this if you have a blog, or a Facebook note or something like that on a social media platform account you have. It might just be one of the more thoughtful notes to your friends all year.

Here is my list, in no particular order of preference, with videos streaming the songs. You will need to click on the YouTube link for some videos with some weird copyright condition that only allow them to be viewed on YouTube. I hate that’s become a wussie and lost all its edge.

Happy New Year!
Continue reading