What I've Been Listening To 🎧 | November 2017

Goodbye November - sorry for being so repetitive every month, but how is it the end of November already? It's nearly time for Christmas though, which is my favourite season of the year.

Nevertheless, I've been listening to a lot of music in November, even discovering some old tracks that I haven't listened to in years including a track from Busted and Blue (anyone remember Blue? They were great). Country has been a big part of my playlist again this month, but includes some new singles from artists that I've gotten to listen to over November. Also included is Joe Hicks and you may recognise that name if you're a regular reader as he was one of my Featured Artists in November - read what I said about him here.

Old favourite Lifehouse has made a return to the playlist this month and I'm so happy to be listening to their music again. I also went to see them a couple of years ago, you can read my review here. With that, here's this months' playlist and it's the usual affair: I'll put the tracklist and Spotify playlist below so you can listen if you would like to. Be sure to follow me on Spotify as I update the page with next month's tunes, so you'll be the first to see it.

Tracklist

1. No Limits - Angel Haze
2. I'll Name The Dogs - Blake Shelton
3. Candlxs - Angel Haze
4. Cherry - Lana Del Ray
5. Follow Me - Uncle Kracker
6. Somebody Else - The 1975
7. Burning - Joe Hicks
8. What Ifs - Kane Brown feat. Lauren Alaina
9. Proof Is On Your Lips - Ryan Robinette
10. Happens Like That - Granger Smith
11. rockstar - Post Malone feat. 21 Savage
12. Better - Britney Spears
13. Paradise - Coldplay
14. Life Is A Rollercoaster - Ronan Keating
15. God Made Girls - RaeLynn
16. Love Triangle - RaeLynn
17. Bartender - James Blunt
18. Mama Say - Betty Who
19. Biscuits - Kacey Musgraves
20. Tied Together With A Smile - Taylor Swift
21. Hey Ya! - Outkast
22. Whatever You Want - P!nk
23. Sorry - Justin Bieber
24. Runaways - Lifehouse
25. Oxygen - Ronan Keating
26. Year 3000 - Busted
27. Fly By - Blue
28. You're The One That I Want - Loving Caliber
29. Havana - Camilla Cabello
30. Lying - Cale Dodds
31. Paradise - James Blunt
32. Bailar - Deorro feat. Pitbull
33. Shampain - Marina & The Diamonds
34. Party In The U.S.A - Miley Cyrus
35. Homie - Clones of Clones
36. Coming Home - Kaiser Chiefs
37. Shoot The Moon - Jump5
38. A Bad Dream - Keane
39. Alien - Lifehouse

The spotify playlist is below for you to listen to your heart's content.

Happy Listening!

A K Jones

xx

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Blogmas Day 12: Merry Christmas!

Well today’s the last day of Blogmas 2017 and it’s been a great 12 days. I’ve written a plethora of posts, all of which can be seen HERE. I also have a cool announcement coming in the New Year so look out for that. 

All that’s left for me to say is Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a great time with your loved ones and get all the presents you hoped for, as well as feeling the love from those around you. 

Hope you all have a lovely day and I look forward to catching up with you soon! 

Happy Listening!

A K Jones

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Lorne - 'Maze' EP Review

After being a Featured Artist of mine a few months ago, I've always kept in touch with Lorne. So I was ever so excited to see that he'd released his debut EP 'Maze' yesterday. Read what I had to say about his music HERE.

Songs of the EP swing between sway-your-arms sombre and tap-your-feet-upbeat and it's a perfect mix, especially as the release of debut single 'Bread Alone' left me wanting to hear more from Lorne, and I wasn't disappointed. His sound is definitely comparable to bands like Bastille, with bare and perfect vocals, accompanied by a very minimalist but necessary backing track. 

'Oil and Water' is quite the example of what I mean and I think is the knockout track of the four-song EP. Its message and slow tempo is both an illustration of the next part of the tragic story being portrayed throughout each song.

Overall it's a great start from Lorne and I can't wait to hear more from him - neither should you. Go and listen on Spotify and buy the EP on iTunes, you won't be disappointed. 

Happy Listening!

A K Jones

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The Body Shop Bath Bomb Review

As we all know, a bath is made so much better with a bath bomb or fizzer, filling the bath with a great pattern/scent. The Body Shop have since released their own bath bombs, with different scents - some of them are pictured below.

For the purpose of this review I tried out the Candied Plum one in the bath the other day (who doesn’t love a nice bath?) and I immediately noticed once dropping the bomb into the bath is that it’s silent. There is no noise coming from it whatsoever.

When usually Lush or other bath bombs would have a little fizzing noise, there’s none with this one which actually is quite nice, evoking a sense of calm and for some reason I liked watching it fizz away more because it’s silent.

The scent is very obvious once the bath bomb enters the water, but isn’t too overpowering. In fact, you can smell it inside the packaging so can get a sense of the scent your bath will have. The Candied Plum and all the other scents (I’ve got all of them - I went back and bought more 😊) smell amazing but aren’t too overpowering at all.

The best part? All the ingredients are organic and in-line with The Body Shop’s non animal testing message which is great for everyone.

Also they’re a steal at only £1.50 each! So for two of The Body Shop bath bomb you could have one of Lush’s, so they’re definitely great value for money.

You can buy the Body Shop’s bath bombs online or at your local Body Shop store.

Happy Listening!

A K Jones

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Featured Artist: Joe Hicks

Classically trained at a young age, Joe Hicks certainly knows his way around an instrument. It was inevitable then that he would fall into the hands of music producers and begin writing and recording his own music. This has seen him climb to success on BBC Introducing and included in Spotify and SoundCloud playlists from users all over the world.

His new single ‘Burning’ is described by Hicks himself as "'Burning' is about that addiction you get to someone, especially in the early stages of a relationship, where everything else in your life becomes almost non-existent for a while. It's like when you both call in sick to work so you can just stay in bed together all day. Completely blind, glorious, lustful self-destruction.” 

That is portrayed throughout every lyric of this song, as the rising crescendo on each chorus is hard to ignore   Each time it comes on I find myself tapping away at the minimalism yet genius of it, complementing the simplicity of its message and Hicks’ musical style. You might see this song in a future What I Listened To playlist, because I sure will be listening to it a lot, and you should too. 

Listen to ‘Burning’ on Spotify, download it on iTunes and follow Joe on Twitter to see what he’s up to. 

Happy Listening!

A K Jones

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Preserving One Second Everyday

It doesn't take much time to capture a memory these days. With the snap of a phone camera we can take a picture and a few taps to share it far and wide. If you decide not to take that picture, small memories, decisions and days doing great things can be lost.

One Second Everyday's app plans to change that. Originally a Kickstarter campaign, Cesar Kuriyama started recording one second of his life when he turned 30 and thinks you should too. It seems many people agreed, as during the 30 day campaign, it pledged more than twice what Kuriyama was looking for. He's also had coverage on outlets such as CNN, so this app is definitely one worth investing in.

I've been personally using the app for a little while, and it's brilliant. I even get a notification every day if I haven't filmed my second and you can see all the clips you've taken in a handy timeline, as seen below.

If you forget to film a clip within the app for that day, it even lets you import video and photos from your camera roll, giving you the chance to add a video your friend may have sent you that's made your day. This has been more a recent addition, but you can now add your location to the clips as well, giving your memories a new meaning as you can name exactly where you were.

You can view your timeline at any time, just tap the play button on the right hand corner. It can be all the clips you have, from a preset or a custom date. So if you want to only revisit the days of your holiday or the build-up to something special, you can do so very easily.

Exporting the video for the web couldn't be easier, as there's share buttons that come up at the end of your video, letting you get the web code and share it to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc. I'll be sharing my own video next year, so keep your eyes peeled for it.

For £4.99 on the App Store and for Free on the Google Play Store, you'd be really silly not to miss out on preserving One Second Everyday and having those special memories in a unique movie for you to look back on in a month/6 months'/10 years' time.

Happy Listening!

A K Jones

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