Hello

So I kept telling myself that I'd do a first post here and I still haven't and it's been a month now and that's sort of shocking really. So hi - I'm Charlotte or Charly or whatever the fuck you want to call me and I spend an awful lot of my time listening to music. I wasn't sure what to make a post about in particular, so I'm just going to list some bands and songs that I think are awesome and you should check out, with reasons why you should check them out as well, obviously.

1. Final Fantasy - The Power of Love (Celine Dion cover)

O disbelievers, stop laughing and curse at the crowd that continue to laugh after Owen has started singing. His voice could make most things sound beautiful, I think, although here it doesn't sound like it's just his voice doing it; is it possible that Celine's had it right all along, has he just made it clearer? Maybe, but then again probably not. I confess this makes me no more likely to listen to the original, but that's okay, this cover is becoming definitive for me. Just hear the crowd realise that this is not a laughing matter and fall silent as the violin cuts through and makes even you, O disbelievers, listen to a song that you and I decided long ago wasn't worth a penny.

2. The Felt Tips - Boyfriend Devoted

Because nothing will ever be okay again.

3. Electrelane - To The East

I was late to the party and I still don't know this band very well, although I do know that they're on an 'indefinute hiatus'. But oh, this song. It never gets too loud or frantic, just keeps beating, keeps beating, keeps beating itself back home.

4. The Parselmouths - It's Not So Bad

I'm going to tell you a secret. Harry and the Potters were always a better idea than actual band; what could be more punk than American brothers singing songs about Harry Potter in libraries? Well, quite. Harry and the Potters are not the best wizard rock band, The Parselmouths are - bitchy teenage girls singing about Harry Potter and why being in Slytherin doesn't suck as much as people think is so much better, even if I did always sort of expect that I'd end up in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff due to my lack of ambition and cunning and my ever-growing collection of books.

5. The Indelicates - Unity Mitford

I was working in a bookshop until the middle of last month, and at some point I discovered that one of the biggest selling books of the year that wasn't part of a promotion was one about the letters of the Mitford sisters... I sort of missed all of that, didn't really know anything about them (except someone once tried to make me read Love In A Cold Climate but I could never really get beyond the perfect title). This song is as glorious as it is beautifully, dreadfully, amazingly wrong. I prefer the acoustic version from The Last Siginificant Statement EP, but have a listen to the live one on their myspace - amped up and rocking their hearts out, listen to Simon whisper.

6. Emmy the Great - Easter Parade

Yeah so it's all a bit twee and you're probably expecting me to write a sort of sub-Amelie stream of consciousness ramble to live up to it. Fuck you. Sometimes I like feeling defeated. There is no Jerusalem here, no Arcadia, no ghosts.

7. Laura Marling - My Manic and I

Most of these links are just there so that you can hear the songs, but for this one you should watch the video, and then watch her doing 'New Romantic' on Later with Jools... Laura Marling is seventeen, younger than me (although not by much) and... she's awesome. She's not wearing makeup and she clearly hasn't been combing her hair, but that's cool, neither of those are priorities for me either. If I had to pick a face for the kind of teenage girl that I am from the current popscene then it'd be her, but she's not really a face for anyone other than herself. In the video of her performing New Romantic you get some wide shot of just her, tiny and bright in a massive blanket of darkness. She doesn't tend to look at the camera. But why should she? She's fantastic, just listen.

8. Lupe Fiasco - Little Weapon

I know pretty much nothing about hip hop, so I can't say much about this without revealing how true this is. But this is amazing, just listen to that intro, oh, and then when it starts properly with "I killed another man today" it just hits me. The production's really awesome, too.

9. Yeasayer - Sunrise

I like handclaps in songs. The opening of this is just awesome and I'm still not really sure about how I feel about the singer's voice... but I think I like it. At the moment I'm really all for layers and soundscapes, because I'm trying to write and sometimes I need to shut out words and just listen to noise and sounds and cymbals. This is the sort of stuff that helps.

10. Los Campesinos! - Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks

I'm not talking about the album yet. All that matters for these almost five minutes is this, this, Gareth telling us that sharks don't sleep and his cheeks are bruised and the chorus itself hits as hard as a blow to the head. This is my favourite song to walk home to.