Day 02 - your least favourite song: Snt - Wrecking Ball
It's hard to decide which day in this challenge I dislike the most between least favourite song and picking a band I hate, but the simple fact is I don't find myself listening to or noticing songs and artists that I genuinely dislike - much less paying enough attention to remember who they are. All that is to say that I don't think Snt (Riell) has made a terrible song here, more that it's one of the few I've encountered often enough to have had enough of. It's a cover of a song I do love, reworded in a way that probably seems clever to most but just rubs me the wrong way. It's tucked away on a playlist or two that we play at work, so it occasionally comes on and I go "ugh, this version" before going on with my day. That's about as deep as this goes.
Go back to see Day 1 here, stay tuned for Day 3 or take a look at my responses from previous years below.
2011: Justin Bieber - Baby
Had some genuine dislike for this song, and the prevalence of the Bieb, around this time. Hindsight says it's a catchy track and Bieber is actually pretty talented despite my 2011 disdain.
2017: Atmosphere - Cats Van Bags
I think my take on this in 2017 must've been to pick my least favourite song from an artist I actually do like, and who I wasn't likely to include in the list otherwise. Cats Van Bags is one of the few songs I never got into from Atmosphere, so I guess it fits.
2020: Tones and I - Dance Monkey
Despite what I said at the start, I actually fucking hate this song and it still pops up far too often. I didn't want to repeat songs from previous years which is why Dance Monkey didn't make it to the top of this post.
2022 (Spotify Wrapped Edition): Miranda Lambert - Gunpowder and Lead
An absolute banger. Worth noting that this was what I decided is my least favourite song among my most played 100 tracks on Spotify that year - and it wasn't on that list because I didn't enjoy listening to it a lot.
Every so often over the years I've had a good time doing these 30 day song challenges, they're kind of an old-timey social media game that swept across Facebook like a storm. These days I've become a lot more antisocial with my social media, so I figure why not bring this over here where nobody else will likely see it.
I'll post the full list at the bottom of this post but the general idea is that there are 30 daily prompts to pick a relevant song for. Most times when I've done this I've added my own stipulation of not repeating artists - with the exception of the last time I did it in 2022, when I did the challenge based purely on my Spotify Wrapped top 100 songs of the year. I'll apply the no repeat artists rule this year as well, and as a treat down below I'm also going to include my selections from previous years for comparison.
Day 01 - your favourite song: Blusher - Racer
Favourite songs are often very transient things in my life, so this is just the pick for right here and now. Racer is a new release that I've been obsessed with for the almost two weeks since it came out, from Melbourne pop trio Blusher. My first experience of Blusher was in early 2023 when they openedfor Aurora at The Palais; despite an initial skepticism of these three girls with their choregraphed dance moves, they quickly won me over with catchy hooks, undeniable talent and fun vibes. They've been among my top artists ever since and I've seen them live a couple more times, including their first ever headline show in Melbourne late last year. Do I think Racer is their best song? Probably not (see: Accelerator, Somebody New, Dead End... honestly just go check out their whole discography, it's not that large yet), but it's catchy and really gets me up and about.
I am using this series to figure out a little bit about formatting on Blogspot, basic as what I'm doing here may be, but expect to see a link somewhere around here when I've got Day 2 posted. (Edit: Oh look, it's right here!) Until then, a look back at some of my favourite songs from years gone by...
2011: The Dismemberment Plan - The Other Side
Fucking love The Plan, was devastated when money/reality got in the way of me travelling to see them reform for a few shows last year; desperately hoping they do it again some time and I'm in a better position to get to the USA to experience them at least once. The Other Side will always be one of my favourites, the insane drumming alone is worth the listen.
2017: Paramore - Hard Times
Conversely we have a song from a band I have managed to see five times now (including travelling interstate a couple of times for, which is not quite the investment of heading to the US). Hard Times, and subsequently the album After Laughter, came along at such an important time for me - dealing with grief and deteriorating mental health, Paramore gave me an album with 100% relatability and danceability. I'm not saying Paramore saved my life but they definitely helped me improve it.
2020: Alex the Astronaut - I Think You're Great
Alex the Astronaut is wonderful, and so is this song. I don't have as much of a story to go along with it but it's fair to say that Alex is among my absolute favourite songwriters, capable of making me laugh and cry and feel things in the deepest ways. An icon who I think is great.
2022 (Spotify Wrapped Edition): Alex the Astronaut - Something Good
Same comment as above.
The full list:
30
Day Song Challenge
day 01 - your favourite song:
day 02 - your least favourite
song:
day
03 - a song that makes you happy:
day
04 - a song that makes you sad:
day
05 - a song that reminds you of someone:
day
06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere:
day
07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event:
day
08 - a song that you know all the words to:
day
09 - a song that you can dance to:
day
10 - a song that makes you fall asleep:
day
11 - a song from your favourite band:
day
12 - a song from a band you hate:
day
13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure:
day
14 - a song that no one would expect you to love:
day
15 - a song that describes you:
day
16 - a song that you used to love but now hate:
day
17 - a song that you hear often on the radio:
day
18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio:
day
19 - a song from your favourite album:
day
20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry:
day
21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy:
day
22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad:
day
23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding:
day
24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral:
day
25 - a song that makes you laugh:
day
26 - a song that you can play on an instrument:
day
27 - a song that you wish you could play:
day
28 - a song that makes you feel guilty:
day
29 - a song from your childhood:
day
30 - your favourite song at this time last year:
Maybe this will become some kind of journaling page, or maybe I'm just stalling at writing a more targeted post - because I don't have the brainpower but I also don't want to immediately fail at the "post every day" goal (surely getting to day 3 before failing will be a far greater accomplishment). Whatever the case may be I guess it's fair to say that this entry is simply an exercise in writing some words in a seemingly coherent manner. Exciting stuff.
Setting this up has given me a few little "am I fucking stupid?" moments. The answer to that is undeniably yes, but to be fair I'm usually stupid in the sort of way that allows me to figure things out and feel like a genius eventually. The first one is literally the decision to buy a cute little domain (domfell.au isn't even that cute) instead of just using the free blogspot domain - I mean, honestly, blogspot is hosting this and there's a non-zero chance that I never even tell anybody this exists so like, who is this shorter domain for? I used to have domfell.com until pretty recently when I decided to let the payments lapse - that was a whole bundled mess of a WordPress site, hosting and the domain on which I'd posted one whole time and then been too anxious to return to for about 6 years. Actually the renewal and subsequent cancellation emails were a part of what inspired me to actually try the whole thing out again; properly let go of that one after feeling bad about not giving it a proper try, and allow myself to see how I go at starting fresh.
I haven't quite figured out how I feel about the .au domain. In Australia it feels a bit naked compared to the standard .com.au and I can't really see it taking off as a common option, but maybe that's part of the appeal. I've always loved the way a lot of countries, the European ones especially come to mind, simply don't bother with a .co or .com and keep it tidy with their country codes - love a good bahn.de moment, for instance. So I guess I chose to go with this as a little homage to one of the little things I like about Europe. Honestly though, if and when domfell.com gets released by my old provider then I'll probably reclaim it and slide this over there in a jiffy.
Anyway, I was going to say some more about the setup and thought process behind this blog, or perhaps edit what I've already written to make it a wee bit more coherent, but who really gives a shit? Not me. Ok, bye!
Hi, hello, what is all this then? Am I writing this for an audience or just for myself? Probably a little bit of both... Well, it's really just for me but with the unlikely possibility that other people might also come along to read it some time. So anyway, hi. If you're not me then I should probably introduce myself - I'm Dom, and I'll be your writer for this blog.
I don't entirely know what my purpose here is, but I have a few ideas. For a very long time I've let my writing urges lay dormant and I think it's time to change that. The starting concept is I might try to write something here every day; the reality of me is that it probably won't be so regular, but hopefully it'll be often enough that it becomes an actual habit. I enjoy writing, or at least I always used to and I think I still do (couple of paragraphs in and I'm certainly not hating it), and I feel like I've got plenty of things inside me that want to be typed out.
Maybe I'll write about things going on in my life currently, probably not a lot though. More likely is I'll use this as a place to share stories about my travels over the years - much of it will be very out of date, but pre-covid especially I travelled to quite a few places and there's stories to be told about my time in all of them. I also love music, especially attending live shows, so I think I'll find a few ways to talk about that as well.
Anyway, if you're not me and you've somehow found your way here - welcome! Will this be anything remarkable? Probably not. Might it be some combination of interesting, entertaining, and funny? Also probably not but with slightly better odds of success. In any case I hope somebody gets some kind of enjoyment from this, ideally starting with myself.
