2 New Albums

It's been awhile since I updated since I updated on Marié Digby. Well she hasn't updated a lot recently so I was quite clueless about her whereabouts compared to a year ago. A recap of my previous craze is here. But she did explain her absence on YouTube . Well it's very good news, she has come out with 2 new albums. The first has released on the 4th this month and it's called Second Home. It's a full Japanese album consisting of covers of songs by Japanese artists. The album name Second Home clearly refers to her being half Japanese. She spent several months in Japan mainly to record this album and probably to catch up on her family which is half way around the world from where she lives. Well as a huge fan of hers, the album certainly had to be on my collection. So here is it.Thanks to my Ah Chi again.
COVER
BACK .Really like the expression.
INSIDE

I know none of the songs she covers, which is not surprising. I don't understand a single word she sings unless it's in English. For a cover album, it's pretty good. I can't rate her pronunciation, but it sounds pretty authentic to me. A real Japanese could have rated this album more accurately. As for me , there's obviously bias to everything I like. Lol. But the truth is, some tracks are pretty good, all the credit to the original singers of course. 4th track caught my attention so. The chorus sings "Don't you think,I wanna be with you, and then something something...lol".

Live performance of her first song in the album


Some pictures from her photoshoot for the album and promotion of her album.
















FULL CREDIT TO MARIEDIGBY.ORG for the pictures.
Go to the website for more of the pictures.

Can't help but notice the really cute hair!! Marié, pretty as always....

Before I forget, the 2nd album would be out on 27/5/2009 , its called Breathing Underwater. You can check the preview on her YouTube channel (linked on the sidebar). Four CDs in over a year, some accomplishment for the girl on YouTube.

Here's her preforming her song from the album "Come to Life" in Japan.

~deyao~

Final Dash

The season's most painful wait for Arsenal is about to be lifted IF we get through the next 3 games. It's almost something so inverted like a sea-saw, you just can't be up at both times (read further). But this season has been different in too many ways especially in the worse side of things. This is the worse season I've seen Arsenal played in all my life but something really special is on its way.
The next 3 games
Roma - Champions League
Blackburn - Premier League
Hull City - FA Cup
If we do win this three games, the bonuses gained would be priceless. What am I talking about?
The return of Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor in April. This painful wait as I mentioned earlier still drives agony down Gooners' hearts when we recall the goalless draws and worse of football played this season. We have sorely missed the Spanish maestro this season. The loss of vision in passing and bossing of midfield by this genius has once again dealt the biggest blow to our League hopes.

But hold on, we have 2 Cup competitions left this season and one of them still eludes every single Arsenal fan and player in history. Cup competition would be the biggest redemption for Arsenal as the mostly average season form guide can be thrown out of window. What has been played before does not matter now, what we have ahead of us is real.

I started the season with full of optimism citing Arsenal could challenge for the league (Which Arsenal fan would have done otherwise). I forcasted the intrinsic value of the team has finally grown to a level whereby it was no longer the so called "grace period for development".
80% of the team has now at least played 4 years of the highest level of competitive football and there was no reason that the team could still be labeled "Young" or most commonly "Inexperienced". Fabregas, Van Persie, Adebayor and Eduardo with the mixture of Walcott and Nasri absolutely convinced me this is it. Not sure how many times lightning (injuries) can actually strike the same club again, but it did hit us again and we could no more than mediocre.
Critics say we lacked depth but come on.... 4 of your best players out ???
Hmm.Man Utd without Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and Berbatov? Liverpool without Gerrard, Torres..oops..that should be enough. Go imagine what sort of team is put out.

We MUST get through these 3 matches if there's any hope in salvaging the season. The surprise form of Van Persie and Bendtner plus recent bloomers in Arshavin, Vela and Eduardo can be no coincidence with the return of Cesc and Ade for the final dash. God bless the Gunners!

~deyao~

The Biggest Cover Yet

Taylor Swift will be appearing on March's edition of Rolling Stone !! This is surely her biggest one. It is definitely in my radar..haha.


Full Story and more exclusive photos below.
http://www.rollingstone.com/issue1073

Mind the Taylor madness
~deyao~

Taylor's New Video

"The Original Video got banned by YouTube"
This song is called White Horse and it was said to be her favourite song in the album. And also the song she cried most to while singing it.
Btw, she will be on the cover of Teen Vogue this March.
And..........here's a link to a video of an interview and photoshoot with Women's Health
INTERVIEW LINK


~deyao~

Arsenal Roundup

Haven't written on Arsenal for awhile so I thought I put an update on them. Title hopes are out of the question so I'll definitely skip this part. There will be no suggestions put up on how Arsenal can get themselves back in the race because there is no chance at all (except mathematically). Predictions can come from everyone and I certainly had some predictions gone really wrong. Even my fantasy premier league is hanging on the mediocre level because of some predictions that were really not meant to be.
This will be an overview on Arsenal's season on where things have gone wrong. I'll make it a little interesting. So this is the

TOP 10 REASONS ARSENAL HAVE FAILED TO MOUNT A DECENT CHALLENGE FOR THE BPL
10 : EMMANUEL EBOUE

I had to include him in the list somehow because he has been absolutely terrible. He is showing no signs or hints of what he was capable when he arrived back in 2006. The pace and passing is all gone. He is creating a mess in the team and I do not know what earns him a starting place.


9 : BUST UPS

There is never a good thing about bust-ups. The Toure-Gallas bust up which cost Gallas his captaincy was never good for the morale of the team. Toure even handed in a transfer request. Plus, the uncertainty in the dressing room after conceding 2 late goals against Spurs was always a challenge to the confidence of the team.

8 : SEALING THE DEAL
This has been happening for years and it still happens today. Killing off matches, I really do not know how Arsenal always allow teams back into games. Two goals up against Villa and Spurs and only settling for draws is no good for the team. Plus many other draws which could have easily been wins.

7 : UNITY
There used to be a lot of togetherness in the team. But nowadays, the team looks pretty divided. There's not much communication with each other as it used to be especially when Henry was around. The comments by Gallas on Walcott and Van Persie is not helping the situation.

6 : ACQUISITIONS

Samir Nasri is the only major acquisition in the summer and this equals "NOT GOOD ENOUGH". He is adapting pretty well but the most he could do at the moment is just insufficient. Silvestre isn't that good of buy so far, not good enough for the first team. Ramsey very inexperienced despite his potential. Arshavin should have arrived in the summer. "Monsieur Wenger, you screwed up".

5 : FLAMINI

I would pay 20mil pounds to bring him back to Arsenal. I do not know how the f*** he was allowed to leave when he was only the third best player of the season behind Ade and Cesc who were clearly having their best seasons too. Arsenal clearly need a player like him to muscle and outrun players in the middle of the park. His incredible workrate is sorely missed. Another screw up.

4 : DEFENSIVE WOES

This could be easily number two. But a good defence prevents you from losing not directly winning games. Sagna, Toure, Gallas and Clichy is our best back four and still we fail to keep clean sheets. Root of the problem: Gallas. Get him out out ASAP as far as I am concerned. Best performance from him is not good enough.

3 : ADEBAYOR

Shebby Singh is right. This guy is acting like some sort of superstar the way he plays. At first I didn't believe it but after watching him play, there is truth on what Shebby said. What I mean by superstar : Too casual and not being serious enough. He hasn't scored enough goals this season, don't blame Fabregas' passes, Ade's really got a lot to improve on. Maybe the hair is a true taboo after all. He's no Thierry Henry thats for sure but he can do a lot better.

2: STRATEGY
This one is within the control of Arsene. It's quite the mother of the problems. The failure to kill of games and score goals is very much down to strategy. Squad selection could have been better in many games. The team just fails to integrate most of the time. Is Arsene running out ideas, I am starting to believe so.

1 : INJURIES

This is the top problem almost every season. Injury-prone players is just pure bad luck. I don't have any other reason for this.
Players missed this season
1. Fabregas
2. Walcott
3. Eduardo
4. Rosicky
Only four players, but the impact of these players is indescribable. Any one of them changes the entire complexion of the game especially the heartbeat of the team - I'm sure I don't have to mention who. Cesc- The passing and creativity. Theo - Pace and square balls. Eduardo - Exquisite finnishing. Tomas - Creativity and shooting.
Arsenal are missing those players a lot this season.

~deyao~

Love and Peace

Thats why Sara Bareilles makes music.I have to say sorry to my blog for ignoring it for such a long time even during a holiday. Anyway, after many many hours of downloading, I got to watch Sara Bareilles perform live in the historic Fillmore. Originally I saw it in Amazon and even thought of buying it, 17USD without freight was slightly exp. Oh yea, I am a very big Sara B fan so I got really excited over it. Here's the cover and back. Courtesy of Amazon.

There's only two songs she has never officially performed before and the others were from her album Little Voice which is stunning, 4th best selling album this year. I read this somewhere and I agree, the DVD is not much different from her songs, but there's some story in between songs which she tells why she made those songs and her amazing journey. It's quite a story people hasn't known about her. My take on her based on what I saw was something very natural and extraordinary. From the way she performs, I could really see her "owning" those songs , not many artists have that. I could feel those songs when she sang it and the comfort level she was at was great.
The type of songs she sings like Fairytale, Vegas and Gravity was just so different and I just felt more in love with it. A little hiccup would be her little jokes weren't funny, lol and the use of some words which would be a bit inappropriate for some of the young people watching. "I'm f***ing with you". It definitely wasn't literal(she meant I was fooling with you) and some were a bit stunned (awkward silence)... But it wasn't going to overshadow the brilliant performance she delivered, she got a lot people teary with some of her songs...oops.....
Her band was very very enthusiastic and talented , liked it very much. Plus, a lot of insight what she does off-stage.

The list of songs she performed.
Bottle It Up - Not one of the songs I like but she rocked it.
Vegas - My favourite song in the album, she improvised and made it memorable.
Morningside - She addressed the crowd in the uplifting song.
Love on The Rocks - Her performance made me realised how good was the song. The music is just so damn nice.
Between The Lines - About liking someone and not being being liked back. Emo song.
Fairytale - She calls it a female anthem. Apparently after watching Cinderella, she imagined what happens after the story. Her imagination of what they did lead her to the song. The use of Disney characters and imagining them in the way she thinks. Funny too.
August Moon - She played the guitar on this one. First time shes performedthis.
City - She slowed things down with this.
Love Song - Who doesn't like this song. It was written in anger.
Many The Miles - Nice one to sing along.
(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay - Originally done in 1968 by Otis Redding. Did it only by the piano.1st encore song. She also performed it during the credits with only the guitar.
Gravity - The perfect closing, wonderful.

Rating is 9/10.
You can get the mp3 HERE and the video HERE. A must watch for her fans.

Merry Christmas.
~deyao~

Amazing Taylor Swift !

Exams are done and finally I can do the review on the new Taylor Swift album. Been listening to the album since the release and oh my.... this girl is insanely good. Still days away from turning 19 and she just delivered an incredible album. I thought her debut album was already unbelievable, and now her sophomore album Fearless is at the next level and the world has done nothing wrong for doing this..

I made some screenshots from Billboard and it appeared like that.Yes, the fans all made this happen. Top of the Billboard 200? You can't be serious. I wasn't expecting that either. Now she is top of the world!
So here's the list from the album.

Fearless - The opening song and it is definitely an opening song. Great song.
Fifteen - Taylor teaching someone to love? Not a good idea.
Love Story - Romeo and Juliet theme with a happy ending.
Hey Stephen - Taylor's plain jealousy.
White Horse - This song blending with Grey's Anatomy's scene and Taylor Swift crying over the excitement her song was played, can really feel the song
You Belong With Me - One lucky guy I suppose which is similar to Mr. "Teardrops on My Guitar"
Breathe - With Colbie Caillat, but it was not quite the duet I expected. But it went well.
Tell Me Why - Probably the best song of the album.
You're Not Sorry - The title tells the story.
The Way I Loved You - Another guy...
Forever & Always - Song for that bloody Jonas guy.
The Best Day - Song for her family especially for her mum. Very sweet song.
Change - Written for the US Olympics team

Recommended: ALL tracks.
This album is arguably one of the best albums I've listened to. The songs are just very different and every song just gives you a story. The instruments in most of the songs also just wonderful. Yes, many of the songs about the guys in her life and imagine at the age of 18, there has been so many of them. Lol. I just ran out of good words describing the album...

Rating : 9.8/10

Some pictures to end.

I just can't get enough of those curls.




TAYLOR SWIFT IS TOURING AUSTRALIA !! THOSE IN AUSTRALIA, PLS GO!! I AM GOING INSANE HERE.

~deyao~

Hot N Cold by Taylor Swift

Here's a video posted by Taylor with Kate Perry's Hot n Cold.
Check the rest of her videos at her
MySpace Video Channel

They are really funny, she does really good acting. A good experience what goes behind the scenes.

You change your mind like a girl changes clothes.


Philadelphia :)


Ending part was good.

~deyao~