Category Archives: Seen/Heard/Read

Seen/Heard/Read

My Pitch Perfect Top Five

Pitch Perfect 2 is playing in cinemas and in less than 24 hours I will be reunited with the Barden Bellas. To celebrate (and shorten the wait), I took a fond look back at the first movie. Top five things that make it the snazzy, quotable, relatable fun fest that it is.

1. Anna Kendrick’s character Beca unassumingly, even slightly disdainfully, wows with a rendition of When I’m Gone/ Cups. The song not only sets the tone for what she will come to mean for the Bellas, but Beca’s performance also shows a heroine with an additional big talent she seems unaware of. You start rooting for her.

2. Pitch Perfect shows people being themselves.

3. As well as people with issues.

4. And people with issues still finding themselves.

5. The movie shows how a female friendship can come to life. Unexpectedly, grudgingly, with the twists, stumbles and turns that accompany being thrown together to work for a deadline with simmering conflicts in the background. And suddenly you’re facing a group of people you can actually say, “I love you, awesome nerds” to.

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Seen/Heard/Read

“A pirate’s life for me”

There’s something about a capella and Disney together that is fantastic. While out and about online, I discovered this catchy Pirates of the Caribbean medley by Peter Hollens and the Gardiner Sisters. Featuring some amazing voicework from both parties involved and showing faithful following of the best parts of the film’s soundtrack, this video will make you scramble to find that DVD and watch Jack Sparrow saunter across Port Royal and beyond. Savvy?

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Seen/Heard/Read

Kelly Clarkson Songs from My Youth

I’m on a revisiting kick.

Several of her songs have sung their way in to if not pivotal, then memorable moments of my life. And for that I feel attached to them.

Breakaway

This was playing on the radio as I packed my bags for my first ever solo trip abroad. Flying alone for the first time was contributing to some pretty bad nerves. Then, as I was sitting down on my enormous suitcase while my dad zipped it up, I heard Kelly sing “Breakaway”. It went very nicely with my impressionable state and certainly helped romanticize my travel experience, thus distracting me from typical consuming anxieties. It was easy to fall in love with the concept.

Since You Been Gone

Epic on so many different levels! An indispensable part of spontaneous singing sessions and strangely refreshed (not that it needed it) since Pitch Perfect came out. This was my break-up song. Well, this was my dumped song. This was the song I listened to in the dark, crying first and then furiously singing along. This was the song that went with the first break-up in my life that hurt in that I-don’t-know-how-this-is-ever-going-to-get-better-way. Timely, indeed! Need I say more? I have a friend I’m dying to sing this with for karaoke. I know we could kill it. She still needs to be convinced, but I have not lost hope.

I Forgive You

This didn’t receive as much rotation as her other songs, at least not on the radio stations that usually accompany my breakfast. But I heard it for the first time after recovering from a bad bout of unrequited love/ shattered expectations/ many confusing emotions about a guy who I thought had led me on. I don’t know if there was anything to forgive the guy in question for (see unrequited love – and was it even love?) It wasn’t about forgiveness in the traditional sense, it was about removing myself from the painful feelings and negative thoughts associated with the person. “I forgive you, I forgive me/ Now when do I start to feel again.”

If one is ending up with a pop soundtrack to parts of one’s life, it might as well include songs with such encompassing vocals as Clarkson’s.

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