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100 Great Songs: Still

Artist:
Vivid

Spotify:
Not on Spotify

Video:

Favourite Lyrics:
it won’t be the same again
feel the open wind my friend
don’t you know this is the end of this game
“means nothing to me”

Thoughts:
Nearly 25 years old and still one of my all-time favorite songs from a severely underrated band (they don’t even have an entry on the English Wikipedia). The songs evokes a weird melancholic optimistic sadness in me.

100 Great Songs: The Book of Love

Artist:
The Magnetic Field

Spotify:
spotify:track:4I1eZhhSus3KZw4di2aiet

Video:

Favourite Lyrics:
The book of love has music in it
In fact that’s where music comes from
Some of it’s just transcendental
Some of it’s just really dumb

Thoughts:
The idea for the song is just brilliant.

Notable Covers:
The Airborne Toxic Event, Peter Gabriel

100 Great Songs: Me & You Together Song

Artist:
The 1975

Spotify:
spotify:track:4AQzk2yNWKs6sYhZi6NzVN

Video:

Favorite Lyrics: 
I had a dream where we had kids
You would cook, I’d do the nappies
We went to Winter Wonderland
And it was shit but we were happy

Thoughts:
The song needed a few rotations to grow on me, but now it’s in my Top 3 for 2020. It’s lighthearted yet sincere, upbeat yet lamenting.

I really like the lyrics above because of they convey the beautiful idea how your spirits are elevated just by spending time with the right person, no matter what is happening around you.

100 Great Songs: Me & My Dog

Artist:
Boygenius (Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Kucy Dacus)

Spotify:
spotify:track:4q9w3UGW3utmeUruBLUoZZ

Video:
This Live version is even better than the studio version.

Youtube comment: i heard there was a small town in Norway that was getting 50% of its renewable energy from phoebe’s voice at 2:39

Favorite Lyrics: 
I never said I’d be all right
Just thought I could hold myself together

I wanna be emaciated
I wanna hear one song without thinking of you

Thoughts:
This incredible powerful voice carries so much sadness and vulnerability. The lyrics are authentic and touching. The song brings back memories of lost love I had not thought about in years.

Another new macro lens

I got a second macro lens, the Sony 30mm F3.5. Although inferior to the 90mm in every way but weight, I hope it still has its use. The plan is to have it in the bag together with the 16-55mm and 55-210mm for a lightweight travel package that’s ready for every situation.

Shooting with the 30mm for the first time was a bit of a mixed bag. The lack of in-lens image stabilization is noticable and I found the manual focus very slow and quite uncomfortable. Looking at the zoomed-in pictures in camera, I was quite disappointed, but it turns out the image quality is better than I initially thought, so I don’t regret the purchase.

However, I’m not sure whether I will keep the 30mm or replace it with a fast manual 35mm because I’m having lots of fun with the manual Zonlai 22mm F1.8. We’ll see.

New macro lens

I have switched camera systems (from Sony A-mount to E-mount) and my new macro lens, the 90mm 2.8 OSS, arrived today. I took it out during my daily “exercise” and immediately came across a caterpillar posing for me.

Caterpillar

The lens is absolutely lovely. I never really took my old Minolta 100mm macro out because I felt I could never get a sharp image handheld, despite the A77’s built in stabilizer. It seems the combined effect of the lens’s and the A6500’s stabilizers really makes a difference.

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