In Jaelynn's society, music is forbidden and yet she ...
924961
In Jaelynn's society, music is forbidden and yet she feels compelled to sing. In fact while she goes about the monotony of her daily life, she sings words that come to her in her dreams. And then she meets Noah, a man traveling through the country,  who encourages her to continue to sing, regardless of the consequences. Should Jaelynn listen to Noah's advise and continue to sing the songs in her heart?
1623216
I tried to update the song list for Amazon, but it doesn't allow that option. Therefore, I'll put it into a review for those that want to know what it says but can't read Kenji and katana (Japanese characters).

Song Track List:

01 - Demon World
02 - Conspiracy
03 - Ambition Of Aion
04 - Activity Of The Militia
05 - Black Dark Wave
06 - Mark Of Destruction
07 - Zet's Despair
08 - Rosette Of Affliction
09 - Saint Woman Magdalene
10 - Prediction Of Magdalene
11 - The Song Of Azmaria
12 - Chrono's Sorrow
13 - Proclamation Of Madness
14 - Negative Power
15 - Becoming Evil
16 - Monster's Madness
17 - Approaching Shadow
18 - Young Magdalene
19 - Dance Stage
20 - Satella's Past
21 - Missing
22 - Hope Of Reconstruction
23 - Everyday's Last Moment
24 - Dark Sing Of Times

On a side note, I found the music to be very pretty and engaging. I haven't seen the anime but I enjoyed the music.
2181562
The songs were mostly Indian music of the Andes like Huaynos, rather than romantic Latin music. The title is deceiving
4027151
I wish she had kept the song There's no Separation in the bedroom. She sounds like she is channelling the late and (hateful) Jerry Falwell. Come on Denise you are better than that. Not only is it undemocratic but she supports censorship (Harry Potter) and opposes same sex marriage. The irony is in a "Christian" state her sexually charged music would likely be banned from the airways. Be careful what you wish for. For me the blues is summed up by the Sweet Betty song, Live and let live. Sweet Betty reigns!
3741802
Greek mythos as feminist romance.

Eurydice is a powerful Thracian witch, but being powerful does not protect her from being persecuted because of her Gift. She is a fugitive from the latest local village where she used her Powers for good, then defended herself from evil, when Jason and the Argonauts come ashore for water and hunting. She makes herself useful to them, and the Gifted musician Orpheus takes her under his protection. They sail on, having the classic adventures in search of the Golden Fleece, with Eurydice as a crew member, an important part in rescuing Phineas from the harpies, and obtaining the Fleece with the partial cooperation of Medea.

Along the way, Eurydice falls deeply in love with Orpheus, and he with her, despite the fact that her Gift still makes him uneasy, and she doesn't keep her eyes cast down as proper Greek woman would.

Spoiler alert for those who didn't study Greek mythology in high school or college:

He insists that they return to his small Greek village. She wants to live elsewhere, where she is free to be who she is, but reluctantly agrees. Her misgivings are proven true; when he is away from the village, she is ambushed and "sacrificed" to Hades. As established in other works, Hades' realm is not really the realm of the Dead, of those dead to the upper worlds; the Gifted, the outcasts. Orpheus comes to reclaim her, believing her to actually BE dead, or ensorcelled.

In the classic myth, Orpheus has almost led Eurydice out of the Underworld, but he looks back, and she is then drawn magically back. In this version, they fight about what a proper woman's place is.

"I do not like your Gifts, Eurydice - I wish you would rid yourself of them..."

"I cannot rid myself of my Gifts," Eurydice cried. "They were born in me. But I tell you this, I would not if I could."

Orpheus may love her, but he still thinks he can change her. AND he thinks he can simply take her back to his village (the one where they tried to kill her) and everything will be just fine this time.

"Orpheus, my love, listen to me. I tried. I truly tried to be what you desired, what your village folk required, of a woman. It seems I failed. But that is not important. What is important is that I was miserably unhappy. I was bored and frightened all the time. I am not fit for village life."

"You will become so," Orpheus said.

He loses her because he keeps trying to make her lesser than what she is - which, as she has the wisdom to understand, would not in the end satisfy him anyway. Heartbroken, she returns to Plutos... but it may - or may not - be the end of the story.

I loved this feminist retelling of the story; I found all the characters vivid and unique, from Jason to Heracles to Medea (extremely creepy). Eurydice was brilliant and pragmatic; Orpheus was charming, persuasive, and he reminded me of many modern men who might be great in their own way, but don't "get it" about women's issues because they don't WANT to "get it."
3987391
Yes I actually put that as the topic, bahahahahaha. Anyway, back to seriousness. I'm not a huge fan of twilight, but I like the music and yet not so much the weird way some of the people sing. This is great for me because its so pretty and soft, JUST LIKE A VAMPIRE TEDDY BEAR! ;)
844375
about MUSIC:strong haunting beats and a deeply felt message about the  universal spirit beyond religions,but about LYRICS... if you are planning  become a NUN or a PRIEST, DO NOT BUY IT !
Good stuff.
346849
Some of the cuts of this song are, well, Kraft CHeese and Macaroni. If you know what I mean. It won't have the girl going me-ya-whatever. It's boo-hiss. Remember, breakbeat. THAT track goes off.
3175958
Tchaikovsky composed one of his most beautiful musics for that old tale in which a prince will come to free the white swan who is a princess but the prince will fall in love with the adventurous and enterprising black swan and that will cause the death, the suicide of the white swan. Charming Princes are no longer what they used to be: they want to choose their princesses. Princes have been liberated from simple predetermined stories, especially when there is un ugly black duckling in the flock.

The cruelty and the difficulty of the choreography is that the same dancer is supposed to be both the white and the black swans. Two styles, two genres, two universes that are so antagonistic and so mutually hostile, that it leads to a drama every night. If the dancer identifies with that impossible and schizophrenic situation it is more than a drama, it becomes a tragedy.

The genius of this film is to invest and embed the dancer in a personal situation that leads to death in a way or another. She is the daughter of a dancer who stopped dancing at the age of twenty-eight when she got pregnant, without a father and twenty-eight is old for a dancer. She never was anything but a member of the chorus line. She carries her daughter at arm's length into realizing the dream she has never been able to realize herself: to become the Swan Queen. She supports her, helps her, takes care of her in the most stifling way imaginable.

She thus stifles in her any kind of personal libido, love instinct. That makes the daughter awkwardly constantly scratch her shoulders. But when she starts embodying the Janus double-face Sawn Queen, the darkest impulses surge up and find their way out in a fantasy-driven nightmare. She explodes in unsatisfied or self-satisfied sexual impulses. She develops a strong hatred for her body-double, a body-double which is normal practice with ballet stars.

The worst is till to come because her mother who wanted her to be what she herself has not been able to be is also the one who wants to prevent her daughter to do what she has not herself done, hence to succeed better than her. This conflict between the mother and the daughter is also schizophrenic. The dancer can identify perfectly with the paranoid psychotic Swan Queen and live the fate of the white swan right to the bitter end of its death.

The music is the most beautiful music you will ever hear but do not get trapped by the poisonous syrup that flows from the notes. The candy is laced with ecstasy if you are lucky, more probably with arsenic if you are really lucky, because then you can evade this unbearable world. And that is a phenomenal liberation, to die when the audience in the house is frantically calling for you after the show.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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Great song, beautiful tune, and the lyrics caused me 2 do some research. There was a radio station in the South that was allegedly either bombed or burned down for playing this song!  Janis had the insight to write this song at age 13!  I would give this song 5 stars except that the girl cops out at the end. However, the song played in 1965 or 1967, so the taboo of the times still has to be considered.  For the most part,  society's children are still "sticking to their own kind", and though  unspoken and a bit weaker, the social dating rules still exist.
192354
You have got to be kidding...the open scene has hiphoprapcrap music!  I stopped watching it.  I want the music of the time period, not noise that only brownies can understand.
3063853
This story takes place in a utopia-like society.  One of the most unusual elements of the community was that the members were only able to perceive their surroundings in black and white.  The central piece of the story was that one person (The Giver) was the sole owner of all past memories and the time had arrived to pass that information along to a successor (Jonas).
  The only persons experiencing any form of conflict in the story were Jonas and the Giver.  Being without memories, the rest of the society, including the Elders who ran the society, were ignorant of any other way of doing things and were, therefore, content.  Jonas was given the ability to see things from new perspectives, taking into account past pleasures and pains.  He began to understand different moralities of situations and seriously doubted the way of doing things that he had previously accepted without question.
  This book is not necessarily a question of good versus evil, but rather a matter of learning from past experiences.  Was the decision of 'sameness' the correct one for their community?  Why wasn't euthanization (being released) a question of morality?  Were the decisions of doing things for the good of the community really good for the community?  And without memories, what was left to compare their lives to?
  I don't think that many children who read this story would care to live in that type of society.  Middle School students (and I don't think that this book is appropriate for students younger than that) pride themselves on their originality.  However, the topics addressed in this book are interesting for any students ready to consider them.
262142
*May contain a spoiler* An untouched woman (Amazon won't allow me to use the v-word) preparing to join her Christian rock band brothers on tour manages to get on the wrong bus belonging to one of the most popular rock bands. The mistake isn't caught until 1 hour after the bus departs, but instead of dumping her at the closest restaurant or hotel, she makes a deal to stay on the bus for a week.

The lead female has no qualms about spreading the gospel, yet in the next sentence she is calling band members names beginning with "a" and ends in "hole" (Amazon won't allow me to use the word) and gyrating onstage to "Like a Virgin" (my eyes rolled so hard, that I could see out of my behind). The entire band is so intrigued w her pureness, they want her to stay on the bus, they even agree to be gentleman.

Of course, there's friction between she and the lead singer (it's never the drummer), & within 36 hours, she is head over heels. She finds him lovable even though he allows a waitress to perform an act on him  (with her mouth) less than 30 seconds after he proclaims that he wants to see more of her (it's the waitress' fault of course), he has "relations" with a groupie on the bus (groupie's fault of course), invites her to participate in a threesome, ridicules her, but in the end she considers him worthy of her v card. It doesn't matter that he's slept w 1000s of women, they're skank, but he's just a lost little boy.  By the end of the story, I was rooting for the groupie.
3806281
Imagine a world with no music. Really, try a little harder. Hear that silence? No romantic wedding music. No tender lullabies. No songs of heartbreak and cheating. No energizing rock n roll. In this fictional dystopian world, what passes for music is more watered down than Muzak.

Now imagine a young woman at a crossroads. Merrin works at Patrol, the organization dedicated to stamping out the last remnant of people who listen to real, albeit illegal, music. Merrin has made a name for herself in her field, but the more undercover work she does, the more questions she has.

If you can imagine all that, youll have the opening for Kindle Scout winner James Morris Melophobia. This book struck all the right notes with me. It provoked a visceral reaction and made me appreciate music even more. While this is one dystopian world I hope never comes to fruition, my eyes were opened to how integral music is to the fabric of our lives.

Maggie Toussaint and Rigel Carson for Muddy Rose Reviews
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Camille Elliot in her new book, Prelude for a Lord published by Zondervan brings us into the life of Alethea Sutherton.

From the back cover:  An unconventional young woman. A haunted young man. A forbidden instrument. Can the love of music bring them togetheror will it tear them apart?

Bath, England 1810

At twenty-eight, Alethea Sutherton is past her prime for courtship; but social mores have never been her fort. She might be a lady, but she is first and foremost a musician.

In Regency England, however, the violin is considered an inappropriate instrument for a lady. Ostracized by society for her passion, Alethea practices in secret and waits for her chance to flee to the Continent, where she can play without scandal.

But when a thief s interest in her violin endangers her and her family, Alethea is determined to discover the enigmatic origins of her instrument  with the help of the dark, brooding Lord Dommick.

Scarred by war, Dommick finds solace only in playing his violin. He is persuaded to help Alethea, and discovers an entirely new yearning in his soul.

Alethea finds her reluctant heart drawn to Dommick in the sweetest of duets . . . just as the thiefs desperation builds to a tragic crescendo . . .

What can I say about a book that deals with music and the violin? This is just truly marvelous. 1810 England has its own social issues and somehow women playing the violin is a terrible no-no. Of course that is the instrument Alethea plays. She meets up with Lord Dommick who also plays the violin and the romance begins to bloom. However there is someone who wants to steal the instrument and now these two have to find out who and why.  Prelude for a Lord is a wonderful romance filled with mystery, intrigue, and scandal.  These pages are filled with wonderful characters that live and breathe.  Prelude for a Lord is full of reputation, finding yourself, finding your place in the world and romance.  This is an interesting story filled with lots of excitement and romance as well as history.  I liked it a lot.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Zondervan.  I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
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In a cool and clean apartment in a modern high-rise building sits an old-fashioned dollhouse, luxuriously furnished and surrounded by a yard with real moss and a bonsai tree. The house belongs to Madison Blackberry, "a tall-for-her-age, sour-faced girl" who wishes she could live in the warm and cozy house with the dolls. At the same time, the house makes her feel lonely because the family of dolls inside seem happier and closer than her own family. HOUSE OF DOLLS, written by Francesca Lia Block and illustrated by Barbara McClintock, introduces readers to Madison and her beautiful dollhouse, a toy that becomes a symbol for what is happening in her own home and the hope that things can be so much better than they are.

Inside the house live Wildflower, Rockstar and Miss Selene, along with Wildflower's boyfriend Guy and Rockstar's boyfriend B. Friend. Wildflower had belonged to Madison's grandmother, who still made clothes and household items for her and the other dolls. They are dressed in the fanciest dresses imaginable: a lemon-yellow satin dress and a mermaid evening gown, blue feather poncho and a lavender and gold silk kimono dress with butterfly-wing sleeves. Madison is jealous of the attention the dolls receive from Grandmother and disappointed by Rockstar's bookishness (her name is meant to be ironic). She is jealous of Wildflower's relationship with Guy and forces him to go to "war." She is jealous of Rockstar's relationship with B. Friend, and so she fails to rescue him from violence and neglect at the hands of her younger brother. And she is especially upset by Miss Selene, whose loss and emptiness are too much a reflection of her own.

As Madison grows both bored and angrier with her family, she takes it out on the dolls. After Guy and B. Friend are sent away, she takes away all the beautiful clothes and leaves the dolls lying on the floor of the house. When Wildflower finds Miss Selene sitting naked, crying by an empty cradle, she knows something must be done. She pens tiny notes to Grandmother, hoping she can communicate what needs to be done. The first simply reads "dress." Finally Grandmother figures out what Wildflower is trying to tell her, and soon Grandmother, Madison, her family and her dolls are on their way to becoming, by the smallest and simplest (and most meaningful) steps, a whole and happy family.

Block's story is short and powerful. In under 60 pages of text, she describes a girl so sad and needy and her magical and fantastic healing. The tale can be read a number of ways. Are the dolls alive, or is it all in Madison's head? It hardly matters though because readers young and old will be moved by the story. McClintock's black and white illustrations perfectly capture the details of the doll's house, the emotions of Madison and the joy of imagination.

HOUSE OF DOLLS is lovely to read and look at, but it packs a powerful emotional punch. The happiness and security family is meant to give is contrasted with the fear and loneliness of war. When Guy returns to his true love, Wildflower, she asks him what it was like. His answer is a crucial moment in the book: "War is being blinded and locked in a box, unable to see, hear or touch you, my wildflower. War is being reminded that you are completely at the mercy of death at every moment, without the illusion that you are not. Without the distractions that make life worth living." As Madison's family comes together, perhaps realizing that their love for each other is what makes life worth living, they settle into an essential state of peace.
1782124
For some reason i recieved a censored copy.
Can not for the life of me think of why a censored copy even exists.

Nodody's Daughter is the strongest track on the album.