Dion: King of my Heart

If you’ve read a few of my other posts, you may have noticed that I really like old music. I love swing and jazz and the type of music they played on American Bandstand; songs like the ones on the Grease soundtrack. As I’ve said before, I attribute this to my mom. She grew up in the 50′s and went to Woodstock and was a screaming Beatles fangirl–so basically my mom is one of the coolest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Of course, this means that she raised me listening to the music she loved, as most parents raise their children, so I grew up listening to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Shirelles, Sha-Na-Na, James Taylor, and the like.

Now, I’m not the type of person who believes that my music taste is somehow more sophisticated or mature or whatever just because I like older music while more people my age seem to like the more mainstream stuff. I really dislike those people. I will say though, that one of my pet peeves is modern-day artists who sample older music and completely butcher the original song. I’ve definitely heard some hip hop/rap that has successfully sampled music from the 60′s and 70′s, but the bad outweighs the good.

Recently, and I’m not about to bash my roommate’s taste in music, don’t worry, said roommate was listening to a song by the rapper G-Eazy. I’d never heard of him or the song she was playing, but something about the underlying track caught my attention and I felt like I’d heard the song that had been sampled. When I looked up G-Eazy’s song, I found that the sample was titled Runaround Sue by Dion and so I found that song and listened to it. While I’m still not sure whether or not I’ve actually heard it before, I did fall head over heels in love with the song, so obviously I looked up the rest of Dion’s music and found a whole bunch of tracks that I put in my current playlist. Basically, despite our slightly different tastes in music, my roommate is the reason I discovered Dion and his fantastic, swoon-causing music. A few of the songs are by Dion & the Belmonts, the Belmonts being the group he was a part of before he decided to continue as a solo artist. Anyways, here are my favorites by Dion (& the Belmonts) and I hope you enjoy!

Emily

Runaround Sue

Dream Lover

A Teenager In Love

Why Can’t We Be Sweethearts

I Wonder Why

Take Good Care Of My Baby

Will Love Ever Come My Way

While I admit that my winter break was embarrassingly unproductive,

I can say that I managed to create a playlist that consisted of all songs that I had never heard before (or had heard once or twice) and ended up loving. It’s always so refreshing to the ears to listen to new music. And it’s an especially great way to start the new year! The playlist is a mixture of a whole bunch of different genres, so hopefully you’ll find at least one song you like. Maybe you’ve heard a few of them–or all of them–before, but either way, enjoy! (P.S. I dare you not to swoon when you hear Nat King Cole singing)

Angels // The xx

Shiver Shiver // Walk the Moon

Sometimes I’m Happy // Peggy Lee, June Christy

Fuck You Tonight feat. R. Kelly // The Notorious B.I.G.

L-O-V-E – Multilingual Version // Nat King Cole

White Walls – feat. ScHoolboy Q, Hollis // Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Thin Line – feat. Buffalo Madonna // Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Poetic Justice // Kendrick Lamar, Drake

The Last Hope feat. Kardinal Offish // Drake

Runaround Sue // Dion

Soulman // Ben L’Oncle Soul

The Sign // Ace of Base

Hope your spring semester has started off well!
Emily