No Secrets: A Paperless Journal

Carly Simon is one of my all time favorite singers and songwriters. Her wide range of music through the years has given me a huge landscape of sound to explore over the past few years of my life. Over time, I've noticed I gravitate much more to certain Carly Simon albums over others, like most people. I find reading others ranking lists so interesting, so I thought why not give it a go myself. Note : There are 17 albums on this list. I did not include Carly's holiday albums or her five albums of standards. I felt that including these in the ranking would be difficult considering she did not write the tracks herself. I also left out her Greatest Hits Live album. I like that album okay, but it isn't representative of Carly's music and wherever I placed it on the list, it would probably seem out of place.  Check out the YouTube video version of this ranking (it's a mess) #17: Never Been Gone I hate to put Carly's most recent album so low in the ranking, but here w...

I discovered Alanis Morissette's music at a crucial time in my life: High school. Much of her discography acted as a soundtrack to my junior and senior years, and with the upcoming release of her new album Such Pretty Forks in the Road , I can't help but listen back to her catalogue with a more critical and curious ear. After all, it is impossible to call yourself a true fan of an artist if you're not willing to discuss and scrutinize their work, especially with someone like Alanis, who has had such a dynamic and twisting career path. With that being said, here is my ranking of Alanis Morissette's studio albums: 7. Havoc and Bright Lights (2012) I hate to put her most recent album so low on the list, but it really is her weakest release for me. HABL  could have been a good album, if it was produced correctly. This album sounds compressed and at times very garish. Songs like Woman Down and Celebrity come off very topical and almost like sloganeering on repeated li...

I feel confident in saying that Fiona Apple is my favorite singer/songwriter. With her newest release, Fetch the Bolt Cutters , completely blowing my expectations out of the water, I have began to dive back into her back catalogue. I love all of her albums, there is no such thing as a bad Fiona Apple album, but I do find myself reaching for some more than others. That being said, here is my list of Fiona Apple's albums, ranked worst to best: 5. Extraordinary Machine (2005) Stream It! This album is often pointed to as one of Apple's weakest and I have to agree. In early 2003, Apple recorded this whole album with producer Jon Brion. That version was shelved and Apple decided to re-record almost the entire album with new producer Mike Elizondo. This version was also shelved before a group of fans demanded its release in 2005, and succeeded. Knowing that information, her vocals almost sound tired on the official version, and many of the tracks sound too smooth and produced...

With the world on lockdown right now, due to the Novel Coronavirus, our mental health is suffering. For some people, isolation can facilitate self discoveries and bouts of introspective bliss. For others, it's a hell. Let's face it, it gets fucking boring sometimes. I find that music, for me, can completely change my outlook for the day, hour, or even just for a moment, and I'll take anything I can get. So, here are five albums that I have reached for the most during this wild world of isolation we are currently living in (in no particular order):  The Dreaming (Kate Bush, 1982) Stream it here! Album moods: - Esoteric - Sensual - Theatrical - Brooding My favorite tracks: Sat in Your Lap, Leave It Open, Get Out of My House Fetch the Bolt Cutters (Fiona Apple, 2020)   Stream it here! Album moods: - Authentic - Home made - Determined - Lyrical My favorite tracks: Shameika, Relay, Heavy Ballon Either/Or (Elliott Smith, 1997) Stream it here! A...

Can you IMAGINE Being  Unapologetic  Energetic   Never overly-sympathetic    Confident     Conscious       In-line     Out-of-line     Ahead of your time    Pragmatic   Artistic   Wrap-around and  Altruistic… All at the same time? Maybe one day, and you could be Better than fine. 

“Hell, but cold,” “The Most Depressing City in America,” and simply “Binghamton :(“ are all ways I have heard the town in which I grew up being described. Most people, especially young people, who live here, claim they can’t wait to leave. Binghamton is often pointed to as a boring city with humdrum towns, subpar suburbs and nothing to do. A friend from downstate recently told me that “If you're from Binghamton, you lie, and if you say you’re from Binghamton, you're lying.” Honestly, I get it. We don’t get a lot of sun and it’s raining probably half of the time, so it’s easy to look at life through dreary glasses. But still, I wonder how many of these claims actually hold water, and if Binghamton is so bad in the first place. So, this is me, trying to make myself like this place a little bit more: An Ariel View of Downtown from the Susquehanna River. By Rick DeGraw. 1. We’re Not That Depressed There is this myth that Binghamton is the saddest town in the US o...

June is LGBT Pride Month, so I figured it would be more than apropos to share my own "coming out" story as a gay individual. Now, I say "coming out" in quotations because it was more of a slow, wistful slither for me. I didn't want to be gay. I even didn't know that people could be gay until I started hearing it as an insult. Needless to say, for me, coming out to myself was enormously more difficult than to others. A lot of us feel this way.  Growing up, I had this complex that most gay guys do; You convince yourself you are attracted to girls because you think they're pretty, you like their fashion sense and honestly that's all you've ever been taught. Your friends talk about all the girls they like so you assume you're having the same feelings. But the truth is, you don't like girls, you want to be their best friend. I had this mindset well into middle school and was brainwashed to think that one day, I would grow up and marry a gi...