Musical Monday: Nightwish

For this week's Musical Monday (see Diane's blog), I chose a live recording of Nightwish's "The Siren" from the End of an Era tour- a stunning performance.

Tuomas Holopainen (keys, lyrics, composition) is by far my biggest source of musical inspiration to date. If it were not for him and my discovery of Nightwish, I probably would not have bought my first keyboard and taught myself to play, at least, not as soon as I did. His lyrics have inspired much of my own writing, past and present. And Tarja, the ex-vocalist featured in this video, would not have been a sort of role model when I was first developing my voice. Tuomas, and Nightwish as a whole, gave me something to aspire to. I owe that man a lot of credit, not just as a source of inspiration, but also for (indirectly) helping me to keep my sanity when times were less than ideal.

13 Albums That Rocked My Week

This is the second week of my Friday 13 meme (technically the first, last week I intended for it to be just a weekly feature). If you're interested in playing, read this.

I spend every hour of the day listening to music. I have tunes playing when I blog, sleep, shower, and do anything around the house. When I go out, I have my mp3 player with me. I literally cannot function without it.

Here are the 13 albums that rocked my week, in no particular order:

1) Eurotrash - Zeromancer (2005)

2) Jagged - Gary Numan (2006)

3) Pretty Hate Machine - Nine Inch Nails (1989)

4) The Divine Conspiracy - Epica (2007)

5) Ghost Reveries - Opeth (2005)

6) Hatefiles - Fear Factory (2003)

7) Dark Passion Play - Nightwish (2007)

8) Opheliac - Emilie Autumn (2006)

9) Evoke - Wumpscut (2005)

10) Tales from the Thousand Lakes - Amorphis (1994)

11) Evanescence - Scorn (1994)

12) Cult - Apocalyptica (2001)

13) Lust For Blood - Velvet Acid Christ (2006)

So what did you listen to this week?