Madonna's Rebel Heart

Madonna's 13th studio album Rebel Heart is her best since Music. 
When I got the opportunity to review Madonna's new album Rebel Heart I jumped at the chance.  Because I love Madonna. 

Her music has been the soundtrack to my life-my girlhood/womanhood/motherhood/personhood.  She inspired(s) me.  

When I was a kid I remember wishing I could dress like her and would sing "Dress You Up In My Love" over and over and over, and over.  She was bold and brave and sort of dangerous. She was a Midwestern girl with a complicated family, mother issues, father issues, and big dreams of being somebody and proving everyone wrong.  Um, I could relate. Over the years, her music got bolder and she pushed limits and boundaries, and in my own way, I was too.

The thing that I always admired and related to about Madonna and her music is the way she portrayed such toughness and tenderness.  She's both I don't need anyone ever and all I ever want is someone to love me. She has always straddled the hate/love, strong/vulnerable in life in a way that I completely relate to.

She does it again beautifully in Rebel Heart. In fact, it may be her best musical example of being a bad ass and being vulnerable, and how it's okay and beautiful to be both.


  

Songs like "Veni Vidi Vici" which features Nas, are a look back at Madonna's songs/life.  Nas says "life is so crazy, you've been through a lot, you ought to tell your story sometime."  And I'm so glad she does.

"Living For Love" is a great song. It is catchy and very danceable.  


"Iconic" is one of my favorite songs and it features Chance The Rapper and even Mike Tyson. Yup, Mike Tyson.  "Bitch I'm Madonna" is a fun song that I would put on to get ready to go out, I mean if I ever did things like that.

Of course Madonna has a few very raunchy songs about sex.  It wouldn't feel like a Madonna album without those. She sings/says some pretty shocking stuff in "Holy Water" and it's pretty fabulous.

This whole album incorporates where she's been and how she is okay with how it shaped who she is today.  Once again, I find myself nodding my head and saying "yes, Madonna!" At 40, I'm feeling reflective.  My children are getting older, I'm getting older, even Madonna is getting older.  I've said good-bye to toxic relationships, had unbelievable experiences, traveled, gotten jobs, lost jobs, made bad choices, made good choices and it all shaped who I am today. And just like when I was a kid, I'm singing along with Madonna.  

I'm singing, "Hell yeah, this is me, right where I'm supposed to be!" (from the song "Rebel Heart").

Order Madonna's new ablum here on iTunes: http://bit.ly/REBELHEART


In a strange twist of fate, I find myself living in the same town where Madonna grew up. I relate to things she has said about growing up here in Midwestern conservative suburban land.  I relate to maybe not fitting in and trying to find my place. The music helps. Watching Madonna be a bad ass, loving, strong mother and performer helps.  She is still inspiring me with her music and her life.  You better believe I will be blasting Rebel Heart from my minivan as I drive around my small Michigan town.  I can be a bad ass, loving, strong mother too because I'm living for love.

I didn't go to a Madonna concert until I had three of my kids and lived in Metro Detroit.  Now I've been to two shows and hope to go to her Rebel Heart Concert.
Click here for a list of cities where she will be stopping.

If you are a Madonna fan, you should follow her on Instagram, she posts some great stuff.  Click here instagram.com/Madonna.  She's going on tour later this year, check her web site for more information Madonna.com. Order Madonna's new ablum here on iTunes: http://bit.ly/REBELHEART

I participated in the Madonna Rebel Heart album review program as a member of One2One Network. I was provided an album to review but all opinions are my own.

The Parent Effect (And A Cure For Dry Skin)

I love playing outside in the winter, and I totally blame my parents.

When I was a little kid, I lived in a town just east of Lake Michigan.  It was a nice little Midwestern town.  It was also in an area that was hit hard in the winters by "lake effect snow."  When I was a little kid, I loved it.  

I think I loved it because my parents loved it.  My mother and father met in high school in Alabama and after they got married (like five minutes after graduation) they moved to Texas and Kentucky and then finally Michigan.  Living in the land of "lake effect snow" was a very new thing for both of them back then.  When we moved to Michigan in 1979, they immediately bought the family cross country skis and 1,000 sleds.  We would spend Saturday afternoons in the winter skiing through the farmland and woods that surrounded our house.  My dad would build snow ramps to make sledding down the hill even more fun.  We built snow forts and played Empire Strikes Back.  On the weekends, after school and on beloved snow days, we got outside and we played in all the "lake effect snow."  

My brother and me enjoying the heck out of winter in a really cool snow fort/igloo my dad helped us build circa 1980.

If my parents had bemoaned the snow and been a little less "oh my gosh, this snow stuff is amazing! look at how it drifts! let's go play!" I guess I might have been that way too.  But they weren't and so I wasn't.  It should be called the "parent effect" or something right?   

I now live in a town west of Lake Huron.  It is a nice little Midwestern town. It is not in a "lake effect snow" zone though and that bums me out. However, thanks to the Polar Vortex last year and then the great snow storm Linus just a few days ago, my kids are living my the dream.  My back porch is full of those gorgeous snow drifts, school has been cancelled for days and we made snow ice cream.

The hills are aliiiiive er, I mean the ice is frooooozen. 
 My happy place, skating on the frozen pond.

During these snow blasts, we go skating as a family as often as possible--at a rink nearby, the pond in the park.  It is hard to find time to play during this busy life, but we squeeze ice time (or sledding time or snow fort time) in wherever we can, in between practices and after school.  
We make time to play.

Lucy doing a little mid-sledding snow angel.

If we had a winter album cover, this would be it.  Look at JT doing his best Say Anything/John Cusack pose (even though he hasn't heard of either the movie or the man, lol).

I hope all this "isn't it great to get outside and play and hey winter is not so bad, it's actually awesome" attitude has a similar "parent effect" on my kids.  I hope they keep playing for forever and I hope that Tim and I get all, or most, of the credit for their winter joy.

                            ******

Yes, playing outside in the winter is all kinds of amazing.  It can also do a number on your skin.  My kids may or may not get my love of winter sports, but they will most definitely inherit my sensitive skin.  I know this because unless there is some crazy recessive gene, they are screwed.  Tim and I both have the kind of skin that burns just thinking about sunshine, gets itchy if you use the wrong soap and looks like an alligator's skin in the winter.  I blame both our parents for our oh-so-sensitive skin.

We have tried all types of lotions to help us and our kids.  Before a trip to the pond last week, we put on Vaseline® Intensive Care™ Advanced Repair. Um, it was amazing. 

It was soothing and it felt like it was really protecting our skin.  Upon further investigation, I found out that Vaseline® Intensive Care™ Advanced Repair contains healing micro-droplets of Vaseline® jelly to do all that deep moisturizing. And that it is clinically proven to heal very dry skin in five days. Even this old alligator.  It is healing without being heavy and doesn't feel greasy either.  We have found our winter lotion and thankfully it's not a million dollars (only $4.99 for a 10 oz. bottle).  

Boosh! Two positive "parent effects" in one week? I hope that makes up for forgetting the snack for one child's basketball practice and showing up 30 minutes late to pick up the other child after school and constantly embarrassing the teenager by doing well, anything.

I participated in this sponsored campaign on behalf of Vaseline® and One2One Network. All opinions stated are my own.

Holiday Wishes (A Music Review)

I have become kind of a Christmas person this year.  For a long time, the holidays stressed me out and made me relive painful memories from Christmas past.  But it's changing.  I'm older, maybe a little wiser, I have an amazing family and so much to be grateful for, I just feel more mushy and happy over sad and depressed.  

I mean there are moments where I get lost in a bad memory or I feel overwhelmed by the insanity of all the busyness and you better buy everybody you know a gift of it all.  But I don't get stuck there like I have before.  

Usually every Christmas season I bemoan the holidays and the hoopla even though I do enjoy a few parts of it.  Mostly I usually feel itchy and unhappy until a few days before Christmas when I have a Scrooge or Grinch moment and the joy of it all washes over me and I want to throw open the shutters and sing with the Who's of Whoville.  This year is different.  I feel more present.  My kids are older and I just feel the sense of "this isn't going to last forever" not so much hanging over me, more like time whispering to me, reminding me to soak it up and let it fill me up with love and goodness.

Peyton went to a sleepover on Friday night and I asked him if he wanted to go to Breakfast With Santa on Saturday morning or skip it.  "What? Of course I'm going, it's Grandma and Bubba's thing, right?," he asked.  "I'm going."

"Well, of course," I said smiling.

Peyton, JT, Tim and Tim's dad (Bubba) at Breakfast with Santa checking out video of another cousin's sporting event.

It's a Christmas miracle! We are all looking at the camera!  Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, God Bless Us Everyone!

I love the two big kids reluctant but still talking to Santa,
and how the two little kids are all snuggled up with Santa.

We are all showing up this year and soaking it up and letting the season fill us up with joy and love.  We are making the hot cocoa, watching the Christmas movies, going to the hometown parade, counting down with the Advent calendars and playing the Christmas music.

My in-laws started this tradition of buying the kids a name ornament on their first Christmas.  I love it so much.  It's just like the Brady family on Days of our Lives....remember that?  I always thought it was so cool and now it's my family. Joy!

I treasure these hand-written Christmas wish lists to Santa.  JT wants "gluten free marshmallows." I mean it just bursts my heart open with love when I see this stuff.

Hometown holiday parade! Lucy wishes her last name was Fox.
I don't think she understands yet how cool the last name Youngblood really is. This coming from a girl whose last name used to be Smith.

Our favorite background music for our holiday lovefest this year is Idina Menzel's new album Holiday Wishes.  




It's beautiful and soulful and sad and joyful and everything you want in a Christmas album.  I mean when I heard her sing in Frozen (she was the voice of Elsa) last year I was hoping she would sing something for Christmas.  I mean right?  Her booming voice is perfect for it.  

When she sings "Silent Night" I want to spin around with my arms open like Elsa.  It's simply amazing.  Holiday Wishes is out now on Warner Bros. Records.  The album was produced by Grammy Award-winner Walter Afanasieff and features favorites such as "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" and "Do You Hear What I Hear."  She also does a duet with Michael Buble, they sing "Baby It's Cold Outside."

The album is a mix of upbeat and slower songs.  



There's even a song for when I'm feeling a little reflective and somber, it's a beautiful version of Joni Mitchell's Christmas-themed "River."  I could listen to her sing this over and over, and well, I have already.

Here's the track listing:
Do You Hear What I Hear
The Christmas Song
Baby It's Cold Outside (Duet with Michael Buble)
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
All I Want For Christmas
What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?
December Prayer
When You Wish Upon A Star
Silent Night
River
Holly Jolly Christmas
White Christmas

The album is available on iTunes ( http://bit.ly/IMHolidayWishes) and Amazon (http://bit.ly/IDINAHOLIDAY)

My favorite song she sings on this album is "December Prayer."  It is my theme song this season. It is for people like me that might battle a few ghosts from Christmas past, but try so hard to be present.  Menzel's voice captures the emotion so well.  It's like she is singing to me and telling me to get unstuck from the past, and to remember the good, to look around and see all the joy I have in my life right now.  

She sings these lyrics with a quiet, beautiful power:

In the touch of a friend or the breath of a child...
In the season when you find some peace in the simple, tender things..
Open your heart and look around, listen...
Hear the song within the silence...
hope and love are everywhere

The album is available on iTunes ( http://bit.ly/IMHolidayWishes) and Amazon (http://bit.ly/IDINAHOLIDAY)

I participated in the Idina Menzel Holiday Wishes album review program as a member of One2One Network.  I was provided an album to review, but all opinions are my own.

Therapy

My new favorite song is "Therapy" by Mary J. Blige.  Maybe it's because I love therapy.  Maybe it's because I love Mary J. Blige.  Maybe it's because the song and the whole album is really, really good.  Maybe it's a combination of all of it and the fact that listening to Mary J. Blige's music is like therapy. 

(Click here to watch the video.)

My first time I went to a therapist I was 21.  I was in college, my mother had been admitted to a psych ward, I was lost and needing to be heard.  Even though I was all kinds of messed up, I was really never at a loss for words.  I pictured myself having no problem telling everything to a therapist, but that wasn't the case.  My first session was filled with a lot of very uncomfortable silence.  It turns out I had to sort of ease into therapy.

I didn't know where to begin.  I didn't want to be rude.  I didn't want to not tell jokes.  

Luckily my therapist was amazing.  She patiently helped me tell my story, she didn't judge my inability to not tell bad jokes sometimes.  She helped me be okay with being vulnerable and real and messy.  And she helped me find the beauty in the mess and move on.

I am a believer in therapy.  "I think everyone should go in for a tune up every decade," I used to tell people.  I stand by that advice, but I think that people should go whenever they feel they are messed up and lost and needing to be heard.  There is no shame in it. Just like Blige sings "why would I spend the rest of my days unhappy, why would I spend the rest of this year alone, when I could go therapy."

Therapy to me can be formal like sitting with a therapist or it can be running or dancing in the kitchen or lyrics and a voice that speak to you.   I do all of it.  Mary J. Blige has been one of the voices that has helped me over the years.  

This was my road trip survival kit this past summer....notice classic Mary J. Blige CD.

Rocking with Blige's What's the 411? in college and then feeling every bit of her No More Drama album in my 20s.  Now in the first year of my 40s, I am loving Blige's new album The London Sessions.

The compilation of songs on this album are a mix of sounds that are happy and sad, light and dark, and inspirational.  Track number 10, "Pick Me Up,"  makes me want to dance and think about getting through it and getting away and sunny days and good times.  Track number two, "Doubt," makes me want to nod and say that's right when she sings "I can't keep doubting myself anymore....you think you know, but you don't know the half...I'll keep getting up, because that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to be the best me, I'm sorry if it kills you."  Um, yes!!!!

For this album, Blige collaborated with some of the UK's most popular stars--including Disclosure, Eg White, Emile Sande, Jimmy Napes, Naughty Boy, SAM ROMANS and Sam Smith.  The new collection will be released December 2 on Capitol Records.  Click here to pre-order on iTunes http://bit.ly/MJBLondon and on Amazon http://bit.ly/MJBLS.   

"The London Sessions is, number one, the bravest thing, and number two, just so honest," Sam Smith, who co-wrote lead single, "Therapy," with Blige and Eg White (Adele, Florence + The Machines, James Blunt), is quoted as saying. I couldn't agree more.

Mary J. Blige's voice makes me want to close my eyes and say and believe--in her music, in myself, in life.  It's therapy.  In every song she sings you hear her struggle and her bravery.  She is brave enough to be vulnerable and real and messy and find the beauty in all of it.

Do what you've got to do.  Go to your therapist, go for a run, dance in your kitchen and sing along with Mary J. Blige.

Life isn't going exactly like I planned it...whaaaaat? Surprised by the good, frustrated by the bad. Mostly I am pretty damn grateful that I can totally control dancing. #kitchendance #dancing #humpday

A video posted by Angela Youngblood (@jumpingwithmyfingerscrossed) on Nov 11, 2014 at 5:36am PST

Download the album on iTunes  http://bit.ly/MJBLondon  
and Amazon  http://bit.ly/MJBLS  

I participated in the Mary J Blige The London Sessions album review program as a member of One2One Network. I was provided a free album to review but all opinions are my own.  

Lyric Lover- A Music Review of Heart On My Sleeve

Song lyrics have always been important to me.  In college I was the girl that had the perfect song for the moment.  Back then I would drag my jam box out from my bedroom and play what I thought was the perfect CD for the moment (because it was of course a million years before iTunes and iPods and playlists).  From bad break ups (hello Alanis Morissette) to my life isn't exactly like I thought it would be (thank you Sarah McLachlan for understanding) to I just want to be me (amen Ani DiFranco) I knew the singers and songs with the right lyrics.  

Good lyrics mostly from strong women helped tell the story of my young life.  From Madonna to Tori Amos, looking back I grew up with some great music and great lyrics. 

Singing the meaningful words over and over in my car or quoting the lyrics in my journal, the song lyrics comforted me.  They made me feel less alone, more understood.

I got a chance to review Mary Lambert's new album Heart On My Sleeve and I feel like shouting to whomever is in the room, "I've got the perfect song!"  It's not just Lambert's melodic voice on the new music, it's the lyrics, the words she is singing.  

Mary Lambert is probably best known for writing and singing the hook on Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' marriage equality anthem "Same Love."  Before that song, Lambert was an aspiring singer-songwriter who also worked as a brunch waitress and bartender.  After years of struggling both financially and personally, Lambert suddenly found herself signed to Capitol Records, releasing an EP (Welcome To The Age of My Body) and getting nominated for two Grammy Awards 

On Heart On My Sleeve Lambert sings about identity, dealing with pain from the past, finding love and being vulnerable and authentic.  

Some songs are slow and somewhat hypnotic like "When You Sleep," others have more of a pop/dancey feel like "Secrets."  She even sings a haunting cover of Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" and makes it her own.

One of my favorite songs off the album is "Sum of Our Parts."  It speaks to my inner lyric loving college girl.  It's both slow and dancey.  It's full of anthem-like lyrics about accepting ourselves and saving ourselves, lyrics I want to write in a journal or sing into a hairbrush. 

I don't want to really call her a voice of a generation because she spans generations.  Her songs are relatable to 20-somethings and 40-somethings.

Whether it's a group of my 40-something girlfriends getting together to discuss perimenopausal angst or my four kids and I baking together in the kitchen, I can find the perfect song for the moment on Mary's album Heart On My Sleeve.

This is the perfect song ("Secrets") to dance along to in my kitchen with my kids. 

Mary Lambert's album Heart On My Sleeve is available on iTunes ( click here   http://bit.ly/MaryHeart) and on Amazon (click here http://bit.ly/MaryLHeart)

I participated in the Mary Lambert Heart On My Sleeve album review program as a member of One2One Network. I was provided a free album to review but all opinions are my own. 

Dancing In the Aisle--A Train Review

We were heading to the church in a big white bus.   It was a party bus that would soon be filled with people and alcohol and good times, after all the wedding festivities at the church.  The bus was pretty quiet on the way to the church.  My bridesmaids--sister, my cousin, a few of my best friends in the world--and me all dressed up and excited.  And nervous, at least I was and everyone knew it.  I fiddled with my earrings, ran my finger over the lace in my veil and bit my lip.  Life was about to change, I was going to be married and committed and gulp, a grown up.  

"She only drinks coffee at midnight, when the moment is not right," one of my bridesmaids sang along with the radio.  Then like we were in a movie, some romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts maybe, we all started singing along and laughing.  One of us, me maybe, might have gotten up and danced in the aisle of the party bus.  

The song ended, I felt like everything was going to be alright, I got married and we lived happily ever after.  

Yup, I got married and became a grown up as you can see in this picture.

And I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the group Train.  It was their song "Meet Virginia" that came on the radio all those years ago and broke the nervous silence and inspired a pre-wedding/party bus sing-along.

When the opportunity to review Train's latest studio album, Bulletproof Picasso, fell into my lap, I felt like it was just meant to be. 

Pre-order available now on iTunes (http://smarturl.it/bulletproofpicasso) and Amazon (http://smarturl.it/bulletproofpicassoAM).

Train and I have been sort of down a similar path the last 14 years.  I mean they put out a few albums (7) and I had a few kids (4).  Train won some awards (3 Grammy, 2 Billboard) and hey, I won too (43rd place in an Over 35 Age Group in a 10K).  The parallels of our lives may not be so apparent to everyone, but still I feel a connection.

Train's first single from the newest album, "Angel In Blue Jeans," is climbing the Adult Top 40.  Which again just feels right.  The music is for adults and after all these years, I can finally say I feel like gulp, a grown up, an adult.  So, it just makes sense that I would enjoy music on the Adult Top 40 chart.  And I did enjoy this album.  



Click here to watch the music video for "Angel In Blue Jeans."

Maybe it's because Train makes me feel sentimental, but my favorite track is "Just A Memory."  It is essential Train--easy to sing along with and dance to.  It's not too dark or too light.  

Another song that really stuck out to me is "Don't Grow Up  So Fast."  With lyrics like "don't you hurry, try to take it slow, you will get there before you know," it hits pretty close to home right now as I look at the next chapter of our love story--raising tweens and teenagers.  

There's no party bus taking us down the road to our next phase, our next chapter---all the teenager raising and middle age and college and oh, I'm getting nervous.  But there is Train, and the music and the moments that we sing along to and dance in the aisles to and feel better and laugh and know it's going to be alright.

The album comes out on September 16.  Pre-order available now on iTunes (http://smarturl.it/bulletproofpicasso) and Amazon (http://smarturl.it/bulletproofpicassoAM).

Here's a fun video from another great song on the album, "Wonder What You're Doing For the Rest of Your Life."



(Click here to watch the video.)

For more information about Train go to the official Train website or follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  And go watch their videos on YouTube.

I participated in the Train Bulletproof Picasso album review program as a member of One2One Network.  I was provided a free album to review but all opinions are my own.