This is a list of my TOP FIVE songs RIGHT NOW, as of January 1st, 2024. DO NOT ASK why I am posting this in february… i don’t have a real answer.

January was a long month.

This is NOT a cumulative list of all the best songs in the world (that I have listened to) because that would take me weeks to figure out, this is just a fun, cool, casual way for me to talk about my favorite songs right now, okay? i’m also gonna link this playlist for u all to listen to, because these songs are GOOD!

If I was doing best songs i’ve ever listened to, or best songs like ever, this would be a very different list. These are just the songs i love right now :)

My rules:

• only one song per artist (except features)

• had to have come out RECENTLY like within the past 2 years

• that’s kind of it

Let’s start with honorable mentions!!!

• that’s so true (live from radio city music hall) by gracie abrams

• i love you, im sorry (live from vevo) by gracie abrams

• thank goodness by hope tala

• last night’s mascara (live from Short n’ Sweet Tour) by griff

• messy by lola young

• american spirit by Keni Titus

• The Giver by Chappell Roan (unreleased)

• sympathy is a knife featuring ariana grande by Charli XCX

• Holidays by Conan Gray

• Girlfriend by Alix Page

my favs playlistttt (find on spotify if u want <3)

5. Slipfast by ROLEMODEL

This song is the epitome of that feeling where you know you are cycling through bad habits and dangerous decisions- but you don’t care. And I love it. This song is not afraid to be raw and critical of Role Model’s actions and that’s the part that i like the most. He is hurting himself- but it’s aesthetic so it’s alright.

Slipfast is a word i’ve never heard before… didn’t even know it WAS a word but the more you know. Slipfast is defined as “longing to disappear completely; to melt into a crowd and become invisible, so you can take in the world without having to take part in it—free to wander through conversations without ever leaving footprints, free to dive deep into things without worrying about making a splash,” and wow this song really hits the nail on the head. I feel so free, so invisible, so quite, so loud, so joyful, so sad when I listen to this song- and it just gets better and better every time I listen.

4. Dumb & Poetic by Sabrina Carpenter

Damn. This song has so much tea. If it’s about Shawn Mendes, i’m cackling because he seems so weird, his internet presence is so weird. Like how did he go from bedroom pop, hottest man alive to using the speculation around his sexuality to get people to continue talking about him. I don’t like it. But I do like “Hey People” it makes me giggle and laugh, I say it all the time. BUT THIS IS NOT ABOUT HIM.

But also it’s so relatable. I’m sure we’ve all been disappointed by a man who thought he was the shit.

I think one of the most dangerous people around are the people who claim to be the most loving. There’s always a little selfishness in that, it feels very performative, I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but that’s how I see it.

The lines that stood out to me the most were the variations of the line, “Don't think you understand/ Just 'cause you talk (act/leave) like one doesn't make you a man”

3. Girl Song by Beabadoobee

I loveeeee the piano in this!!! i want to be able to play like that soon. This is one of my favorites from Beabadoobee. Beabadoobee does rock, hot girl so well that it feels so special when we get to see a vulnerable part of her again. I relate to this song so fucking much, it hurts. The way she’s talking to herself in this song, “All I wanna do is find the words to make it up to you / Makin' all the same mistakes, I guess there's still a lot to prove” omggg i love that part. it feels so sad to tell yourself that you know you’re wrong about the way you feel about yourself but you cant help it. AHH. I also love the part “Just a stranger in the mirror, thinkin', "Oh, what a shame" IT IS SO REAL. Everyday I feel I look like a different person and it really messes with my brain, I never know how it’s going to affect me later in the day, but it always does.

Also, her tone in this feels sooooo good i love these whispery vocals, its perfect.

2. we can’t be friends (wait for your love) by Ariana Grande

wow okay. this song makes me absolutely sob everytime i listen and only one other song makes me do that: ghostin by ariana grande so clearly she knows how to tug on my heart strings. Of course, her vocals are always going to be amazing, but this song feels different. This song feels like i am truly getting to know Ariana Grande in a way that her other songs keep us at a distance. My fav part (as always) is the bridge. It is so powerful and quintessential Ari but it still feels experimental. I originally thought this song was about Mac Miller, which parts of it 100% feel like it is, but the chorus: “We can't be friends/ But I'd like to just pretend/ You cling to your papers and pens/ Wait until you like me again” always confused me. At first, i kind of thought that was referencing the divorce she was currently going through, but because of the complete flip-flop in media coverage of Ariana because of Wicked, from classic homewrecker to praise for her performance, it feels like she’s speaking to us in that moment. She knows that if she did good with her role in the movie, people would forget about hating her, like they have numerous times before (all instances i feel like are unwarranted) and love her again. After writing all of those ‘exposés’ on her, we are back in the cycle, loving her again.

BTWWWW

if u want to hear ME sing a lil snippet of this song, listen to my cover (also my first video omggg) on youtube! and while ur there, subscribe! like! and comment!!!

my youtube! <33333333

1. Obsessed by Olivia Rodrigo

This is 100% (okay maybe like 99% (i can be convinced)) her best song. There is something about this song that makes it an absolutely stunning listen for me. For one, her vocals in this make me stop in my tracks, they are completely perfect, especially when she sings “And I remember every detail you have ever told me/ So be careful, baby/ I'm so obsessed with your ex” it’s just so good. The level of breath control needed for this song is absolutely out of control and i am eating it up.

Can we bring back crazy women???? I think thats what we need right now. This song is so relatable to a fellow crazy woman and it is the song I never knew I needed. Also let’s talk about the band because that is also a huge part of why this song is so fun for me. I love it ahh. This record is absolutely dripping in anger, need, desperation, vulnerability and craziness and i love it so much.

I wish i could say that her performance of this song on the GUTS tour didn’t influence this ranking but it did. only a little bit tho. STREAM OBSESSED!!!

I miss painting my nails with my mom and my niece.

I miss waking up at 11am and making pancakes on saturday.

I miss watching movies from sunrise to sunset on the weekends in the living room.

I miss going to starbucks and getting grande chais with pumpkin cold foam.

I miss driving around Burbank with my mom.

I miss going to the mall and buying one thing.

I miss scootering on my blue light-up razor down the street.

I miss commuting every day and eating cereal out of cups instead of bowls for the car.

I miss making mango, honey, and water smoothies in the summer.

I miss my very tiny, weeks old kitten in my lap and stealing watermelon from me.

I miss doing my homework in the morning before school because I was doing college apps the night before.

I miss going to the grocery store all the time with my mom.

I miss making recipes that no one in the house ate but me.

I miss my vegetarian era.

I miss matching christmas pajamas.

I miss watching minecraft youtube with my brother.

I miss gossiping with my brother late into the night and laughing too much.

I miss eating apples and giving some to my dog.

I miss playing with my cats.

I miss decorating the tree for christmas.

I miss the random leaf decorations around the house.

I miss the also random holiday seasonal napkins my mom would buy to be festive.

I miss the dr pepper my mom would buy for me because she knew I loved it.

I miss the first time I went to ulta with my mom to buy foundation.

I miss going to the mall to shop for school clothes with my mom.

I miss eating so much sugar at denny’s with my best friend that her mom thought we were on drugs.

I miss that cool lime drink thing from starbucks.

I miss walking to my mom’s office every day after class in middle school and wait for her to be done so we can go home.

I miss the first show I remember vividly, not my ballet shows, but the musical thing my elementary school would do every year where we would sing and dance and it was so much fun.

I miss watching buzzfeed on my iphone 6.

I miss musically OMG.

is this a little vulnerable for the substack? lmk.

I was starting my dream that I’d been dreaming of for years, but something didn’t feel right. I put college on such a high pedestal my last years of high school, every waking hour felt like the road to college, whether that was thinking about personal statements, interviews, extracurriculars, prestige, or my ego. I went from doing everything I could to be the ideal candidate for admission to the universities I wanted to go to, to being a student in one of the best universities in the world in a couple of months. I never thought to think if studying politics or going to law school is something I actually wanted to do, or if I just wanted the path that felt more concretely laid out for me. Did I want the conventional way or the experimental?

I got everything I wanted, but it still wasn’t right.

I got everything I thought I wanted, but it still wasn’t right.

When I turned fifteen, I asked for an electric piano for my birthday. At the time, I was in show choir, so I thought learning piano would help me learn music and make me a better performer, and it definitely did, I grew my music theory knowledge so much more than I thought I would just by playing all the time. I also wanted a piano because one of my friends at the time wanted to start an all-girls band, and I was sooooo down. Like I remember pinning aesthetic photos to a pinterest board… lowkey I might put the link down here. It was a very, very, cute pop-punk vibe and I was so here for it. But it never happened. By the way… I’m still so down for this, _ _ _, if u still remember. ;))))

https://www.pinterest.com/parisiaparisia_/all-girl-rock-band/

(btw follow my pinterest, im cool af there too i swear)

When I turned sixteen, I started writing. I thrifted a cute, pink, y2k notebook and I started writing the summer before my sophomore year. and then I stopped. I was frustrated because nothing I was writing felt like me. It felt like I was just scrambling aesthetic words and combining them to create a song, like words I thought were cute from Lana Del Rey songs or other artists, but it wasn’t mine. I did the same thing in like 4th grade. I remember going on Musically (where are my musically heads at?????) and Youtube and trying to write songs influenced by (and Im not fucking kidding) Shawn Mendes, JACOB SARTORIUS, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and probably Danielle Cohn. It was honestly tragic, but I would literally give anything to read what I wrote down. Anyways, back to the story. In my AP English Language class, I was so enamored by poets we were learning about, especially Emily Dickinson (where my Emily Dickinson heads at????) so I started writing poetry. I should post my poetry bc it’s lowkey fire like… maybe i will.

The summer after my junior year, I was so inspired by my friends and everything we were doing as California teens, that I finally started writing song that felt like they were coming from ME. Sadly, I don’t know when you will be able to hear those songs from that era bc they’re really difficult for me to go back to those memories (Teenage Greatness being one of those).

The last two years, poetry has been such a big part of my life, almost as much as music. There is literally not one day that goes by where I am not singing, and even then I’m thinking about pop girls (i need to rant about that actually), listening to my favorite artists, watching videos about the upcoming grammys (i ALSO need to rant about that soon), or listening to podcasts about music. Music is all around me and I love it. So it’s surprising to me that it took me this long to think to myself: hey! I can sing, I have a fucking guitar and piano (rip she died), knowledge of music theory, an interest in poetry, and not to mention that this dream has been in the back of my mind for as long as I could remember, I should re-start writing songs.

This is getting confusing let me make a timeline for ease of understanding

early childhood - tried to write, songs sucked

15 - got a piano and tried to write (and almost joined a band) but then quit bc the songs were so bad

16 - summer b4 junior year and throughout junior year started poetry and singing on the piano (still tried to be someone I DEFINITELY was not)

17 - got a guitar and found my voice

18 - getting better at the guitar and writing almost everyday (starting to write sheet music now ahh its so hard i literally cannot do it)

So now you know the timeline. I’ve been writing off and on for the better part of two years now and I think I’m ready to finally share with the world.

I started writing songs again when I got to UCLA because subconsciously, I knew that this was the path I was meant to be on, and that includes writing and making music, even if that took me years to realize.

Overall, music has always been one of the largest parts of my life, from my plasic blue guitar I got when I was jealous my friends had real instruments, to now where I play the guitar my friend so generously offered to let me use (THANK YOU WILL) because otherwise, I do not know who I would be today if I did not have my music. Music isn’t just music to me, but my heart, my soul, how I see the world, how I move through the world, what makes me happy, what’s always been there, and now I know that music has been always waiting for me to finally, finally, finally fucking notice.

So now I know! And I’m happier now!

Glad I cleared it up before I got too deep into political science or public affairs classes because now I still have time to figure out what I should study.

Here’s the lyrics and a link to a snippet of first demo of a song I’m currently working on. (it sounds so completely different from the first time I thought the song was perfect, so I hope you are excited) This demo is from September 30th, 2024. I wrote it almost immediately into week 0, I was in my Public Affairs 80 class for the first time and something dawned on me, so it needed to be recorded a couple days later.

It’s called Something’s Missing and I hope you like it.

(excuse how I’m singing and playing, i can’t sing loud bc i’m in a dorm and the walls are PAPER thin, so every time i was singing and playing good, I would remember that people can probably hear me and that would mess me up and I would get nervous)

(also if it sounds like I don’t know the notes IT’S BC I DON’T!!! I’m still trying to figure out which capo I want to use and its affecting the way I sing and the notes)

(also i’m leaving all of the imperfections bc it’s cool and fun and chill!)

(also it’s crazy how much my voice has changed in like 2-3 months like I barely recognize my voice)

idk if any of that made sense, but it made sense to me so!!! if u want clarification, pls comment, i will answer <3

also if u know anyone who can play the drums and would be interested in playing with me, i would love to meet them

love you all, see u soon xx

paris anne

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