Melissa Kacar

"What Was I Made For?" // Billie Eilish "What Was I Made For?" was one the final songs revealed before Barbie premiered, and without giving any spoilers, it had incredible placement in the movie. This is truly such a heart-wrenching and emotional song. Literally every single person in the theater was crying during that scene. Even now, it's been over a week since I've seen it and I'm still thinking about how incredible this part was. The entire soundtrack is great, but "What Was I Made For" is one of the best songs made for a soundtrack in a very long time. It works so well in the context of the movie, but also in the context of Billie's personal life. It is very much in the same vein as songs like "everything I wanted" and "Male Fantasy" , as well as "Love Is Pain" by Finneas .  Billie said in an interview that the process of writing this song for the Barbie character in the movie was " like I'm wri...

"the lakes" is the final song on Taylor Swift 's groundbreaking 2020 album  Folklore , released as a bonus track a few weeks after the album's release. It is a beautiful song that details her daydreams of running away to "the lakes where all the poets went to die". It is written with the backdrop of the poets and artists of the 19th century who moved away to the Lake District in England.  I have so much vinyl in my collection from the  Folklore  era and wanted to highlight one of my favorites and one of the rarest I own. It is also the three-year anniversary of the album's release, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share the story behind it.  It is a 7 inch single, released as an exclusive to indie record stores on Record Store Day in April 2022. Taylor was the first worldwide ambassador for Record Store Day that year, so to celebrate they ended up releasing a couple of special pressings featuring some of her music, one being "the lakes...

So many of these songs evoke so much nostalgia of summer's past, of family, friendship, and youth. sweet tea in the summer is a playlist specifically curated around so many of my favorite songs of all time that I connect with so deeply. So many are light, airy songs that are carried by their lyrical storytelling and feelings they evoke for me. I was also so inspired by the Renoir painting pictured above titled In the Meadow , I love the delicate, yet vibrant, colors and how lively the entire setting feels.  The title, sweet tea in the summer, comes from a lyric from "seven" by Taylor Swift . I love Folklore so much and have written about my love for it so many times over the past three years. With "seven" in particular, I was so emotional when I first heard the song and was deeply moved by the way she captured the feeling of youth and memories of the past in such a vivid way. I also feel so connected to the lyric;  "I was high in the sky with Pennsylvani...

Believe was the third album from Justin Bieber released in 2012, which served as a follow-up to his breakthrough debut albums, My World in 2009 and My World 2.0 in 2010. While I have loved a lot of the music he made after  Believe  and I have loved seeing his growth and evolution through the years, I will always consider this to be the best album Justin has ever released. He was absolutely in his prime during this album cycle and it was just such a fun time to be a fan. I played Believe on repeat for years and was the soundtrack of my life when I was thirteen years old. There are so many classics that hold so many memories for me. Some of his biggest hits came from this album, like "Boyfriend", "As Long As You Love Me", "Beauty and a Beat", and "Die In Your Arms", to name a few, all of which are still some of my favorite songs of his to this day. Believe also has a stacked lineup of featuring artists, like Nicki Minaj, Drake, Ludacris, and Bi...

Drop everything now! The highly anticipated third installment of Taylor Swift 's re-recorded albums is finally here with Speak Now (Taylor's Version) . Speak Now has always been an album that has meant so much to me. When it was released thirteen years ago, it became one of the first albums that I really discovered my love for music through. What Taylor did with Speak Now has always been so inspiring to me and changed my life in so many ways that I didn't even realize at the time. Looking back on the music that shaped my life from a young age, Speak Now is at the top of my list. In 2010, I was eleven years old and still vividly remember going to my local music store and being able to get the CD a couple of days early. Fittingly, that was the same store I bought a copy of Taylor's Version from over a decade later! I listened to this album every day for years and years on my first iPod, which even had a case with the album cover on it. All of Taylor's music has been...