I’m not one of those artists that can sit around in silence when I’m in my studio. I need music, a YouTube video, movie, or a show playing in the background pretty much every minute of my day. I can’t stand silence most of the time, and it’s very rare that I’m creating without anything playing from either my computer, tablet, or phone. Here are my top picks for what I listen to while I’m working away in my studio!
Music
I have a very eclectic taste in music, and I judge what I like on a song-by-song basis. This means that though I don’t like Country or Rap as entire genres, I do like certain songs from those genres. My most important criteria for music is whether it has strong lyrics. If I can connect with the lyrics and they move me or make me think of an experience in my life, or they tell a story, then I’m more likely to love the song.
My top favorite musical artist right now is an independent band called Icon For Hire. I stumbled across them randomly on YouTube one day and have been to two of their concerts, am a member of their Patreon, and participate in several of their Facebook Groups. Icon For Hire is fronted by lead singer Ariel Bloomer, an amazing song-writer and just an amazing human in general. In the beginning of 2019, she released a book called Turn Your Pain Into Art that I not only own multiple copies of (including the audiobook and a signed copy) but I have purchased it for several friends who deal with mental illness and self-hatred as well. I could write an entire blog post about this band and the impact they’ve had on my life, but maybe I’ll do that in a future blog! Instead, here are links to a few of my favorite songs from Icon For Hire.
YouTube
I have a confession to make: I am a YouTube junkie. Right now I have two monthly subscriptions, and one of those is YouTube. I subscribed to it so that I could turn my phone screen off while a video is playing, and so that I wouldn’t have to sit through ads all the time!
I’m subscribed to lots of channels, but when I’m working on art I like to have longer videos (thirty minutes or more) on so that I can get lost in what I’m doing without having to change the video a lot.
I LOVE true crime and documentaries, so a lot of what I watch on YouTube is in the true crime genre. My favorite true crime YouTubers are Stephanie Harlowe (well researched, multi-part videos about cults and true crime), Danelle Hallan (focus more on missing person cases and solved cases), and Kendall Rae.
I also like listening to The Mile Higher Podcast, which is about an hour-long or more and covers all kinds of topics from current events to true crime to the paranormal.
For art topics, my favorite channels are NerdECrafter, Rafi Was Here Studios, Becca Hillburn, and Chloe Rose Art.
My favorite horse-related channels are The Budget Equestrian and YourRidingSuccess. Obviously I need to find more horse channels to follow! If you know of any good ones, drop a comment and share it with me! I used to follow Evention TV, but they haven’t put out new videos in a long time.
I follow a ton of other channels that are a mish-mash of movie reviews, video essays, business advice, anime reviews, legal videos, and a bunch more.
Movies and Shows
So if you hadn’t yet noticed, I have eclectic tastes in just about every facet of my entertainment. It should come as no surprise that I have a wide variety of movies and shows that I like to have on while I’m working. Just like with YouTube, I like to put something on and not think about it for awhile so that I can get lost in the art that I’m doing. This is why I also tend to pick things that I’ve already seen so that I don’t have to concentrate on what’s going on with the plot.
I like all kinds of movies, from animated to sci-fi to fantasy to comedy and more. To list out all the things my husband and I own on DVD and Blu-ray would take forever, so instead I’ll list out a few of my favorites and concentrate on mainly what I have digital copies of in Movies Anywhere (because that makes them easily accessible back in my office from my computer browser, phone, or tablet). I’ve written already that my favorite horse movie of all time is Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken (DVD). But also in my frequently watched are Krampus, Big Hero 6, The Croods, Pacific Rim, Deadpool and Deadpool 2, Spider-man: Homecoming, Wonder Woman, Ghostbusters (2016), Zootopia, Inside Out, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Thor Ragnarok, Into The Spiderverse, and Hocus Pocus.
Shows are tricky since I don’t have Netflix anymore, so I’ve been mainly limited to shows that I can find on YouTube. For YouTube shows, I like Hoarders and I Shouldn’t Be Alive. But, when I get my Netflix access back, I’m going to be back to watching my other favorites: Heartland, Criminal Minds, Free Rein, Voltron Legendary Defender, Trollhunters, Queer Eye, and Parks and Recreation.
