Music log

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I also like some simple Japanese songs like ゴンドラの唄 (Gondola no Uta), Aogeba Tōtoshi and 赤とんぼ (童謡) (Red Dragonfly).

I also like João Gilberto’s Chega de Saudade album (even though I’ve never bothered to look up any of the lyrics besides the title track’s) and Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Stone Flower. I’m a fan of the Bossa Nova Japanification Project (ボサノヴァ日本語化計画).

I do sometimes wonder why I don’t listen as much to Japanese music. It may be that since I’ve spent all my teenage years (when I first got interested in listening to music) in the US, my musical tastes were influenced that way.

I’m open to suggestions (e.g. sometimes Kristin Lie will show me a song), but I feel I’ve mostly discovered what I like, so I don’t spend time actively searching for new things to listen to. Finding more Japanese songs I like would be especially nice though.

I should also mention that I can go for long periods (weeks) without listening to any music. It might just be that my collection is so small I get bored of it quickly, but can come back to it after some amount of time has passed.

Some others:

• “Dream A Little Dream of Me”—Ella Fitzgerald, Doris Day
• Taylor Swift—“Blank Space”, “Back to December”, “Forever and Always”, “Ours”, “Red”
• Neon Genesis Evangelion OST
• Pokemon OSTs, in particular the Ruby and Sapphire OST

(I plan to make a table like the following to better keep track of my music. For me, music often allows me to experience the qualia of certain periods of my life, so it’s important that the time periods when I listened to the music are listed alongside it.)

Hozier: Hozier (not sure when I started listening to this album, but I repeatedly come back to it)

Late 2008

I believe I got a second generation iPod Touch right around when it came out, which seems to be late 2008; this is the only Apple product I ever bought. This isn’t directly about the music I listened to, but I mention this because (1) this means my interest in music began around or before this point in time; and (2) I remember the songs I put on that iPod. I am sure I listened to Queen, and pretty sure but less confident about Led Zeppelin and The Beatles.

October 2010

• Pink Floyd

March 2011

• Bob Dylan (Highway 61 Revisited)

August 2011

This is the summer before starting at Inglemoor; I remember constantly listening to Bob Dylan (specifically Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited).

December 2012

The Cure and Pet Sounds as early as this point in time.

December 2014

Discovered Fishmans, originally through a Quora answer. The full story is: on December 11 I spammed Quora with a series of questions of the form “Which Japanese bands sound a lot like X?” for various X. On December 18, Austin Do answered the question for Velvet Underground, and I’m almost certain this is what led me to discover Fishmans. I remember listening to “Baby Blue” first. By December 21, I had asked on Quora “What are the best Japanese bands that sound like Fishmans?” stat shows that I had downloaded the full album videos from YouTube by December 22 and converted them to MP3.

“頼りない天使”, “バックビートにのっかって”, and also their later albums: 空中キャンプ, 宇宙 日本 世田谷, ORANGE.

Also discovered Allah-Las, especially the album Allah-Las.

February 2015

• Taylor Swift (“Shake It Off”, “22”, “Our Song”)

May 2015

• Taylor Swift (“I Knew You Were Trouble”, “22”)

June 2015

• Taylor Swift (“Better Than Revenge”, “The Way I Loved You”)

August 2015

• Corinne Bailey Rae: “Put Your Records On”
• Norah Jones (starting around this time): “She’s 22”
• Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise OST

November 2015

• Sunny Day Service

December 2015

• RahXephon OST (the classical tracks)
• The Seatbelts and Cowboy Bebop OST

March 2016

• The Blue Hearts
• Hyouka OST (I think I watched Hyouka from March 7–23, and began listening to the OST during this period or soon after)
• RahXephon OST 3; see track listing
  • “Innocent World”
  • “Forbidden Ponds”
  • “Secret Seeker”
  • “Inner Take”
  • “Door of Adolescence”
  • “Over the Senses”
  • “Dense Blue Water”
  • “Writes Herself”
  • “Reverse Point”
  • “Second Sorrow”

April 2016

• Hilary Hahn (via Andrew Ho)

May 2016

• Final Fantasy VII OST
  • “Anxious Heart”
  • “Barret’s Theme”
  • “Oppressed People”
  • “Don of the Slums”
  • “Farm Boy”
  • “It’s Difficult to Stand on Both Feet, Isn’t It?”
  • “Cait Sith’s Theme”
  • “Cosmo Canyon”
  • “Great Warrior”
  • “Descendant of Shinobi”
  • “Jenova Absolute”
  • “The Birth of God”
  • “One-Winged Angel”
  • “World Crisis”
• Chrono Trigger OST (“Corridors of Time”)

June 2016

• Final Fantasy 3–6 OST
• Terranigma OST (“Yomi”, “Present (おくりもの)”)
• Illusion of Gaia OST

July 2016

• Radiohead: OK Computer (“Subterranean Homesick Alien”, “No Surprises”, “Karma Police”, “Exit Music (for A Film)”)

September 2016

• Girls und Panzer OST
• Ed Sheeran’s x (“Thinking Out Loud”, “The Man”)
• Neil Young’s After The Gold Rush (“After the Gold Rush”)

October 2016

• Blur, after seeing it mentioned in a Facebook comment by Sebastian Nickel. So far I like Parklife the best.

November 2016

• The past several days I have been listening to Please Please Me on loop. There is something special about this album that is not present in any of the other early Beatles albums.
• “I Don’t Want to Know” by Fleetwood Mac

December 2016

• OK Computer disc 2; these tracks seem to be listed only in some deluxe or special editions
• The Pillows: Happy Bivouac (“Funny Bunny”, “Back Seat Dog”, “Crazy Sunshine”), Runners High (“Runners High”), “この世の果てまで” (sounds a lot like a traditional Japanese song or something by the Blue Hearts that I can’t remember; I like the YO-KING version)

January 2017

The Pillows:

• Good Dreams
• Living Field
• Little Busters (“Another Morning”, “One Life”, “Patricia”, “Black Sheep”)

February 2017

• Coldplay: Parachutes
• Coldplay: A Rush of Blood to the Head (“Warning Sign”)
• OK Computer sounds really good after listening to Coldplay for several days straight. This time around, I’m liking “Paranoid Android”.
• Kid A (“The National Anthem”, “Morning Bell”)
• Amnesiac

April 2017

• Slime Girls: Vacation Wasteland (fine the first few times, but I quickly tired of it)
• Radiohead: The Bends

May 2017

• Radiohead: “Radiohead Live at Berlin - 4/7/2000 Full Audio”
• Radiohead: “Radiohead - Glastonbury 1997”

June 2017

• Radiohead: In Rainbows
• Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool
• Radiohead: In Rainbows – From the Basement
• Radiohead: “Lift”
• Radiohead: Hail to the Thief
• Radiohead: The King of Limbs
• Radiohead: Pablo Honey

July 2017

• The Pillows: Pied Piper
• The Pillows: Trial
• Sparklehorse: It’s a Wonderful Life

August 2017

• Radiohead: “Separator”
• Sparklehorse: Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain
• Sparklehorse: Good Morning Spider
• Radiohead: Milan 2017 concert

September 2017

• Mac DeMarco: 2
• Mac DeMarco: Salad Days
• The Pillows: Thank You, My Twilight
• The Pillows: Horn Again
• The Pillows: Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!

October 2017

• Fishmans: 若いながらも歴史あり 96.3.2 @新宿LIQUID Room

November 2017

• Explored the city pop genre a bit, but the songs blur together for me and I did not find any particular thing I really liked.

December 2017

• GET9: “Icy Mice (Tadokoro Kaichou no Himitsu Party)”
• Céu: Caravana Sereia Bloom
• Céu: Tropix

January 2018

• Kikuchi Momoko: “Mystical Composer”
• More city pop

February 2018

• Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92
• Cosmos:
  • Bourbon Suite
  • Can Can Can!
  • Musitopia
  • Musou Toshi
• The Pillows: Across the Metropolis

March 2018

• PilotRedSun songs

June 2018

• Boards of Canada (nothing in particular yet)
• David Parsons: Ngaio Gamelan

July 2018

• Tatami Galaxy OST

August 2018

• Etsuko Yakushimaru: Radio Onsen Eutopia
• Sōtaisei Riron: Hi-Fi Anatomia

October 2018

• I’ve been listening a lot to Rubber Soul (The Beatles) lately. This time around, I am really liking “Girl”.
• Kinoko Teikoku (きのこ帝国): I just discovered this band in my YouTube recommendations. Still too early to say if I will continue listening to them, but I am hooked on their general sound. Sort of a mix between Fishmans and Sunny Day Service, but worse than both. Still, I like it.

January 2019

• Sōtaisei Riron: Chiffonism
• Deerhoof: The Magic (HT Alex Sanchez); my favorite track so far is “Life is Suffering”
• For some reason, I am enjoying Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief a lot this month. Previously, I thought it was one of Radiohead’s worst albums (along with Amnesiac, although with Amnesiac I was able to eventually enjoy it more).

May 2019

• Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous) OST

November 2019

• Serial Experiments Lain OST – I had listened to this several times back when I watched the anime (I forget when), but it didn’t make much of an impression back then (to the point where I didn’t even record it on this page). I decided to revisit it and find it more interesting now.

January 2020

• Gentle Giant (HT Alex Sanchez) – I had heard of this band’s name, but had never listened to them before (or if I did, I forgot about it).
  • The Power and the Glory
  • Octopus
  • Free Hand

February 2020

• Sean Lennon: Friendly Fire – this album is surprisingly good (on priors, I just expected Sean Lennon to not be very good, so had avoided him; it’s only thanks to YouTube’s recommendation feature that I even listened to this in the first place)

March 2020

• “Valor Lakefront” (Pokemon Diamond and Pearl) – I got hooked on this song for a few days, listening to the extended/looped version of it on YouTube. I slightly prefer the nighttime version.

May 2020

• “TICK TACK” (Mind Game OST) – I actually watched Mind Game a few years ago, but never go into the OST then (most of the tracks are difficult to listen to). I found this track via “Best Of Masaaki Yuasa Anime OST - Chill Mix To Study/Relax To” while searching around for Tatami Galaxy tracks.

June 2020

• Weezer: Blue Album – I had heard this many years ago but recently remembered it and decided to listen to it again. It was interesting to listen to it around three times, but I quickly got bored of it.
• Theme from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• “Someone Else’s Forward Motion (Posing As Your Own)” from Synecdoche, New York OST

July 2020

• The Shins: Oh, Inverted World (HT Garden State – I only watched clips of the movie)

August 2020

• Tarkine Funk: “Incessantly” (HT Satira)
• Smuff Tha Quiz: “Dawn” (HT Satira)
• This month I’ve been listening to Revolver again a lot, and am especially enjoying “And Your Bird Can Sing” for the first time (it has always seemed to me like one of those low quality Lennon songs, but I like it now for some reason).

September 2020

• Jon Brion: “He Needs Me” (Punch-Drunk Love OST)

November 2020

• 港が見える丘 (I like the version sung by 平野愛子 best)
• Rinocerose: “Machine Pour Les Oreilles”

December 2020

• “Lullaby Set” from the Braid soundtrack

February 2021

• Sara Bareilles:
  • “Love Song” – I’d known about this song for a long time, but I’m only now getting around to really enjoying it.
  • “Bottle It Up”
• Braid soundtrack

March 2021

• Your Name soundtrack (especially “Dream Lantern” and “Itomori High School”)
• Weezer’s Blue Album again (this time I liked “Say It Ain’t So”)

April 2021

• “March Of The Swivelheads” from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

May 2021

• Soundtrack for Her (I had actually listened to some of the songs earlier but apparently didn’t record that here)
• Soundtrack for Moon (2009)

July 2021

• Gorillaz: “Clint Eastwood”
• Tekkonkinkreet OST

February 2022

• “Change” by Big Thief; HT Carolina Garza

July 2022

• Some tracks from Civilization V:
  • “Asia - To Discover”
  • “Asia - Sunset Journey”
  • “Asia - Holy Water Vessel”

August 2022

• Morcheeba: Big Calm (I like the earlier songs on this album a lot more than the later songs)
• “After Hours” by Velvet Underground (I have definitely heard this song before, but I don’t remember how I first found it; I recently rediscovered it in the trailer for The Science of Sleep and realized I quite enjoyed it)

December 2022

• From Garden State soundtrack:
  • “In The Waiting Line” by Zero 7
  • “One Of These Things First” by Nick Drake
• High School Musical songs, in particular “What I’ve Been Looking For”
• Bastion Original Soundtrack: “Setting Sail, Coming Home (End Theme)”

February 2023

• “Everlasting Love” from We Love Katamari Soundtrack; there is also an “atom remix” version that I also like

January 2024

• Sound of Music songs, including:
  • “My Favorite Things”
  • “Maria”
  • “Edelweiss”
  • “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”

May 2024

• Death Note OST:
  • “Shunjun”

History

This was originally written as an answer to the Quora question “What music does Issa Rice listen to?”

The page started out as a collection of music I like to listen to, but considering that my tastes have drifted with the passing of time, I felt it more appropriate to make it a list of music I at one point in time liked listening to.