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:

(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)

Time period Music
2007 or 2008 (?) Queen
before 2016 I mostly listen to mainstream Western music from a few decades back: Bob Dylan1, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Kinks2, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Velvet Underground (roughly in that order). Jean Michel Jarre, Jean-Luc Ponty, mostly through my father.
2013 or 2014 Sidi Touré, Detektivbyrån
2015-12 (?) to 2016-02 (?) Sunny Day Service (band): “aitakatta shoujo”, “baby blue”, 曽我部恵一BAND「魔法のバスに乗って」

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

March 2011

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

May 2015

June 2015

August 2015

November 2015

December 2015

March 2016

April 2016

May 2016

June 2016

July 2016

September 2016

October 2016

November 2016

December 2016

January 2017

The Pillows:

February 2017

April 2017

May 2017

June 2017

July 2017

August 2017

September 2017

October 2017

November 2017

December 2017

January 2018

February 2018

March 2018

June 2018

July 2018

August 2018

October 2018

January 2019

May 2019

November 2019

January 2020

February 2020

March 2020

May 2020

June 2020

July 2020

August 2020

September 2020

November 2020

December 2020

February 2021

March 2021

April 2021

May 2021

July 2021

February 2022

July 2022

August 2022

December 2022

February 2023

January 2024

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.


  1. “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”, “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, “Visions of Johanna”, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”, “Just Like a Woman”, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”, “I Want You”, “Highway 61 Revisited”, “Ballad of a Thin Man”, and many more.↩︎

  2. I really enjoy Ray Davies’ cynical worldview. See songs like “Sitting in my Hotel”, “Supersonic Rocket Ship” (I read this as an indictment of modernity’s populism/PC culture: “Nobody’s gonna travel second class / There’ll be equality / And no suppression of minorities”), “Celluloid Heroes”, “Waterloo Sunset” (okay, this one is just sweet), “Apeman”, “Autumn Almanac”, “Little Miss Queen Of Darkness”, “People Take Pictures of Each Other”, “The Hard Way”, “Afternoon Tea”, “Wonderboy”, “I’m On An Island”.↩︎