As both an important addendum to my previous article and as a great preparation for the unless stream of “what’s your major/mother’s maiden name/social insurance number/music taste”-esque questions that I’ll unfortunately have to answer non-stop less than two weeks from now, I thought it would be nothing but productive to get the jump on creating a comprehensive list of what actually defines my personal music taste.

The following listing is not an exhaustive list by any means, and I’ll certainly go into more detail about each in due time. Just understand that if it is on this list, I quite like it.

Furthermore, I’ll categorize them into the different subsets of how I percieve the vibe from each artist.

(Potentially) Male Manipulator Teenage Bands

Radiohead

My favorite Radiohead albums/songs are:

• OK COMPUTER OKNOTOK
  • Paranoid Android
  • Subterranean Homesick Alien
  • Electioneering
  • Karma Police
  • Man of War
  • The Tourist
• In Rainbows
  • 15 Step
  • Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
  • Jigsaw Falling into Place
• Kid A
  • Everything in its Right Place
  • Idioteque
• Amnesiac
  • Pulk/Pull (True Love Waits Version)
  • Knives Out
  • Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box
  • Dollars and Cents
  • I Might Be Wrong
• The Bends
  • The Bends
  • Just

Radiohead is fairly difficult to rank effectively for me, but I genuinely believe that they are my second favorite band of all time. I’m unoriginal (and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t even try to be original), so “OK Computer OKNOTOK” has almost entirely changed my life for the better, especially the song Paranoid Android.

The Smiths

I’ll be honest, I feel incredibly conflicted about The Smiths. I think the easiest way to explain them is that they are one of my least favorite bands, but they have some of my favorite songs of all time. For example, The Headmaster Ritual was my most listened song of 2023 by far.

• Meat is Murder
  • The Headmaster Ritual
  • Barbarism Starts at Home
• The Smiths
  • This Charming Man (+ The John Peel Session)
• The Queen is Dead
  • There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
  • Bigmouth Strikes Again
• Hatful of Hollow
  • Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now
  • Still Ill

Others

• Mezzanine by Massive Attack
  • Risingson
• Mac DeMarco
• Linkin Park
• Slowdive
• Newfound Interest in Connecticut
• Pixies
• Alex G
• Jealous by Eyedress

The “Not Necessarily A Male Manipulator But Certainly An Angsty Teen” Genre

TV Girl

TV Girl has somewhat of the opposite effect of The Smiths to me. I could literally listen to any TV Girl song, and I would honestly rate it at least a 7/10, but despite how much I love essentially all of their songs, I can’t really pinpoint any song that I specifically think is “absolutely amazing” or anything. I think the only song that somewhat comes close to having that effect for me is 99.5 from Grapes Upon the Vine, but honestly, because all of their songs give such a similar vibe, I can’t really distinguish one that is “absolutely wildly amazing”.

• French Exit
  • Pantyhose
  • Birds Don’t Sing
  • Lovers Rock
  • Come When You Call
• The Night in Question: French Exit Outtakes
  • The Desolation Tango
  • Stay Away (It’s Like That)
  • Sleeping with the Enemy
• Who Really Cares
  • Taking What’s Not Yours
  • Cigarettes out the Window
  • Not Allowed
  • (Do The) Act Like You Never Met Me
  • Loving Machine
• Death of a Party Girl
  • Stupid Actress
  • Blue Hair
  • Legendary Lovers
• Grapes Upon the Vine
  • 99.5
  • Grapes Upon the Vine

bôa

If you haven’t been able to tell yet (from the footer, the MOTD, or likewise), I’m a pretty big fan of Yasuyuki Ueda, Chiaki J. Konaka, Ryutaro Nakamura, and Yoshitoshi Abe’s Serial Experiments Lain, and through this series, I discovered my favorite band of all time: bôa.

I genuinely don’t think any other band will actually be able to come close to the magnitude of genuinely life-changing world view-shifting effect that their first two albums, Twilight and Get There, have had on my life, and I genuinely believe that the one good thing that TikTok was able to do for the world was somehow miraculously reviving the band today for their new album, Whiplash.

• Twilight
  • Every song on the album. No seriously, ALL of them. This is what I consider to be one of my golden albums, where every single song is a bona fide 10/10.
• Get There
  • And the irony, is that not only did bôa make one golden album, but then they went back around and made Get There, which is yet another golden album.
• The Farm
  • Ambula
  • Headstrong
  • You’re Wrong
  • Disco
  • I am a Woman
  • Just a Groove
• Whiplash
  • Beautiful and Broken
  • Whiplash

2024/9/5 -> Quick note about bôa: I actually won two tickets to see bôa live in Seattle (which is about 4 or so hours from Vancouver) through a raffle held on their Discord, but unfortunately, I ended up forfeiting the tickets to another contestant because I have a Chemistry lab that day! :’(

Others

• Voyage Out by Floatie

I’m not going to lie. I feel like Floatie has successfully emotionally edged their fanbase. They released one, lone, absolutely-drop-dead-amazing album (“Voyage Out”) and then has proceeded to not release any further music. This album is one of my all-time favorites and every single song on the album is a deeply-resonating classic jam to me.

• The Gorillaz
• F Song by Strawberry Guy and Insomniac by Memo Boy

These two songs are classic depression bops. Yes, they were nabbed right out of a TikTok for-you page (don’t worry, I have absolutely no intention of continuing use of TikTok in pretty much any capacity.

• Tek It by Cafune
• to hell with it by PinkPantheress
  • Last Valentines
  • Pain
  • Just for Me
  • Passion
  • I Must Apologize
  • Break It Off
• Boy’s a Liar by PinkPatheress
• Washing Machine Heart and Nobody by Mitski
• Frou Frou
  • Let Go
  • A New Kind of Love

Soundcloud Rap Plus

Tyler, the Creator

• Bastard
  • Bastard
  • Odd Toddlers
• Goblin
  • Yonkers
  • Tron Cat
• Wolf
  • Wolf
  • Jamba
  • 48
  • Colossus
  • IFHY
  • Trashwang
  • Treehome95
  • Tamale
• Cherry Bomb
  • Deathcamp
  • Buffalo
  • Fucking Young / Perfect
• Scum Fuck Flower Boy
  • Where This Flower Blooms
  • See You Again
  • Who Dat Boy
  • I Ain’t Got Time!
  • 911/Mr. Lonely
  • November
• Igor
  • Earfquake
  • New Magic Wand
  • A Boy Is A Gun
• Call Me If You Get Lost
  • Lumberjack
  • Hot Wind Blows
  • Wilshire
  • Sir Beaudelaire
  • Blessed
  • Sweet / I Thought You Wanted to Dance

Call Me If You Get Lost is another one of my absolute favorite of all time golden albums. Every single song on this album is a genuinely amazing track to me, but of these songs, the aforementioned ones are my downright favorites.

Playboi Carti

• Singles
  • Magnolia
  • Wokeuplikethis
  • Miss the Rage
• Die Lit
  • Long Time
  • Lean 4 Real
  • Fell in Luv

M.F. Doom

Kanye West

• Graduation
• Late Registration

Everybody Else

• Kendrick Lamar
• DaBaby
• Denzel Curry
• Earl Sweatshirt
  • Riot!
  • Earl
  • ThisNiggaUgly
  • EpaR
• Eminem
• Notorious B.I.G.
• 2Pac
• Lil Mabu

Auditory Codeine and/or Loser Music and/or Psych Ward Jams.

The and/or is necessary, as there is a large amount of overlap between Auditory Codeine, Loser Music, and Psych Ward Jams. This category largely describes the kinds of chill (or violently unchill) electronic (or non-electronic) music that you largely find from having unrestricted internet access from a young age.

I’d say that this genre varies all the way from chilled out beats from guys like Nujabes all the way to raging breakcore from people like Sewerslvt, and quite honestly, I’m down for all of it.

Aphex Twin

Full disclosure, I’m not really all that much of a fan of Aphex Twin. I like his music, but I’ve never really been able to get into him as much as I probably should, even though I’ve listened to the entirety of “…I Care Because You Do”

• …I Care Because You Do
  • Alberto Balsalm
  • Acrid Avid Jam Shred
  • Wax The Nip
  • Mookid

In all honesty, I think he’s pretty good, but there are so many other artists in his genre that I find it hard to find his music particularly special in comparison.

Brian Ellis

You should start noticing a bit of a trend by now, as with almost all of these creators, I’ll only have listened to one or so of their albums, but for that one album, I’ll have listened to it the entire way through and been entirely enchanted by it. Brian Ellis is absolutely no different. I only listened to the World Pieces (Volume 2), but his composing was incredible.

• World Pieces Volume 2 -Terminated
  • World Peace

Others

• Fearofdark
• Windows96
• glue70
• Michael Wyckoff
• Nujabes (and ShingO2)
• Bladee
• Ecco2K
• ThaiBoy Digital
• Sewerslvt
• The Serial Experiments Lain Cyberia Mix
  • Duvet Cyberia Remix by bôa
  • INFANiTy World by J.J

The “Look at me! I’m so sophisticated for liking this!”

Piero Piccioni

Piccioni is hands-down my favorite composer by far, and seeing the way his music works with any piece of visual media has completely changed the sense of unity and composition that I look for in music.

My favorite works of his are as follows:

• The Camille 2000 Soundtrack
  • Easy Lovers
  • Pearl
  • Camille 2000
  • Tears in Rome
• It’s Possible

Songs for Surviving a Nuclear Fallout

• Bobby Darin
  • Mack the Knife
  • Beyond the Sea
• Nat King Cole
  • Orange Colored Sky
• Frank Sinatra
  • Fly Me to the Moon
  • That’s Life
  • My Way
• Betty Hutton
  • It’s a Man!
  • He’s a Demon, He’s a Devil, He’s a Doll!
• Bing Crosby
  • Pistol Packin’ Mama
• Dave Brubeck
  • Take Five
• Billie Holiday
  • Easy Living

..but.. what about Classical Music?

I could list some classical composers (cool ones that come immediately to mind are Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and Chopin), but to be honest, I kind of just listen to whatever I currently have on hand. I’m really not that precise with my musical aptitude that I can even honestly distinguish between Liszt and Mozart or Beethoven and Bach or so on and so forth. I just like it all a bit, I suppose.

Silly Goofy Goober Music

The Cardigans

• Life
  • This is undoubtedly one of my golden albums, but my absolute favorite 11/10 song off of this album is “Carnival”, which has been my most played song for the past three months.

Others

• Stereolab
• Britney Spears
  • Toxic
  • …Baby One More Time
  • Oops!…I Did It Again
• Fievel is Glauque
• Jack Stauber
• Jamiroquai
  • Cosmic Girl
  • Virtual Insanity
• My Spies by The Republic
• Aurora Avenue

Individual Albums/Songs

• The Entire Nichijou Soundtrack
  • Koigokoro wa Dangan mo Yawarakakusuru

High Testosterone Music for High Testosterone Men

This is far less of a categorical breakdown of music by different artists, but rather, an unorganized list of various songs fit only for people of verifiably high masculinity, as they are, certainly, incredibly masculine.

• A Way of Life by Mayumi Fujita
• Let Me Be With You by Round Table
• Puzzle by Round Table

…And then, Everything Else

Or, in better words, a set of honorable mentions of songs/albums that just can’t seem to find a proper place somewhere else on this list.