Back when I was a young boy, I listen exclusively to boy bands. Backstreet Boys, Westlife, 911, and many many more. Also whatever famous popstars that were famous around the late 90s/early 2000s. The Britney Spears, the NSyncs, Five, etc.... I believe my first encounter with rock music is when my brother bought a bootleg album of Blink 182's self title album. (Of course prior to that, I've listen to some Queen, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, whatevs, but it was usually from those compilation album so there's really no cohesion in the album, just a bunch of rock superhits one after another)
The opening of the album still gives me chills. It also gives me a warm comfortable feeling, because I'm so damn familiar with the album already, and it is one of the things in the world that I know I truly love. The self title album is also one of the only 6 albums I listen to sleep. Strangely enough, I don't listen to those soft classical music to sleep, but rock instead. Those albums are:
- Blink 182 - Blink 182
- Green Day - American Idiot
- Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
- Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
- Arctic Monkeys - Suck It and See
- Arctic Monkeys - AM
In all honesty, there's only 3 band right there, and American Idiot isn't exactly a soft rock kind of sound like Suck It and See.
The first original (not bootleg) rock album me and my brother owned I believe was Linkin Park's Meteora. Oh yeah, by the way, back in my home country, bootleg albums are extremely common. These copies are like 10% of whatever CD stores are selling, so they cost as cheap as a bowl of noodle soup, while an original disk would cost as much as 10 bowls of noodle soup! So logically, as we're both little boys at the time, our parents wouldn't buy us some expensive CDs, because obviously we kids cannot appreciate such things. (We already owned the bootleg copy of Hybrid Theory by the way)
At the time, my brother and I were huge fans of Linkin Park (and still am, RIP Chester Bennington, you will be missed). We watched lots of MTV and channel V (another music channel), but we watch mostly channel V, because even back in the 2000s, MTV has more tv shows than music. We did watch lots of Punk'd and Pimp My Ride though! But I digress, I believe it was around 2003? I was just on one of these music channels watching music videos while listening to them, when suddenly an extremely foreign music video showed up. It was Linkin Park's "Somewhere I Belong". I was screaming at the living room, screaming for my brother to come. At that time, I have no idea that bands would release singles before they release the albums, so I was super excited and also super confused. Also, the Pts.Of.Athrty music video is really cool. My little boy brain can't handle how cool it is, and I still find it super cool.
After that, it was the emo phase I believe. The My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boys, The Used, Panic! at the Disco, all those kind of things. Honestly, they kind of come and go. I don't listen to them as much as I used to, maybe just their hit songs here and there.
Around my secondary school years, I started watching lots of British TV series. From there, I got introduced to lots of them British bands. The Inbetweeners used the intro of Fluorescent Adolescent in of their episodes. I don't really recall what other bands are there, but from here on now, I discovered what I think is peak Rock n Roll. I know what I'm about to say would be sacrilege to some, but I think the sound of Oasis is what Rock n Roll is. My housemate, who's a fan of Queen would probably hate me just from stating that, and whoever else that read this line I guess, but it's just what I feel. I don't hate Queen, or Guns n Roses, or whatever other superbands of the pre millennium, heck I do listen to them, I find them really nice, but Oasis to me is just on another level. I tried to find more music that is similiar to Oasis but It just eludes me.
Until one day, I started watching anime. Personally, I think FLCL is as special as the anime movie, Your Name. I know that's going to sound weird, but hear me out. What these two have in common is that the soundtrack is entire composed by a rock band. The Director of both of these shows also change the scenes according to the music. So instead of picking music that fit the scenes, they pick the scenes that fit the music. It's a small difference but it plays a huge major role in execution. This means that scenes and the music are in sync, as though they were kind of made for each other. And Unlike Baby Driver (where the movies are also made to be in sync with the soundtrack), the soundtrack of these 2 animes were solely made by one artist (respectively); The Pillows and RADWIMPS. So not only there is a certain cohesion in the scenes, there's also cohesion in music in terms of the whole series. FLCL the anime itself is a mess (the good kind of mess). Anybody who says they understand what the hell is going in their first viewing are liars, it was deliberately made to be a mess, but the music though, it's basically Japanese Oasis. Strangely enough, the songs I love most from them are not those that sound like Oasis, but like a hybrid of Oasis and some other band, so the video underneath, what I believe, is a mix of Oasis and The Strokes.
Of course, these are not just all the music I listen to. In between, I listen to loads of alternative and indie rock. During secondary school, Britrock is not the only rock I've encountered. Thanks to FIFA 13 and the new app at the time, Spotify, I listen to loads and loads of indie. Vampire Weekend, Two Door Cinema Club, Bombay Bicycle Club, lots of clubs I realized. As you can see, I was "That Guy" back in secondary school. But you see, seeing as I'm not from the West, "That Guy" does not exist from where I'm from! Which makes my social status in secondary school even more muddled, because I don't fit in perfectly in most of the groups. My oh my, if only there were movies telling me that young adults doesn't have to be sorted in specific groups around that time, oh well.
After that, in College it was the rise of EDM and Psychedelic Rock I believe. College was the time where Avicii, Zedd, Hardwell, and that one 3 Swedish EDM band that was constantly on the radio, Swedish House Mafia. These are the more mainstream ones that were played in the radio. Psychedelic Rock that was popular around that time was Tame Impala. I don't know the rest because Tame Impala was the top and anything else was just like secondary music bands that people kind of look for themselves. Tame Impala never made it to Malaysian radio I believe, but it was one of those bands that everyone knew. It's considered the cool kids music at the time I guess. Car rides are usually blasted with the hard beats of Steve Aoki and immediately followed by the mellow beats of Tame Impala. And of course there are other genres of music, most specifically, that indie pop Lorde-esque music that shot up around that time. I never really got into the Tame Impala craze, because I think it got too repetitive. They repeat the chorus like 4 times rather than just ending the song, I know it's a bit hypocritical for me to say this because Oasis have songs where they repeat the chorus for like a whole 3 minutes continuously , making the song 9 minutes long, but who said that was one of my favourite songs?
I want to embed either my favourite Vampire Weekend song or my favourite Two Door Cinema Club song, but I guess I'll just embed one of them and link the other one. Just click on the band's name if you wanna hear the other favourite song of mine from the other band.
Anyway, speaking about Spotify... Around that time, I've constantly listened to only the bands I knew. I wanted to know more music, but I don't want to listen to whatever random music, I wanted to listen to new music similiar to the music I listen to! Queue Discover Weekly. Upon following my own Discover Weekly playlist (Your weekly mixtape of fresh music. Enjoy new discoveries and deep cuts chosen just for you. Updated every Monday, so save your facourites!), my oh my it's a whole new world of indie and alternative rock.
There are so many amazing songs I didn't know exists. Oh yeah, I know it's a bit late, but before you click on any of these links for music, for the best experience, it's TIME TO PUT DIE EARPHONES ON-
I don't know why too, my Discover Weekly started having songs from other language and countries. From there, I started listening to some Spanish music, some French music, some Italian music... Not all of them are rock though, but those that are rock, most of them I absolutely love them. If you're interested in hearing them, I'm gonna link it to you in this bullet list.
- Some French Canadian rock
- Some Italian indie rock
- Malaysian rock baby!
- Some Mandarin Rock
- A legendary Cantonese rock song
Lately, I've been watching loads of anime, which means my Spotify history has lots of those poppy anime music. A few months ago, my Discover Weekly has been filled with poppy bubblegum J-pop. But as time goes on, Spotify somehow realized somethings, and started having more J-rock. Thus, a new era has dawn. I'm listening to lots of new J-rock now. I think maybe it's cause of how Japanese words are made up, which makes the inflections in their songs more similiar of those Mandarin songs I listen to back when I was young, but the rhythm and the music is still very much rock. A common misconception among my friends is that all Japanese songs are from anime, therefore its totes uncool and totally for weebs and stuff. Well some of them might be, but not all of them are. This song is not from any shows from what I could find, but I absolutely love it. I think it's one of the most played song on my playlist for this year right now. Sure, I may not understand what on earth the guy is singing about, and I don't think I successfully found any English translation of the lyrics, but you could feel it. Just give it a try.
While this other one is from an anime called "The Tatami Galaxy". The art style of this anime is not conventional anime (none of those moe eyes). My housemates thought I was watching a YouTube video rather than an actual show, because I must admit, it does look some YouTube animation kind of video. But whatever, check out this song which is the OP for this show.
Now going back to some English rock tunes. I wanna talk about the Arctic Monkeys. No, I'm not going to talk about their latest album "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino". Instead, I'm going to talk about their least popular album, "Suck it and See". Suck it and See was pretty unfortunate in my opinion, in that it is a follow up of an extremely great psychedelic rock album "Humbug". Humbug to me feels gritty, visceral, kinda primal in a way, like there was no leash. When I say unleashed, I don't mean like a BEAST MODE 200bpm heavy metal track of sorts, but more.... or better yet, less civilized of sorts? The lyrics could be kind of stalker-y and the vibe it gives off is not the most comfortable. It's a strange feeling but it's absolutely amazing. That album gave us what I think is AM's best track, Cornerstone.
Right after Suck it and See is the absolutely boss AM. The one with "Do you wanna know?" and all that jazz. The one most people are familiar with. Suck it and See kind of went with the Rock Ballad direction. The lyrics aren't really like, Humbug, where it's kind of maybe rapey? It was sappy, there wasn't any spectacular riffs or awesome hooks. I admit that the entire middle tracks of Suck it and See is my least favourite songs of all of Arctic Monkey's music (excluding Tranquility blah blah blarghhguhh), but it starts and ends amazingly. I totally recommend listening to the last three song of the album as though as it were one song. To me, it feels like it continues the story of the previous songs that way. A few of the songs in the album has acoustic versions that comes in the form of a soundtrack for a movie that the lead made the soundtrack for. Most of the album I think should be heard continuously, and not as a single track. Just feels better that way. But if there is a song, I think it should be Black Treacle.
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This is a damn long blog post, I think I could even talk more but I think it's time. This is something, as you can tell, something that I absolutely love. I wrote this blog post while listening to the songs I linked and embed here, and most importantly, I wrote this post with a smile on my face. I hope you guys would give these songs a listen. I want you guys to experience something I truly love, and hopefully you'll fall in love with it too. If you don't like it, I don't blame you, it's probably not for you, but all these are kinda me? I don't know, I don't do this often? What is this? I don't know too, but THIS. AAAAHHHH, it's hard, it's difficult, but I digress, I hope you enjoyed this piece, as this piece was truly a piece of me.
Isn't it strange that throughout this entire piece, you should realized that Oasis plays a big part in my life (in a way), but there's not a single Oasis track linked? Yet, not even a "So here's Wonderwall" joke. Well then, I try not to disappoint, so here's not Wonderwall.
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