Listening Project Chapter 7

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We continue the listening project with a flurry of Japanese artists.

Makoto Matsushita was an easy inclusion into the project for me, as his beautiful album First Light (1982) is my favorite city pop album. But he also made three more albums, so I checked them out. The Pressures and Pleasures (1982) and Quiet Skies (1983) were more of the same soft city pop style is First Light, but to me none of their songs reached the same level as most of the songs in First Light, which are pillars of the genre for good reason. In 2019, Matsushita-san released a very different album from his previous work. Called Visions, it is an ambient album. I do like some ambient, but this particular album wasn’t for me, except for the first track “M 31 Andromeda”.

Mariya Takeuchi is the artist behind the legendary “Plastic Love”, the most famous and iconic city pop song. That song is most peoples’ first exposure to the genre, and is a wonderful track. Takeuchi-san has quite a few albums, and while most of the songs therein lean more towards just pop rather than city pop, I found a few gorgeous songs that I love - 3 from Expressions and 2 from Request.

Miki Matsubara is another well-known city pop artist, thanks to her hit “Stay With Me”. But like Mariya Takeuchi and most city pop artists, she has an extensive discography besides. Sadly, she is no longer with us as cancer took her far too soon in 2004, but she left behind plenty of great music. Out of her songs that I’ve added to my library, the most unique is probably “Touhikou”, which has a very dark, almost Bond vibe in the choruses.

microstar is an interesting artist that I don’t really know how to describe, as every album/EP has a different sound. While most of it wasn’t my cup of tea, the album She Got The Blues is where all of the microstar tracks I like come from.

Satoshi Bandoh is a drummer and composer who has played with T-Square since 2004, maintains a solo career, and also played on the soundtracks to Gran Turismo and Mario Kart 8. So basically, everything that’s right up my alley. I’ve known and loved one of his songs as an artist (“Every Moment”) for years, so it was no surprise to me that I found several more to love in his 3-album discography. Funky, modern jazz fusion at its best!

It’s hard to think of an artist that I would be guaranteed to love more than Masahiro Andoh. In addition to being the founding guitarist/composer/leader of T-Square, Andoh-san also wrote some of the soundtracks to the early Gran Turismo games, which were the sound of my youth and one of my biggest musical inspirations. His discography is only two albums, but they are strong albums. Winter Songs is a precious little pearl of joy and warmth.

Akira Jimbo is a drummer who most notably played in the band Casiopea, but he also has an extensive library as a solo artist. For me, while I did really enjoy a few songs, most were tarnished by Akira’s overly-showoffy drumming. It often sounded like I was listening to a drummer performing at a drummer convention, showing off as many hip polyrhythmic fills as he could in order to impress his fellow drummers. Drummers might hear it differently, but to me these constant random fills ruined the groove and never felt like they were serving the music.

TRIX is a newer Japanese jazz fusion band in the same vein as Casiopea and T-Square, formed by former members of those two bands in 2004. After listening to the complete libraries of all three bands, if I had to compare their styles in general terms it would be as follows:

  • Casiopea: Gran Turismo

  • T-Square: Mario Kart

  • TRIX: Sonic the Hedgehog

Especially with the synth patch choices, TRIX got a heavy Sonic vibe going in quite a few tracks. Otherwise, it felt like their sound was somewhere in between Casiopea and T-Square.

Based on how much I love the music of those two bands, you’d think TRIX would be a slam dunk for me. But while the arrangements and playing were just as tight, there was something off about most of TRIX’s library to me. Most of the time it was the mix that felt lifeless to me…bass too quiet and everything above sounding empty and flat. Sometimes it was the melodies, which were often boring, even amateurish. Sometimes it just felt that the band was playing it very safe. Other times it was all of the above. I did find a few songs that had none of those problems and were great listens, and those are now saved in my library alongside the many Casiopea and T-Square songs. But I expected to love a lot more going in. Oh well! We move on.

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Listening Project Chapter 6

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As we move into fall 2024, I’ve listened to enough artists for this listening project that I’ve come across a few that I just didn’t like. These won’t receive a write-up, but will eventually be included in the final list of artists I listened to in this project. With that clarification out of the way, we move right along.

PROTODOME is the artist name of Dr. Blake Troise, a researcher and musician who makes funky chiptune fusion music. Protodome’s library was a refreshing change from…well, pretty much everything else in my listening project. Four tracks really stood out to me. “Hotline Coldcall” and “New York Cheesecake” are delightful, groovy chip fusion that just makes you smile. “Nostalgia Breaks Hearts…” is a little gem that’s surprisingly poignant. Finally, “4000ad” is a real triumph - an 8-minute epic made entirely with 1-bit synthesis.

Electro Deluxe is a French fusion band that isn’t as well known as they should be. I initially discovered them through their fabulous cover of “Staying Alive”, but their library has a lot more to discover. Most notable to me is the album “Live in Paris”, where they are joined by a full big band. To me the band really comes alive in this format, and this album is an absolute jewel - like the perfect cocktail of Tower of Power and European big band jazz. I gushed about it when I first heard about it and I’ll gush here again - in my mind this album is a must-listen.

Chappell Roan has been taking the world by storm, and has become something of a patron saint for lesbians everywhere. I had friends recommending Chappell’s work very highly, so I bumped her library up the list and listened to all of it twice. The word I would use to describe Chappell the most is refreshing. It is refreshing to hear pop music with a great voice, great songwriting, great lyrics, and heart. Most pop music nowadays all feels like the same bland, formulaic drivel designed specifically to print money and nothing else. Well-produced and engineered yes, but memorable? Absolutely not. Chappell’s music is fun to listen to, it is memorable, and (most importantly) it makes you feel things.

For me, the slow songs were really what drew me in, especially on the second listen. In fact, out of my 5 favorite songs, “Red Wine Supernova” is the only one that is up-tempo. The rest (“Bad for You”, “School Nights”, “Coffee”, and “Kaleidoscope”) are slow heartbreakers or sensual love letters. When you’re in a more melancholy mood, those four songs are enchanting. They draw you into your own emotions in the exact way that you want.

With a start like this, I can’t wait to heart what Chappell Roan will create going forward.

Sadly, Sabrina Carpenter to me is more of the usual bland pop that is the vast majority of the genre. However, I did find one song to love in her library with “In My Bed”.

Listening Project Chapter 5

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We continue the project with ABBA, an artist near and dear to my heart.

Like everyone, I knew ABBA for “Dancing Queen” since I was a kid. I had also heard “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme” several times and liked it. But I never explored further until one random day in 2022, as I was working the early morning shipment shift at Banana Republic and the default Spotify playlist we had going played “Lay All Your Love On Me”. Once I got off work I HAD to hear that song again, and began exploring ABBA’s library.

It turns out that “Lay All Your Love On Me” is one of the tracks on what instantly became one of my all-time favorite albums, Super Trouper. I absolutely adore that album and listen to it often. At the time I also listened to every album before it, comprising all of ABBA’s mega hits. I found other songs to fall in love with, including three from “Voulez-Vous” and three others (including “Dancing Queen”, of course).

But I stopped there, figuring I’d listen to the few albums after Super Trouper at some point. Well, with my listening project in full swing, “at some point” has come and gone and…I have to be honest, nothing in “The Visitors” or “Voyage” was worth saving to me. There were a couple of decent songs (“Head Over Heels”, “No Doubt About It”) but I wasn’t a fan of anything else.

A shame, but I have all I need with Super Trouper and all my other cherished ABBA songs.

After this short jaunt was complete I turned my attention to an artist brand new to me: Sophie Ellis-Bextor, an English pop artist. She was the lead vocalist for indie pop band Theaudience (whose music is majorly not my vibe) in the late-’90s before going solo.

Sophie’s music is all very well-made and refined with catchy vocals - the perfect pop formula. As with most pop music there was a lot that I didn’t care for, but I found quite a few songs that I really enjoy. She started out strong with the first track on her debut album “Read My Lips”, “Murder On The Dancefloor”. This song is ultra-catchy, has a great vibe, and sounds like it should be on GTA V’s Non-Stop Pop FM radio.

Chances are I’m going to keep a song around if I find myself randomly singing it, and since I went through Sophie’s library I’ve noticed that happening with “Murder On The Dancefloor” and “Me And My Imagination”, my two favorite songs from this library. Those two songs along would make this listen worth it, but there’s plenty of other songs to love. “Heartbreak - Make Me A Dancer”, “Love Is Here”, “Bittersweet”…as I write this I’ve been going back through all of my favorites and playing them on repeat.

If you like modern dance-y pop, I can heartily recommend giving Sophie’s entire library a listen.

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Listening Project Chapter 4

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After listening to 3 artists with massive libraries and similar styles, I wanted to take a left turn for the next few artists.

First up was Opolopo, a Hungarian/Swedish dance producer with a hefty library of funky, disco-y, house-y dance tracks. I ended up saving 15 tracks. If you like funk, disco, house, and dance music you’ll probably find something to like by Opolopo. My favorite track was definitely “In the Thick of It - Opolopo Dub Remix” by Joey Negro, The Sunburst Band, Angela Johnson, Dave Lee, and of course Opolopo.

Next up was the Spice Girls. I’d only ever heard the hits and figured there was more to the group than just the hits everyone knows from back in the day. The Spice Girls’ library is quite small, and I only ended up saving 3 songs: Too Much, Saturday Night Divas, and Holler. Most pop (no matter how good the group is) doesn’t do anything for me, so this is not a surprising result. With every artist in this listening project, if I find even one song I like enough to save and put in my library, it’s worth it…but this is especially true of pop artists and rock bands.

Speaking of rock bands, after the Spice Girls I took another turn and went to Van Halen. Also a fairly short discography, but plenty of hits throughout. I saved 7 songs, some hits but others not so well known.

After Van Halen I felt like continuing the rock kick, so I turned to Boston next. The first album (self-titled) turned out to be one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. It is genuinely a masterpiece, and in my opinion a truly perfect album. I was blown away. Sadly, not a single song after this first album did much for me, but the exceptional first album is more than enough.

The Tiffany Johns Listening Project

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Finding new music to love is hard.

In an era where an impossible amount of music is at your fingertips via Spotify and other streaming services, it feels harder than ever to find music that you really love. The weeds you must wade through to find a gem are thick and stretch beyond the horizon. I spend quite a lot of time and energy trying to wade through these weeds, but it’s slow going. It’s very rare that I find even one song that I really like, let alone an entire artist.

In January 2023, I began using Spotify’s fleet of discovery tools every day, in a much more dedicated effort to find new music to love. Over the course of that year I did indeed find some amazing music and artists that I never would have come across otherwise, and I added a lot to my library. However, I eventually got to the point where any of the discovery tools kept showing me the same songs they had already shown me before, so I moved on.

About a year later, in early 2024, I had the idea to dive more into artists I already know in a methodical manner, rather than attempting to discover new songs and artists by chance or via an algorithm. I realized that even my favorite artists have a lot of music I’ve never listened to; in fact, I can only think of two artists whose entire library I had listened to before I started this project: Moonchild and Dirty Loops. Along with this, I have massive holes in my knowledge of more popular music (in case you weren’t already aware, I was a turbo nerd in high school) and have intended to fix that for a long time.

So, with all that in mind, I decided to start an ambitious listening project that would take years to complete. I went to Spotify and added the entire discography of every artist I like or want to discover into a few colossal listening playlists sorted by genre. Each of these playlists has thousands of songs, and a couple of them reached the Spotify playlist limit (9,999 songs) so I had to start a second playlist for that genre. These playlists include my favorite artists, artists who have a few songs I really like but I never explored further, artists that I feel like I should know based on the genres I listen to, and artists that I feel like I should know as a Millennial.

I will make a post for each artist when I finish their library, giving general thoughts and my favorite albums. I will also be buying physical copies of the albums I really love - support artists directly! I will also be doing a summary post when I finish each genre, and years in the future maybe an overall summary of the project when I finish them all. All of these will be linked at the bottom of this post.

One final note: I’m writing this after having already finished one artist and nearly finished another. I’ll detail this more in the individual artist posts, but I feel that it’s important to also state here that I have already felt incredibly enriched from this project, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone.

Here are my favorite albums from the artists I’ve discovered ( * = I knew the album beforehand):

  • ABBA - Super Trouper (1980)*

  • Boston - Boston (1976)

  • Casiopea - Make Up City (1980)*

  • Casiopea - Mint Jams (1982)*

  • Casiopea - The Party (1990)

  • Casiopea - Answers (1994)

  • Casiopea - 20th (2000)

  • Casiopea - Living on a Feeling ~ Casiopea Night Selection (2009)

  • Incognito - Tribes, Vibes + Scribes (1992)

  • Jimsaku - Dispensation (1996)

  • T-Square - 夏の惑星 (Natsu no wakusei) (1994)

  • T-Square w/Munich Symphony - 宝島 (Takarajima) (1995)

  • T-Square - Wordless Anthology II (1999)

  • T-Square - 33 (2007)

  • T-Square - Wings (2012)

  • T-Square - Crème de la Crème (2020)

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