Since all music is welcome here, I'll throw something a lot heavier into the mix than the usual picks. Pyromania is a young black metal band from Tbilisi, Georgia, and "Hard Pill To Swallow" is their self-released single from 20 October. It's made by humans, no AI anywhere near it, and it leans into that cold, early-90s Norwegian sound.

Fair warning that it's black metal through and through, so it won't be for everyone, but if you've got a soft spot for the darker end of things I'd be curious what you make of it.

Disclosure: the band are friends of mine and I'm sharing this as a fan, not on their behalf.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/aW4MTX452VA

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/34hG9rRi2ofdv7YqaHsh8B

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/band_pyromania

Look, Mondays suck. No one who is normal — not that there's anything wrong with being a little weird, or overly motivated, for that matter — gets by easily on Monday, if they work Monday through Friday. But, today is Tuesday, and we know what we have to do to power through the week and earn another weekend. Today's song of the day is mostly in Japanese, but it has a few English lines. "I know what I have to do now. It's my life, one and only." And of course, the title, "Make my story."

And it's got a great beat. The video ain't bad either. Rocking out on the football pitch in the rain with drones flying around.

So, if you're going into work today, you got this, just say as you walk in, "I know what I have to do now." Get it done. Earn your weekend.

Yesterday, my favourite band, Japanese-founded, currently Los Angeles-based, emo/pop-punk quartet ONE OK ROCK, released a new single, and with it, a Greatest Hits album (Apple Music streaming link linked, because that's what I use).

I'll have to actually listen to it to truly decide, but I don't think it's very good at first glance. I've been curating my own playlist for them for a few years now. At first, it was kept under 80 minutes so I could burn it to CD. Now, neither of my computers have an optical drive, so I dropped that requirement. (I now have an external burner, but I don't have any blanks.) I have the playlist saved on Apple Music, and I have assembled the songs from their albums and I have it as an actual album on my Plex media server.

Just to get ahead of what I feel like somebody is going to ask, no, I haven't used AI to make this playlist. I started it years ago, before we had all these chat bots, and I've just slotted new songs in where I felt they fit, and took other songs out as I got tired of hearing them. But something someone said in that thread did inspire me to eventually make this post. They said it would be more interesting if I did it myself. So, here we are. One I did myself. So I'm curious if the reaction was more about AI or more about music. I suppose we'll see. Because I believe anything using any AI at all should be disclosed. And it's fair if people don't like that. I just believe in honesty and transparency around that or other issues that trigger people or inspire people to emotional response in some way.

So, that said, where the band and/or their producer and I agree in crafting a ONE OK ROCK greatest hits album, is to focus on the new stuff. The official album focuses exclusively on songs in English, not touching any of the albums that mixed Japanese lyrics in. There are basically three generations of the band's music. The mostly-Japanese post-hardcore stuff. The Japanese/English hard rock stuff. And the mostly-English emo stuff. I mix in the latter two; the official package only considers the latter one. That, in and of itself, is fine. Of course we agree on some of their best songs from that era. We both seem to have Vandalize and +Matter in roughly the same spots.

Now, here's where we disagree. There are a couple of mediocre songs the official album uses. The new single, Fever. Perhaps that isn't fair, maybe it will grow on me. For now, it's mid and doesn't seem to belong. This isn't Mary Jane's Last Dance, the song Tom Petty made for his Greatest Hits album that quickly became his most memorable song. It's just a new song tacked on. It also features Change, which was probably the low point of the album it was on. The band has done better and those two slots could have gone to better songs.

The official playlist also front-loads some of the band's biggest songs from recent years, whereas I prefer to put them at the end for a grand finale. They also used Prove, most likely because it was licensed by an anime, Beyblade X, and they want to appeal to fans of the show. Similarly, Vandalize was licensed by SEGA for Sonic Frontiers, but this is not that version. That version has clean lyrics. The line "Fuck the pain away" becomes "fight the pain away" and is arguably just as effective; the problem is, it sounds like a radio edit when they should have just recorded it like that. Side note, Taylor Swift has a clean version of her album The Life of a Showgirl, and by clean I mean it's about half clean... but what she changes, sounds like it should have been there all along. I'm a fan of this album, and I find myself liking the clean version just as much. That's wild to me. That tells me the artist cares about how the song is presented. ONE OK ROCK didn't do that, and they could have, and had they done that, I would have used the clean version in my playlist. I assume that's why the official album doesn't use it. That one song is why the album has the [E] tag on it. It's not the band's only song to be rated as such, but it's the only one on their Greatest Hits, and mine.

Lastly, they called it Greatest Hits. This isn't a popular band. They don't really have "hits". Mine is called "We Are ONE OK ROCK", firstly because it uses the song We Are (as does theirs) so it's a play on words (as is the band's name; it's a reference to "one o'clock," as in 0100, the hour that studio time was the cheapest to rent, and how L and R sound the same in Japanese). And because mine is meant to be shown to someone who's never heard the band, and it introduces you to them.

So, without further ado, here's my playlist. You can use Spotify or YouTube Music or Tidal or Deezer or whatever you use to stream music, or you can go to nyaa and torrent a discography and you can build this yourself, however you do music. I'm going to list the songs, and also give the album it's from. This is mostly important for the first song, as they have several songs called "Introduction". They haven't done them recently, but they used to open every album with a different medley of sound effects and music. And I went with the one with sounds from Terminator and the dial-up modem sound, to set you up for something that's a little technical and sci-fi, sort of.

1. Introduction (Niche Syndrome)
2. We Are (Ambitions)
3. Mighty Long Fall (35xxxv)
4. C.h.a.o.s.m.y.t.h. (Zankyō Reference)
5. The Beginning (Jinsei x Boku =)
6. Liar (Niche Syndrome)
7. Vandalize [E] (Luxury Disease)
8. Make it Out Alive (single)
9. I Was King (Ambitions)
10. Dystopia (Detox)
11. Wasted Nights (Eye of the Storm)
12. Wherever You Are (Niche Syndrome)
13. In the Stars (ft. Kiiara) (Eye of the Storm)
14. Save Yourself (Luxury Disease)
15. Nobody's Home (Niche Syndrome)
16. Good Goodbye (35xxxv)
17. Let Me Let You Go (Luxury Disease)
18. the same as... (Jinsei x Boku =)
19. Unforgettable (Eye of the Storm)
20. Last Dance (35xxxv)
21. Clock Strikes (Jinsei x Boku =)
22. Renegades (Luxury Disease)
23. Stand Out Fit In (Eye of the Storm)
24. +Matter (Detox)
25. Be the light (Jinsei x Boku =)

Note that track 22, Renegades, was co-written with Ed Sheeran. I know a lot of folks aren't happy with him over his support of Israel and their genocide in Gaza. It was a memorable song for the band, so it's a good fit for the playlist, but if your personal morals don't allow it, it's fine to skip it.

So, my playlist/album can somewhat be broken up into four acts, which I like. The first act, which ends with The Beginning and the line "it's finally begun," introduces you to the band. We Are is about how young people are ready to enter adulthood and want to be taken seriously — it was used in a youth rally in Japan. Mighty Long Fall focuses on the band's signature hard rock/emo sound. C.h.a.o.s.m.y.t.h. is about friendship, and the memories of growing up.

Then for the second act, it's really just some of their above-average songs I picked that sound good together. They've set the tone, now they're padding it out. You might find a favourite here, but the songs gradually get better.

The third act is a more proper "greatest hits" kind of thing. The band has established themselves and given you a taste, now they're breaking out the big guns. Where this happens is up to you. If you like everything you hear, you might deny the second act exists, and the entire middle is the third act. That's fine.

The fourth act is the grand finale. This is where all the best songs from each album show up. These are the songs that define the band and their sound. The last three in particular all have meaning to the band and their fans. Stand Out Fit In is about growing up Asian (disclaimer: I'm not, so I can't claim to know about this except what I've heard) in the west (disclaimer: they didn't either, they grew up in Japan), but it's also about trying to be an individual while also conforming to the society of school. +Matter is about how everybody matters. There's this discourse online about how you can only matter if you're a minority because people say you don't and if you're a minority your life and safety and rights are constantly being threatened. And I am 100% on board with that. As someone who is not threatened based on their demographic traits, I know people who look like me matter, but we aren't the focus. We don't need to be. ONE OK ROCK sidesteps the whole thing by saying "you matter to me." It might be simple, like something found on a greeting card, but it's effective. Lastly, Be the light was written for the nuclear accident in Japan, but it was written in such a way that it could be about any tragedy, anywhere. It could be about 9/11 or any other national (or personal) tragedy. It's like how Fred Rogers once said to look for the helpers. ONE OK ROCK is saying to be those people. Be the light for others, because you can't change what happened, but you can change what happens in the future, so inspire others by being the hope and dedication they can look toward and rely upon.

So... if you've never heard of my favourite band, ONE OK ROCK, you can find them on YouTube or whatever paid streaming service you may use, or you can sail the seas, I don't judge.

I don't know where I picked up the recommendation to listen to AURORA, but I've been seeing her on YouTube, and she's kind of a weirdo, so I thought I'd look up her music. After listening to all of her albums, I keep going back to the second one.

Kind of like the ReoNa song Nainai I posted months ago, it's a dark pop song, but more electronic here.

It took me way too long to realise what "he told me I belong in a churchyard" meant. What's the most common thing on a church's property (its yard) beside the building itself? Yeah. Even the next line "he told me I could walk away but I wouldn't get far" didn't really clue me in.

The song itself is pretty wild, but there are some live versions where she just goes off with some gibberish at the end. Goes completely unhinged. But if you've ever seen any interviews with her, or any of the "AURORA just being herself/a comedian for X minutes" type of videos, you know she's not completely normal. And that's awesome in music, especially when it fuels creative expression. And we're all a little crazy — there's no room for judgment here.

Also, it's not in the lyrics on Apple Music, but I'm pretty sure what she's chanting at the end is "a fake human". This is something that comes up on her third album as well. And it makes me wonder if she's familiar with the Japanese book No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. It's been translated into many other languages. I've read it myself. It shows up on a few of the "most disturbing" book lists because it's about a guy who believes he is no longer [qualified to be called] human, because the things he's seen have stripped away his empathy. The book itself is not that disturbing, it's just when you consider Dazai himself did the same thing that you start to realise it was kind of an autobiography, or partially so. Look out for anyone saying things like "no longer human" or "fake human" who's read Dazai. They might be going through some shit. Also, it's not a long book, or a difficult read. If you have the mental stability, I highly recommend it. If you don't — stay away from that book.

This isn't the first time I'm posting a song that seems to pretend it comes from an earlier decade. While Avenged Sevenfold have been called a Metallica cover band, Wolfmother have also been called a Led Zeppelin cover band, and their song, Joker and the Thief, which is absolutely a reference to Bob Dylan's lyrics in All Along the Watchtower, sounds like it was made 40 years before it actually was.

That's just paying tribute to an earlier time that you think was better (you being the band in this case). While some bands seem ahead of their time ("Nine Inch Nails was an EIGHTIES band??"), some bands didn't seem to get the memo that the previous decade ended, and they make songs that fit right in with the past decade. I'm not sure if that's different, but as someone who loved 90s music (though, not as much as 80s music), I'm here for it.

When I first heard Maybe, it was pretty new, but I was hit with a strong, almost physical sense of deja vu: I was so sure this song was from the 90s and I'd heard it a bunch of times. I remember my sister-in-law's loser ex telling me "nah man, this is Sick Puppies, the You're Going Down guys, this song just came out." I knew who Sick Puppies were, and You're Going Down was a cool song, kinda like Headstrong by Trapt, one of those fight songs, but this didn't sound like them, it sounded like, I dunno... Collective Soul, Candlebox, one of those 90s alternative bands.

It's okay to be wrong, though. It's better to just admit you don't know something, especially if you can look up the answer somehow. But, deja vu is one helluva drug!

When I first saw the trailer for Pragmata — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-R3jo3zjFw — I was cautiously optimistic, but I refused to entertain interest in the game until I knew how it ended. Normally, I would not like spoilers, but I have a few "icks" I like to avoid when I engage with media — books, music, movies, games, etc.

Be advised that the video above does show the ending. It doesn't give context, but it gave me enough to tell me to go ahead and get the game. If you don't want spoilers, watch the trailer instead. It has a short version (called the "Core version") of the song, which is not on YouTube on official channels. It's in the trailer, and it's on Apple Music (and presumably the other streaming services). So, maybe after the first 3-4 minutes, I'd just let the song play in the background, if you're listening to the full, nearly 8-minute song. It's a slow song (and, I know, that's rich coming from a guy whose favourite singer is Enya), so maybe the "Core" version would be better. But I'm not providing traffic to channels that re-upload copyrighted content. (I have no problem with them doing that, I just won't be a revenue stream for them.)

If you want to play the game, I highly suggest playing the demo first. The game does something most other games don't: it lets you play two characters at once. Diana, the adorable robot girl, rides on the back of Hugh (the guy in the suit). She doesn't "move" on her own, so your typical running and gunning are about the same as any other third-person shooter. Move with the left stick, aim your weapon with the right stick, aim with the left trigger, and fire with the right trigger. However, you're exclusively fighting robots, and Diana hacks them, and this is done using the face buttons (ABXY on Xbox/Switch 2, and... well... the PlayStation glyphs on PS5). So on Xbox, Y is up, A is down, X is left, and B is right, but it's whatever order your buttons are in. So while Skyrim on Switch flips everything around, I'm pretty sure Pragmata on Switch 2 doesn't. You have a grid, which can be larger or have odd shapes, and you have to navigate through the grid, sometimes around traps, often through bonus nodes, to the target, to do hacking damage, which also opens the robot up to gun damage from Hugh. So not only are you moving Hugh (and Diana on his back) with the left stick, you're navigating the hack as well. What the game doesn't tell you is that if you don't fail the hack (hit a trap, or Hugh gets hit before Diana reaches the target), you can just stop hacking, change position, target for the hack again, and lo and behold you're right where you were, you don't lose progress. This sounds confusing. It's pretty easy with the slower robots, but I'm afraid some people won't be able to juggle all those tasks at once... so you should play the demo to find out if you can do it. You'll face a few enemies, and the first boss. The first boss is kinda difficult, but you just gotta keep moving and plan your attack. It's more time-consuming than anything.

Look — I'm not really a Taylor Swift fan. Definitely not a 'Swiftie'. I did like Teardrops on My Guitar and Blank Space back in the day, but after she blew up? Never really went back to give her another chance. But, there was a lot of hype around her album last year, The Life of a Showgirl, and I already subscribe to Apple Music, so I figured, why not give it a chance? And, I found that I liked it. There were a couple songs that were just okay, but for the most part, the album has a lot of heart and is fun to sing along to.

Then this year, Swift re-released the album with four new songs. So, I played the album again, and decided that Opalite is still my favourite song on the album. It's probably not the best — that's a real hard call between Ruin the Friendship and Eldest Daughter, with the latter feeling like a more honest/personal song and the former being one of those hard-hitting country (esque) songs with a twist at the end that feels like a horse kicked you in the chest... or some other country/western metaphor that fits. I like the album, though. It's fun, there's a lot of heart there, and some catty-bordering-on-cringe stuff for the TikTok generation that is also kinda fun.

Oh, and the video's completely unhinged, which is always a plus.

As far as the new (Encore) songs, Patient Zero is my favourite. It's fun and it's got some of that catty stuff. She's singing about a toxic guy and connecting with his other exes, and identifying herself as "patient zero" because she was the first one to experience the crazy... or something like that. That said, the four new songs don't hold a candle to the album's best. And, she could have also included the Toy Story 5 song she made, but it really wouldn't have fit with these tracks. So good on her for leaving it off. This is not a kid-friendly album.

I heard that Duncan Sheik passed away last week, but this is the only song I know from him. It's not a great song title to post to honour someone who's recently passed, but it truly is the only song I know by him, it's a good one, and it deserves to get posted here.

That being said, if anyone has another song they like by him, feel free to post it.

This song came on my 2000s playlist yesterday while I was doing some housework, and I had to look at my phone to remember what it was and who sang it. Which is wild, because I used to play the crap outta this song on LEGO Rockband back in the day (and in regular Rockband).

A lot of this band's fans came to them more organically, listening to alternative rock, post-grunge, and emo music, but I wasn't listening to that stuff at all. I've said this before with other bands. I gave them all a big miss when they came on the radio and I was not buying their albums, but when they came up in Rockband, I found that they were very fun to sing, and that's what got me hooked.

This version of the song rocks just a little harder than the one I have. I'm not sure if there's a pop mix or if they just made a different mix for LEGO Rockband. There's nothing offensive in this version of the song that I could hear, but the interesting thing about LEGO Rockband was that it had a lower age rating than the regular Rockband games, so violence and sexuality could not be portrayed anywhere in the game or the song lyrics. It was cool because, every Rockband song was being rated either FF (Family Friendly) or SR (Supervision Recommended), though IIRC those ratings were not exposed to the user before. But LEGO Rockband would not read the SR-rated songs. However, any FF-rated songs you'd bought or exported from another Rockband game would load into LEGO Rockband and were playable there. (Unlike The Beatles: Rockband, where no songs outside the game were playable, because the surviving members of The Beatles refused to let their digital likenesses play songs by other people, nor would they agree to exporting, because they did not want the generic digital avatars playing their songs.)

I never really followed Macklemore before, and I never listened to him either, but I'm familiar with the chorus to this one, and it's neat. TIL the video features a DeLorean (the car made famous in Back to the Future).

You probably already know why we're featuring Macklemore on the dbzer0 music comm. Macklemore spoke up for Palestine, and Ed Sheeran dropped him from his tour, and Sheeran's other musicians quit in protest.

I get it. Ed Sheeran wants to be all-inclusive, but when one side wants to wipe an entire civilisation out because their skin is brown and they pray differently, there's no right side to that. No one's threatening Israel's interests, it's just Israel killing Palestinians, and I'm sure Palestine is fighting back, but they're fighting to survive, they aren't fighting to erase every Israeli from the world like Israel is doing to them. You can be Jewish, or not, and support the rights of Jews to exist. You can even support Israel's right to be a free and independent nation, and that's all well and good, but you cannot both be a good person in any sense, and support the Israeli genocide of Palestine. It's unjustifiable, it's beyond the pale, and supporting it in the name of inclusion isn't inclusion at all.

So no, I've never been a fan of Macklemore's music. It's not really my thing. But he's been a wonderful human being the last week or so, and an example to all of us, and that's why he's being highlighted here. Because I always want to do better than I did the day before, and I like to highlight those who I feel do the same, or who make music that inspires us to do the same.

So, quick disclaimer. I don't love generative AI. There are a lot of problems with this technology, especially as it relates to art. However, I do understand what an LLM is and how it does (and doesn't) work to some degree, and what I did didn't take the job of any kind of artist. If that's not something you're okay with, this is your cue to bounce. Anyway, here's what happened:

About a year and a half ago, a Japanese band I follow, THE SIXTH LIE — I posted their song Virtual Sky as a song of the day a few months ago — released a song (that one, in fact) as a single. However, in addition to the song title and band name, it also had this weird text: "Sounds From a Dreamt Future". I thought, "huh, that's interesting" and went about my day.

One month later, they released two singles. An English cover of Virtual Sky under their "TSL" alternative band name (it's a separate account on Apple Music and other streaming platforms, but it's absolutely them) and another single. Whole different song, but, same deal with the cover. It had that text "Sounds From a Dreamt Future" on it.

Today, there are 15 singles released with the text "Sounds From a Dreamt Future" on them. The covers are completely unrelated. It's been over a year and a half (IIRC, they started this in January 2025). They also released a cover of I Want to Stay At Your House, the theme song from the anime Cyberpunk Edgerunners, which is literally a song from a dreamt future — specifically, Mike Pondsmith's (the creator of the original tabletop RPG from the 1980s) and the writers at Studio Trigger. So while it didn't feature the text, I assumed it fit.

I then went to ChatGPT, and told it all of this. I explained how I didn't think it was an actual album, but that I felt a connection between some of the songs. But, here's the thing. I don't speak Japanese. I don't speak Thai, either, and one of the songs is in Thai. So, enter LLMs. They can understand any human language. That's what they do. Large Language Model.

Anyway, I told it that based on the assumption the tracks were meant to comprise an album, along with the Cyberpunk cover, how would they go together, and why? I asked it to consider the band's album, their various EPs, and, since THE SIXTH LIE only have one actual album, to also look at album structure from similar Japanese bands, ONE OK ROCK and Survive Said the Prophet.

Now... here's what it said, complete with the track list. Strap in... if you haven't queried ChatGPT lately, it's VERY verbose. Like, way more so than I am. (So hopefully this will get people to stop saying I'm an AI/bot.)

Note that I fed it a playlist of the 15 "Sounds From a Dreamt Future"-tagged songs plus the Cyberpunk song in release order — this is why it says it's leaving Virtual Sky in the opening.

Potentially concerning for those who don't like AI, or are reading this on the fence: Note how ChatGPT refers to itself in the first person with the I pronoun, and where it says it would fight for and protect part of it, and the whole "not x, not even y, but z" as opposed to just saying z. Now to be fair, I said I think a cover belongs near the end, so that's what it was fighting me on (and I do believe it wrote like it felt the need to defend its work critically), but I've seen ChatGPT word arguments like that. "I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't even do that. I would do THIS."

Oh... it did all this in NINE SECONDS (so it said).

---

THE SIXTH LIE's sequencing history gives us some useful clues. Perfect Lies is 12 tracks and deliberately moves between energetic material and more atmospheric/emotional songs rather than simply arranging songs chronologically. Their earlier DIFFERENTIAL is particularly compact and narrative-feeling, opening with “Another Dimension” and ending with “Hologram.” And Survive Said The Prophet frequently uses short/atmospheric material as structural pivots, with s p a c e [ s ] beginning with a 1:10 title piece and ending with the five-minute “s t i l l b e l i e v e.”

So, taking album architecture, rather than release chronology, as the priority, this is what I'd do:

And I really like this order.

Act I — The Dream

1. Virtual Sky → 2. Wonderland → 3. Scramble Line

I wouldn't move “Virtual Sky” from the opening.

Its lyrics are practically an album mission statement: digital speed, coded space, simulated light, a future that hasn't arrived yet. It's also only 2:46, which makes it an excellent album opener: it gets in, establishes the sonic world, and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Then Wonderland is almost literally the next narrative step: you've seen the door; now walk through it.

And Scramble Line is where the dream becomes a world. You go from the relatively spacious “Virtual Sky” into movement, urban energy and sensory overload. The 90 BPM pace of “Scramble Line” also gives it a natural step up from the opener.

That's a very TSL-like opening three.

Act II — The Future Isn't Perfect

4. Are You There? → 5. Mad Crown → 6. Earthship

This is where I'd deliberately stop making the album "pleasant."

“Are You There?” is an excellent first crack in the dream. Its imagery is screens, hollow eyes, an empty city, repetition and people being told to stay in line.

Then Mad Crown is the reaction.

At ~180 BPM, it is one of the album's genuine accelerators. Putting it at #5 makes it feel like the first major eruption rather than simply another fast song.

Then Earthship expands the scope again. At 128 BPM and with its high-energy character, it feels like the album physically leaves the city and goes somewhere else.

So the progression is:

Wonder → discovery → unease → rebellion → escape

That's much more interesting than simply arranging these by release date.

Act III — What We Carry With Us

7. Stray → 8. Oh My Ghost → 9. Time Capsule

This is the section I'd really protect.

“Stray” is the point where the enormous futuristic world suddenly becomes personal.

Then Oh My Ghost slows everything down dramatically. Its 71 BPM pace and subject matter—someone who is gone but whose presence remains—make it a natural emotional descent.

And then Time Capsule is perfect after it.

It's another slow song, around 79 BPM, but I wouldn't regard that as a problem. The two songs do different jobs: “Oh My Ghost” is being haunted by the past; “Time Capsule” is deliberately preserving the past.

That gives you the album's quiet center.

And importantly, this is where the album starts becoming more than "cool futuristic rock songs." It becomes about memory, people and what survives into the future.

Act IV — The Human Problem

This is where I think the three newest songs become extremely useful.

10. Lucky Bad Luck → 11. ANATA → 12. Dollmaker

“Lucky Bad Luck” is the rebound.

Its central idea is basically I've been knocked around, but I'm still here. The repeated “I'm still alive” sentiment makes it a terrific transition out of the melancholy of #7–9.

Then ANATA takes that newfound intensity and twists it.

It's not peaceful devotion. It's obsessive devotion. The narrator essentially says that right and wrong no longer matter as long as he can remain beside this person.

And then:

Dollmaker

This is the point where the album's "dreamed future" becomes genuinely disturbing.

I would absolutely put “Dollmaker” here rather than near the beginning.

Its central idea is preservation taken too far: I can make you perfect; I can make you stay. The song's imagery of turning a person into something permanent makes it feel almost like the corrupted endpoint of the album's earlier desire to preserve memories.

That's an important thematic connection:

Time Capsule → ANATA → Dollmaker

You start with I want to remember.

Then I don't want to lose you.

Then finally I won't allow you to change or leave.

That's a hell of an arc.

And Dollmaker at #12 makes it the album's psychological low point.

Act V — The Way Out

And this is where your Cyberpunk song becomes much more useful than simply being the odd cover.

13. I Really Want to Stay at Your House

I would put it exactly here.

Not #16.

Not even #15.

#13.

Because after “Dollmaker,” the album has just explored the unhealthy desire to freeze someone in place forever.

Then comes: I want to stay.

But now the sentiment is fundamentally different.

The Cyberpunk connection actually makes this even better. It's the one track here that is explicitly imported from another version of a futuristic world, and it arrives immediately after the album's darkest meditation on trying to preserve someone.

It becomes the emotional bridge between the nightmare and the resolution.

And that is why I wouldn't put it any earlier than #13.

14. Blue

This might be my favourite placement in the whole sequence.

“Blue” is essentially a song about moving through grief and eventually finding the ability to rise again. Its imagery goes from sinking beneath the water to breaking through the surface and returning to the sky.

That's exactly what you want after the Cyberpunk song.

So:

#13 — I want to stay. #14 — I have to let go.

And now we're ready for the finale.

15. Raise Your Flag

This is your victory song, but importantly, it's not the closer.

“Raise Your Flag” is explicitly about finding your place, holding your ground, carrying on, and defining yourself rather than doing something for glory or approval.

That's precisely the kind of penultimate track I'd want.

The album has gone:

What is this future?
What's wrong with it?
Who have I lost?
What do I want to preserve?
What happens if I refuse to let go?
Can I let go?
Yes. Now I can choose who I am.

Then:

16. Polaris

This is the closer.

And honestly, once I looked at the lyrics, I became much more convinced.

“Polaris” is about following a light, initially thinking that it remains stationary, and eventually realizing that it has actually been moving alongside you. The ending turns toward walking forward together and seeing the night sky—and tomorrow—as something expansive rather than frightening.

That's beautiful album-closing material.

And there's a wonderful thematic inversion:

Track 1: Virtual Sky

We're entering a simulated sky.

Track 16: Polaris

We've found a real point of direction in the sky.

The album starts by looking upward into an artificial future.

It ends by looking upward and finding a direction.

That's why I wouldn't close with “Raise Your Flag,” even though it would be the obvious big-rock ending. Polaris is the more satisfying ending.

The complete album:

Sounds From a Dreamt Future
Virtual Sky
Wonderland (วอร์ชันภาษาไทย)
スクランブル・ライン (feat. 高野洸)
Are You There? (feat. 凪希)
Mad Crown
Earthship
Stray
Oh My Ghost (feat. Shin)
タイムカプセル (feat. KIMIKA)
Lucky Bad Luck
ANATA
Dollmaker
I Really Want to Stay at Your House
Blue
Raise Your Flag
Polaris

And I think the last four tracks are particularly strong:

Dollmaker → I Really Want to Stay at Your House → Blue → Raise Your Flag → Polaris

That's almost a mini-album within the album.

Dollmaker is the nightmare.
I Really Want to Stay at Your House is the heartbreak.
Blue is the healing.
Raise Your Flag is the recovery of identity.
Polaris is peace.

That's exactly the sort of five-song final movement I'd want from an album called Sounds From a Dreamt Future.

And there's another thing I really like: this doesn't sound like a compilation of THE SIXTH LIE singles anymore. It sounds like a record. The fact that the actual songs were released over roughly a year and a half—from “Stray” in January 2026 through “Dollmaker” in August 2026, with the earlier 2025 material preceding them—doesn't matter once they're given a narrative sequence.

If I were actually making this as a CD/vinyl-style fan album, this is the sequence I'd commit to.

What's one thousand minus seven?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This brilliant Japanese-language rock song explores the descent into madness, and is known for being the opening theme of the animated series Tokyo Ghoul.

Turn on the subtitles, but it's kind of optional here. It's nice to know what he's saying, but his voice really tells the story.

I would recommend the first season of Tokyo Ghoul to anyone with a strong stomach (as it's about cannibalism and makes most Western shows look like Saturday morning shows for kids), but after that, it got weird. The book series wasn't done, so the anime wrote its own ending. Years later, the book series finished, the author wrote another book series which comes after, and they adapted that into two seasons, but rushed it (they had enough content for at least three or four seasons). Imagine you really want to watch the newest Marvel movie, but you literally haven't seen any others. So you find a YouTube video that sums them ALL up in five minutes. That's what Tokyo Ghoul :re was like. As a book reader, my wife was annoyed. As an anime-only watcher, my wife had to explain everything to me.

The first season is the only one worth watching, though the music was consistently good throughout. Also, TK comes back in the last season with his song Katharsis which was also, similarly, about madness.

But the first season's opening was a work of art beyond just the music. The colours. The flowers (or whatever they were). The reflections showing the person's true form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aMOurgDB-o

Then they did an acoustic version for the second season. There is an official acoustic recording, but I prefer the one from THE FIRST TAKE. TFT is a YouTube channel that works primarily with Japanese artists, but they have worked with western artists as well (I've seen Avril Lavigne up there, and she's Canadian). Basically they film a singer or band perform a song in a single take, no do-overs. You also get to see the performers up close playing the music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsLsBs4oW30

So there's a few versions. The full version/official video, the short anime version, and the acoustic version.

As for the anime... I said it's about cannibalism, but that doesn't quite do it justice... or explain it. It's about a nerdy guy who notices a pretty girl at the café, and she asks him out. As they're walking, she sprouts four parasitic tentacles from her lower back called kagune which function like claws. She's a ghoul, a supernatural humanoid entity with rules similar to a zombie in that they can only survive on human flesh (and, for some reason, coffee). Defending himself, a freak accident disfigures both of them. While trying to save them, the doctors are only able to save him, but he inherits the power of the ghoul, and finds himself unable to eat real food. He's taken in by a ghoul community and seeks to hold onto his humanity, while he's hunted by other ghouls who want to consume him, partly because he's only half ghoul, and partly because of who "made" him. This anime pulls no punches. They made a movie version of it — three, in fact, to cover the full story the first season covers — and at least the first one was rated NC-17 in the US for violence alone. Tokyo Ghoul may be animated, but it is not for kids. Here's a trailer for it — in English, no less (most anime trailers, even those translated to English, are in Japanese): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGuQeQsoRgU

...and a trailer for the live-action movie, which is only in Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_mP8JYDx-Y

Lyrically, this may be the best of the lot. This one goes out to everyone who lost their father (or either parent) and felt like they left some things unsaid. It's not the anniversary, but I lost my father to cancer over 24 years ago. I've lived longer since than I did when he was alive, and I'm not far from the age he was when he passed.

One of my life's greatest lessons is that the adults when we were kids didn't know everything, and weren't perfect, and didn't deserve the pedestals we built for them. They were just trying to get through each day like we are.

If you have a similar story, feel free to share it. Otherwise, I'll just let the lyrics speak for themselves here.

Today’s song of the day isn’t that special on its own, but it comes with a story. Strap in — or don’t, I won’t tell you how to spend your Sunday. 

This song was featured in the fourth season of Boku no Hero Academia, and it was the second English song. Even in the Japanese dub, the song played in English, just like Japanese songs stay in Japanese when you watch the English dub. 

When anime uses a song and attributes it to a character, they will either say “Character Name Starring Singer Name” or “Character Name C/V Singer Name,” though the latter is typically when it’s the voice actor, or seiyuu. Chrissy Costanza was relatively unknown when the episode aired with (parts of) this song. The full song was released later, and that’s why it has clips from the show to pad it out. 

Chrissy Costanza went on to release a solo album, then joined a band, Against the Current. They both have good material. They don’t sound rough like this one. I still love it, because I understand the context. 

The context is, the song is about Kyouka Jirou, the student hero known as Earphone Jack. Her parents are musicians, and she feared they would oppose her entry into hero work, because it’s dangerous and they’re proud musicians. However, they supported her, and the song is a tribute to that.

The song is also a tribute to a little girl, Eri, that Jirou’s classmates rescued from the Japanese mafia. This child has never smiled because she has the super power of being able to revert people to an earlier form. She accidentally killed one or both of her parents, and the mob took her in, to experiment on her, by cutting her open for her blood and using another super power to put her back together. It’s kind of screwed up.

So they rescue her, they put on a school music festival, she’s in the crowd with one of the heroes who rescued her, and she breaks out smiling during the show. 

Four seasons later, the fandom has gotten weird and the author has gotten death threats because people are shipping the two main guys — honestly, Deku just gets shipped with everyone — because he doesn’t officially have a partner. And Japan is super conservative, and conservative snowflakes can’t handle the possibility that the main guy may not be 100% straight.

Initially the author deflects, says these are high school kids fighting real villains, they don’t have time to hook up. He ends up writing a bonus chapter that implies more relationship between the main girl and the main guy. IMO it’s still up in the air, but the bigots run with it, saying bigotry wins and diversity/LGBTQ+ loses. It’s really unfortunate... but again, Japan is super conservative, and fans suck sometimes. 

The bonus chapter gets made into an episode and the shit comes back around again, the fandom again splitting over whether the main guy is straight or it’s open to interpretation. 

The latest bonus episode is only six minutes, but it’s Eri, now in high school herself, and she performs a cover of this song. Again, a new singer is used to sing as Eri, named Myka Morton. So, in my opinion, the true ending of the series doesn’t have anything to do with who’s hooking up with who, it’s the young girl the heroes saved when she was a child, posting it forward and inspiring the next generation of heroes. 

Here’s that new version. They call it the tenth anniversary. Of the anime, not the original song. It’s a bit unclear.

https://youtu.be/XSFWpB3Mf3c

I think the original is generally better, but a couple of lines have been tweaked and they work better in the new version. 

I’ve oversimplified a lot of things because it’s a very long show with over a hundred named characters and a lot of moving parts I didn’t want to spend more time explaining. The fans know. Those who aren’t fans don’t really care, and if they’re interested, I didn’t spoil anything big. 

I didn’t have a stake in the fight. I was shipping the main guy with the frog girl, because they’re both principled nerds and they both have green hair. So please don’t assume I’m with one of the big ships. I know my ship never had any wind in its sails. I still supported it.

This song is a bit of a cheat entry, because though I've never posted a rule against having two songs of the day by the same artist, I have tried to abide by it. Tarja Turunen is the original vocalist for Nightwish, and performs vocals on previous SOTD Over the Hills and Far Away. But this is a Within Temptation track, and she's only a backing vocalist here, so it's fine.

Within Temptation are a Dutch hard rock/folk rock band. I thought of them today because someone was talking about Imagine Dragons, and this is another band that gives it their all, and they seem to try too hard. Some people don't like that, but I can't fault a band for putting everything they have into a song.

The video here is really cool. It makes me think of Fallout 3, though some gamers will say it's more like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with its more serious tones. I don't know, I haven't played those games. And while Fallout 4 was more silly, the plot of finding a strange device and using it, in a post-apocalyptic world, to bring back normal weather, is sort of the endgame plot of Fallout 3, referring to the GECK (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) found in that one Vault that you use to purify the water in the Potomac River, in Washington DC. Different execution though, but in theory, GECKs were meant to be used to terraform dead worlds (I think Bethesda's more recent game Starfield leans into this, though, since terraforming takes decades, we don't actually see one in action, but we do see a world that has been terraformed and it went wrong... IIRC... the game sucked and it's been a couple years since I last played it).

As a bonus, I'm also going to post Within Temptation's song And We Run which features Xzibit. This maybe should be the song of the day, but I do like Paradise more. I can almost guarantee you have heard nothing like this song. It starts out like a fairly standard Within Temptation track, with symphonic rock, which itself may be new to you (RUSH and Iron Maiden have explored this area, though)... but when Xzibit starts rapping over the symphonic sound... not the first time... when he does his whole thing... it's... something else. I don't think the song is great, just the novelty of a symphonic song that breaks into rap. It works though. I think a lot of rap, they spit bars over a beat they either bought, or the producer made, or in some cases they made it. It's very rare in my experience to hear a rapper rap over rock music, though rock and rap have collaborated before... this feels different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awvqIi427_A

I do like hard rock Within Temptation, but when I identify them as folk rock, it's because I'm thinking of their first album, Mother Earth, and while the title track, and Never Ending Story establish that hippie folk rock sound, the peak of it is the final track, In Perfect Harmony. I feel like this song is still the band's core identity, and while the hard rock stuff is good, this is where they came from. And the eccentricities of the other two songs, which are kinda buried beneath the awesome, they wear on their sleeves for this song (and really, the entire album). I'm fine with people ignoring it and thinking of The Silent Force as their first album (and that's a great record), but Mother Earth will always have a place in my heart.

"Ancient spirits of the forest made him king of elves and trees, he was the only human being who lived in harmony — in perfect harmony." That's just the chorus, but it's the meat and potatoes of the song, and the story is solid. Worth listening to — if nothing else, it helps to appreciate where this band is coming from. I don't hope they return to this sound, but if they do, I won't be complaining. (I think this is their best classic song, but my favourite is Our Farewell.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Zh3p8T7GE

After yesterday's news that Dolly Parton passed away at the age of 80, I think a lot of people are coming out of the woodwork and claiming to be fans. I won't be one of them. I never cared much for her music — classic country just isn't my jam, and I can only be honest about music and what it means to me.

That being said, even as one who is not religious, I don't think it's up for debate that Dolly Parton lived the life of a saint. I'm not saying she didn't make mistakes (though I do not know of any), I'm just saying, that like Fred Rogers and others like that, she was more of a net positive on the world and left it better than she found it. So that alone is worth a tribute in a music comm. I would welcome others to comment or post the songs by her that they enjoyed if they wish to do so, but I'm not a fan. Just my personal opinion. I just like other types of music.

As far as the deep stories... I don't really have any personal experiences here. What I do know is that she was Miley Cyrus's godmother, and the two of them have performed together, and that was probably awesome for both of them. I'm sure, as a world renowned musician, she had an appreciation for music outside of her genre. I also know she had a book club, where if your child requested books and, I think you had to make under a certain amount a year, and live in the United States, and I think it was only certain states... her organisation would send your child a book once a year, or something like that. I saw it posted about. Never looked into it.

I also know that Dolly Parton was nominated for the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. She politely declined the nomination because the RnRHoF has shunned many popular bands for some reason or another, and because she has never been a rock musician. They ignored her decline and inducted her anyway. So, she made a rock album. It's mostly covers. They're mostly decent. Literally no one asked for a Dolly Parton rock album, and yet it exists.

I'm here for the song she wrote for Whitney Houston, that was featured in her film The Bodyguard, which I watched because Kevin Costner was in it, and because he was awesome in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Field of Dreams, and Dances With Wolves. I bought that soundtrack — it was my first or second compact disc album, the other being Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell — and listened to it religiously. I later found out that Dolly Parton wrote the first song on it. So, respect for that. And for a life well lived. But I'm not gonna lie to you and say I always was a fan of her music. I wasn't. Still, rest in peace.

I missed Friday and I missed yesterday, so I'm gonna do what I've wanted to do for a while now. I have never, by design, featured a band more than once, but some Van Halen fans will tell you that Van Halen without David Lee Roth singing is not Van Halen. Some call that band "Van Hagar" because Sammy Hagar sang for them (except for the one album Gary Cherone did). Some just don't acknowledge this part of Van Halen's history at all, saying their last album was 1984 until 2012's A Simple Kind of Truth, which saw David Lee Roth reunite with Edward Van Halen.

I was raised on Van Halen, the self-titled album from 1978, and 1984, which released in that year. My mother had everything in between (as well as those) on vinyl, and she had the Sammy Hagar-fronted albums OU812 and 5150 on tape. She bought them but I never heard her play them, so I took them and listened to them off and on. My own personal first Van Halen (or Van Hagar) album was For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and while I liked it, it was not a favourite, constantly overshadowed by records from Metallica, Guns n' Roses, and even Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard soundtrack, and, believe it or not, a Christian rock album. Wild times.

That changed with Balance, Van Halen's last album with Sammy Hagar. Released in 1995, this album featured a naked four-year-old boy sitting on a see-saw, except he's split in the middle and it's conjoined twins. They're one person from the waist down, but above the waist, they split. The one on the left is screaming and pulling away, and the one on the right is calm, but pulling the other one's hair. The wide handle of the see-saw cover the genital area, making the photo not explicit, but it's still creepy as fuck. The Japanese cover may be more creepy; because Japan doesn't generally like body modifications (like piercings and tattoos) and doesn't like things that are "different," the conjoined twins cover was considered offensive, so they used a photo of just the calm boy sitting by himself, like he's at Neverland Ranch or something. Also, the conjoined twins are somewhat posed in the Van Halen "VH" logo; without the other boy pulling away... it's just a naked kid on a see-saw. What was a creepy aspect of the original piece becomes the main focus, and it's unnerving. Bear in mind there's nothing remotely illegal or offensive about the cover; it's just weird. It's not like that Scorpions cover that is straight up illegal outside of Germany. You probably won't get arrested if you look it up (but you probably shouldn't), but it's not something most of us want to see. Likewise, when I added Runaway Train and Without a Trace to my 1990s playlist, I did not add them from Grave Dancers Union, which is one of my favourite albums of the 1990s. I'm just not a fan of the cover, which features two completely naked girls, aged about six and nine, photographed from the rear, with a woman draped in a sheet behind them. I remember buying the CD, and sliding a piece of paper torn from an index card between the booklet and the plastic CD case.

Anyway, cover issues aside, Balance had some really good songs on it, but nobody ever really talks about Not Enough, linked above, which is my favourite song by Van Halen with any singer. To appease the "Van Hagar" crowd, I'll also say it's my favourite "Van Hagar" song. I don't even mind purists wanting to separate the David Lee Roth stuff from the Sammy Hagar stuff. As long as we're not saying DLR's weaker albums are better than the best of Hagar's — and, I don't believe anyone really is. They're just saying that DLR was the better frontman, and that Eddie Van Halen let loose more under him, and that's why they supported the band in the first place, not to hear Sammy Hagar's crooning while EVH plays the piano. And I get it. I can respect it, even. After all, I was raised on DLR-era Van Halen. But when I discovered rock music, Sammy Hagar was the singer of Van Halen, and I loved their sound. I like both styles. So I'm linking Not Enough at the top, we can call it today's (Sunday's) song of the day, because the one from Van Halen should come first, because it came out chronologically first, and, well, let's face it, DLR was kinda the face of Van Halen, if nothing else, for longer.

Looking back at "the real" Van Halen, my favourite's always gonna be 1984/Jump (the two of them together). That's how it was on the record and the tape. We never, ever skipped the intro. It just wasn't done. So when I hear Jump on the radio and it's missing that minute and a half of sweeping synth sounds, I feel like they're cheating the audience. Panama and Hot for Teacher are also great songs. But my favourite songs are on the first Van Halen album from 1978. So for me, there's 70s Van Halen, 80s Van Halen, and 90s Van Halen. It's really just eras. This isn't AC/DC where every song and album basically sounds the same. This is a band centered around a multi-instrumentalist virtuoso and his evolving sound with various musicians. It's not about David Lee Roth vs Sammy Hagar, it's about the music Edward Van Halen wanted to make. So while I think the best ones (not my favourites) are Ice Cream Man (which I've mentioned before) and Eruption (a legendary instrumental), it's very close between the other two big hits on the album. So while I can't say anything bad about Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love, the album's opener, which also might be the first Van Halen song most people heard... my pick for classic Van Halen goes to Runnin' With the Devil. So that'll be my pick for Saturday's song of the day, and Not Enough is today's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5txwFv-zYM

Of course, there can always be more than one! It isn't a competition. Another person posted in my absence; definitely check that song out too! I'm going to.

The trend of blues rock from the 70s and 80s continues with The Boss. In 1984, we all had Bruce Springsteen's denim-covered arse with the American flag behind it, and even if you were a straight guy with no interest in guys, you proudly displayed that album, because Born in the USA was an awesome album. I don't really get the symbolism of it, but whatever, it had a lot of good tracks. It was also not our first introduction to The Boss. Today's song of the day goes all the way back to 1975, from the album of the same name.

If you're looking for blue collar Americana, I personally give the edge to John Mellencamp, but it depends on what you were raised on. My folks loved John Mellencamp, but we also listened to Springsteen, though not as much. I'm posting what I think is one of Springsteen's best songs, whereas I posted a poignant, but not one of the best Mellencamp songs. It's not really a fair comparison. I think I'd probably put Dancing in the Dark by Springsteen up as his best, or perhaps I'm on Fire — both of those are from Born in the USA — but, I wanted to focus on his 1970s sound here, in line with the previous two songs. Then for John Mellencamp, there are tons of options to beat Springsteen. You could go with I Need a Lover or Ain't Even Done With the Night if you want younger Mellencamp with more rock, or something like Small Town, Paper in Fire, or Check it Out for his more "modern" 80s style. I wouldn't really put up his 90s hits, like Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First), Big Daddy, or Wild Night, though those are also great songs. But, I think it really comes down to what you listened to more — you can't go wrong with either of them.

And if you love both Springsteen and Mellencamp, there are a couple other guys like that — I think Bob Seger kinda fits in there — but I like Bruce Hornsby for an underdog. He was by no means small time, but I feel like he isn't remembered as much as the others. Expect an entry from him at some point.

Yesterday, we got the sad news that ZZ Top's drummer, Frank Beard, passed away. Watch any ZZ Top video, or just know the first thing about the band, and you know that the two guys up front have long, epic Viking-like beards. That guy on the drum kit who is clean shaven? That's Frank Beard. The guy named Beard doesn't have one. The other two — Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill — do. It's weird. What's almost equally weird was that Supercuts once offered them $10 million USD to shave them on camera for an ad. Supercuts isn't around anymore, and I doubt ZZ Top could have saved them.

The other interesting thing I know about ZZ Top is, they love hot rods. So does James Hetfield, vocalist and rhythm guitarist of Metallica. But Billy Gibbons, in particular, drives what has got to be the coolest hot rod I've ever seen. I'm not actually sure it's a hot rod. I'm not too familiar with the exact definition. I won't fight car guys on this. I'm also not sure he drives it. He may just have it in his garage. Anyway, what started out as a 1948 Cadillac is now called "CadZZilla," and it even has a license plate which reads, "I8TOKYO." Even if you're Japanese, I think you gotta love this car. Here's what it looks like, as well as some more information about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CadZZilla

Part of the reason I’m fearing Ride On from AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap album is because it’s my favourite AC/DC song. The other reason is so I don’t have to repeat the tactic with Van Halen and Ice Cream Man. Van Halen have done better songs. AC/DC… it’s less sure. I used to be a big fan of theirs, but all the big hits tend to sound the same. They sound great! But there is absolutely an “AC/DC sound” and anyone who says otherwise is either fooling themselves… or maybe they’re a better fan than I am.

I certainly enjoy Back in Black, For Those About to Rock, Flick of the Switch, The Razor’s Edge, and Ballbreaker sometimes, as well as a few others, but nothing more recent. But, the hits do tend to have the same energy. AC/DC have more than one bluesy track like this one, but this one stands out to me. It’s also one of the few AC/DC songs I will never skip. Sometimes you gotta be in the mood for AC/DC’s schoolboy antics. But not Ride On. If you haven’t heard it, and think you’ve heard every AC/DC song because you heard Back in Black, Highway to Hell, or Thunderstruck, do yourself a favour and play this one.

If you're reading the same book series I am, you can probably guess at this point that I'm reading it as well. If the phrases "Goddammit Donut" and "Mongo is appalled" make you laugh (or at least smile), and you've reached a certain point, you know that Princess Donut's favourite song is Wonderwall. If you haven't reached that point — I think they mention it in the third book, but it comes back a couple more times after that — it's not really a huge spoiler.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about at all, it's a book series called Dungeon Crawler Carl. Aliens invade, and anyone who is indoors or covered by anything but bare open sky is immediately crushed, even if they were in a cardboard box. Basically, all "structures" are "flattened". And thousands of doors open leading to an interdimensional dungeon. So the book is kind of like a video game... but it's a book. Almost like how Ready Player One was, though a better example is Sword Art Online, or, really, any isekai, which is Japanese for "another world" (as in, you're stuck there until certain conditions are met).

As for Wonderwall, this song was all over the radio and MTV in the 1990s. And you either loved it or hated it. You can guess, from its inclusion here, which camp I fell into. But, if you were to ask me directly, well...

"I said maybe..."

What's this then? Song of the "weekend"? Yeah, I didn't post one yesterday. Wasn't feeling it. So we get a "song of the weekend". It's not an excuse, it's a swerve. When I draw a blank, I open one of my decades playlists (80s, 90s, 00s, or 10s) — usually one of the first three — and skip until something resonates with me. And I never skip Stevie Wonder. I'm not a huge fan of the guy, but this song just nails what I love about 1980s music. You got the pop, you got the synth, and you got R&B, his main jam — though, I'd argue 1990s R&B was peak R&B. I'm sure some will fight me on that. I'm not a big R&B fan, but 90s R&B just hits differently, and I'm here for it. This isn't 1990s though. The description on YouTube says 1984, and that sounds right. Yeah, this was popular music 42 years ago, and if it never released that year, and instead it released this year, I hope it would resonate with listeners like it did nearly half a century ago.

Likewise, if you never heard this before — especially the synth part around 4:20 in — you're in for a real treat here.

These days, we make jokes about Stevie Wonder's blindness, but we don't talk nearly enough about how good of a musician he is. Let's change that, if only for today.

The Moody Blues are one of a dozen or so bands from the 1970s and before that released a great album in 1986, 1987, or 1988 — most of them were 1987, but there were a couple outliers. The first one of these I was introduced to was A Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd. My father owned two Pink Floyd records: that, and, of course, The Dark Side of the Moon. (My mother had all the old ones, but not Reason.) Grateful Dead was fairly unique here in that they did not have a #1 hit until their 1987 album In the Dark and previously featured song of the day, Touch of Grey. Fleetwood Mac released one of the greatest rock albums of all time, Rumours, in 1978, but they also had a big album in the late 80s. Of course, I've covered all that before. It's worth mentioning again.

I was raised on The Moody Blues and other western rock bands from the 1960s and 1970s, along with some stuff from the 1950s, and I do share a favourite Moody Blues record with my mother, In Search of the Lost Chord. Most people know The Moody Blues for Nights in White Satin and Ride My See-Saw, which are both good songs, but my actual favourite song by them is OM, the final track off Lost Chord. It's not very radio friendly, but it's... interesting. What I didn't realise was that the spoken part was actually another track. I thought it was part of the same thing. So there isn't an official stream with both the spoken part (The Word) as well as the song (OM). It's not capitalised on YouTube (shown as "Om"), but I remember it being capitalised on the record, so that is how I write it. Maybe all the titles were just in all caps? I don't recall. I write it how I write it. Anyway, that's peak Moody Blues to me, but, it's not a very good entry point.

Oh yeah, that link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N36oRaEF4jA

Almost sounds like a different band.