Thanks! And yes, that's how I discovered them as well.

I've often said that anime is to 2010s Japanese rock what MTV was to 1980s western music. It's how you discover music.

My favourite Japanese band hasn't made a song for anime yet, though. ONE OK ROCK. They did license their song Vandalize to Sonic Frontiers (video game) and their song Prove to Beyblade X (anime), but they haven't been commissioned, or accepted a commission to make a song for an anime. Not like RADWIMPS, who were commissioned to do the soundtrack for 君の名は。 (your name.) and had some of the ideas in their songs influence Shinkai's writing process. (That was awesome. My favourite film, and not just anime.)

Four of your picks, The Beginning, the same as..., Clock Strikes and Be the light, all come from the same 2013 album, Jinsei×Boku=, which is the record that really pushed them outside Japan. The Beginning was the theme for the 2012 live-action Rurouni Kenshin film, and Clock Strikes ended up in the Sega game Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin!.

This one was the opening theme for the second half of My Hero Academia's third season, starting in July 2018, which is probably how a lot of people outside Japan first heard Lenny code fiction. They're a four-piece from Shiga, and the single came out that August with two B-sides, Kage ni Naru and Wonder.

clock strikes is a solid quick answer. a dozen subtitled versions of one song is a pretty kind thing for a band to bother with

The quick answer is Clock Strikes; it's my favourite song.

The best answer is Be the light, it's just such a positive song. It's one of their first that is all in English, but they made like a dozen versions on YouTube with subtitles in many different languages to reach more people. Kinda wild they wrote it for a tragedy in Japan and it has no Japanese. But the Japanese fans don't seem to mind and appear to be singing along with it. Maybe they learn English in schools over there? I know if you're in Tokyo, virtually everything is written in English under/beside the Japanese (less so the further you get from the big cities, but a little sumimasen (excuse me) and arigatou (thank you) go a long way... from what I've heard — I know about 50-60 words, but not enough to really communicate/converse).

a self-made best-of that started under 80 minutes for a CD is always going to beat the label’s version. which song did they leave off that yours can’t live without?

Yes, I saw the subtitle, and I agree — well, I like a mix of stuff from circa 2010-2013 onward.

You'd expect a greatest hits album covering only part of their career to be followed by or to accompany one covering the other part. John Mellencamp, for example, did one covering the first 15-20 years of his career, but AFAIK he never released another one. I really only love his 80s music, and some 70s/90s stuff. He sounds way different now. But if he put out a new greatest hits of just the new stuff, I'd give it a spin.

This greatest hits album only includes albums from 2015 to 2025. Most of their best songs are from before that timespan.

If you like her solo work, check out her project with Tom Rowland, TOMORA.

I think she is a fascinating artist carrying a similar torch to Björk.

that already-heard-it feeling the first time is half the fun of rock radio

makes sense. the cymbals were always the part no plastic kit could really fake

I think I read somewhere that if you had a four-piece drum kit, the tracks were accurate to how you'd play them (on Expert). Of course, you couldn't simulate a bigger drum set with just four pads, even with the three cymbal attachments.

I think I did hear it on rock radio. I definitely heard it when it was new... but I also swore (then) that I'd heard it before.

the plastic drum kit taught more people to keep a beat than a lot of actual lessons did, i'd bet. and the song library alone made it worth it

did this one get any radio play where you are, or did you find it later?

Rockband did a lot for music in the late 2000s and early 2010s that doesn’t get acknowledged much. Of course, the developer was comprised entirely of musicians. Making music better and more accessible was the whole point. They wanted to rope people in with popular tracks and introduce them to new stuff, and teach them a bit about music theory and composition along the way, while still making a fun party game and also a karaoke system. It was a rare game that was actually a bona fide game, while also being a useful application. And it printed money selling music, and it also led to mods (user generated content) on consoles.

maybe is a great example. that one sounds like it slipped out of the 90s

rock band did more for that album than radio ever did honestly

I never listened to the whole album. That song, and The Great Escape were in Rockband and we played them up there.

There have been a few songs from the 2000s that harken back to the 1990s in a good way. When I first heard Maybe by Sick Puppies, it really messed with my head. I was sure it was a song from the 90s that I'd heard before, but everyone around me assured me that it was a brand-new song (at that point).

no business having a chorus that big on a debut record. still holds up

that acoustic intro still sounds like the mid 90s in the best way

Thumbnail looks like paddy’s pub

I think the DeLorean was made famous by cocaine

Yeah, I wish life were like in The Matrix, except instead of, "I want to know Kung Fu," or however he said it, it was just "I want to know all the languages."

Languages aren't just about how to say a word differently. In English we say "hello". Germans say "hallo" which may be the origin of "hello" but I don't know. In Spanish they say "hola". In Japanese, it's "konnichiwa". (Most people know these.) But if you ask a Japanese person how they say "excuse me," they'll tell you "sumimasen." Which does not really say "excuse me." It's more like, "Sorry for bothering you, but...". It's differences like these that illustrate how a language isn't just about how to say something... they're frameworks for how to think. How to see the world. And how to describe it, and yours, to others. Some people who speak multiple languages will tell you that they have a different tone, a different internal monologue, for each language. English, and I think German, are a little more assertive, while Japanese is a little more passive.

I don't actually know any other languages, but I know a couple dozen words in a couple different languages. Not enough to be conversational, just enough to be dangerous.