Ten Bands/Artists I’m Currently Listening To

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created by the folks at the Broke and the Bookish. Each week has a different theme where participants try to come up with ten things to fit the theme.

This week’s theme is All about Audio freebie. I don’t listen to audiobooks, even though I have planned to try it out for a loooooooong time. So I turned to the other suggestion listed there. Bands. And I thought to myself, hey, this would be so easy. I fired up my Spotify app, went to my recently played artists and saw one or two bands I’m familiar with, a few more that I’ve never heard of (courtesy of random playlists and discover) and a bunch of classical composers and their cover artists (courtesy of a recent thing I had with the history of music).

Ok… So not that easy.

Thing is while I listen to a lot of music, I’m not very tied down to a specific genre or band. I tend to move around and listen to whatever sounds great (which Spotify’s discover is totally awesome for). So anyway, after some thought, I manage to cobble together the following list. Basically what I’ve been listening to lately.

 

Jay Chou

Everybody in East Asia and Chinese people outside of Asia probably has heard of Jay Chou. He’s not known as 亚洲天王(lit translation: Heavenly King of Asia) for nothing. He’s also appeared in Hollywood films like Now You See Me 2. And the posters here are of him instead of the main cast, despite his screen time. Ah, marketing…

Though his main genre is Mandopop R&B, he composes a lot of different genres and mixes them around too. Soft rock, blues, country, bossanova, electronic and traditional Chinese influenced music. He does it all. Which might be why I’ve kept listening to his songs. Some of my favorite songs by him include Qing Tian (Sunny Day) (which is the first song I learnt to play on guitar), Ju Hua Tai (Chrysanthemum Terrace) and Ting Jian Xia Yu De Sheng Yin (Rhythm of the Rain) though I prefer the version sung by Wei Ru Yun.

The video linked above is a song he composed based on a melody his four month old daughter played on a smartphone app. Includes footage of her playing at the end 🙂

 

Angus & Julia Stone

Angus & Julia Stone are a sibling folk and indie pop group from Australia. I discovered them through the Life is Strange video game (where I also discovered a bunch of neat songs like Mountains by Message to Bears and Something Good by Alt-J) and I fell in love with Santa Monica Dream almost immediately and it’s still my favorite song of theirs but their other songs are great too, like For You and Grizzly Bear.

 

Against the Current

Against the Current is a pop rock band from Poughkeepsie, NY. I discovered them while watching covers in YouTube. I think it was on Kurt Schneider’s channel? And I fell in love with their music, though I admit I never thought they would get as big as they currently are. Some of my favorite songs from them are Brighter and Comeback Kid. Fun fact: Against the Current is named for the last line in the Great Gatsby –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The Hush Sound

The Hush Sound is one of my go to bands when I don’t know what to listen to. They’re listed on wiki as an indie rock band from Chicago, Illinois. But they are signed with Fueled by Ramen at one point, does that still count as indie? I discovered them when I went through Esther Earl’s YouTube account. There’s a video of her playing You Are the Moon on piano. (She’s the girl who the Fault in Our Stars is dedicated to.) Some of my favorite songs from the band are Hurricane and Weeping Willow.

 

Zella Day

Zella Day is a singer songwriter of the indie pop genre from Pinetop, Arizona. I discovered her through Spotify’s Discover Weekly. My favorite songs from her are East of Eden and Compass which was use very appropriately for the trailer of Their Finest Hours.

 

Gorillaz

Gorillaz is a virtual band created by Damon Albarn (from Blur) and Jamie Hewlett with various guest artists. They are described as a lot of different genres, but they’re mainly alternative rock. And on researching for this post, I discovered that they have a new album next year! Some of my favorite songs from them are Empire Ants and Feel Good Inc.

 

Bad Books

Bad Books is an indie rock band and most of their members are also part of the Manchester Orchestra band. I discovered them through How I Met Your Mother (also a gold mine of awesome songs). Their song Forest Whitaker was played when Tracy first bought Ted a drink (Season 9 Episode 13). Some of my favorite songs from them are 42 and No Sides.

 

Daniela Andrade

Daniela Andrade is a… Wikipedia has failed me here. No wiki page, so no genre listed. She mostly does covers of songs with her own spin on it. I discovered her through Spotify’s Discover Weekly. She has recently released her own EP, though I haven’t listen to that yet. She’s coming to Malaysia in October! Sadly, it’s across the sea, so I won’t be able to go 😦 Anyway, I love her covers, like Heartbeats and Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop.

 

Bring Me the Horizon

Bring Me the Horizon is a rock band from Sheffield, Yorkshire. I discovered them through the React channel on YouTube. My favorite songs from them include Drown and Follow You.

 

Various Malaysian Artist

Okay, this is somewhat of a cheat, but I thought it would be fun to promote some local artists. Haha. So a while ago, I went on the search to find local Malaysian bands to listen to, and to my surprise, there’s some pretty awesome ones, so I’ve been listening to some of them since.

The journey started when I listened to and enjoyed Froya’s Uncomprehended Child which Spotify recommended to me. And then my friend introduced me to OJ Law’s Tongued Tied, Zee Avi’s Bitter Heart,  Joyce Chu’s Hao Xiang Ni (I Miss You) and Kyoto Protocol’s Jelita (Pretty) which features a cool MV linked above. And then I went back to my adolescent and dug up a few more songs to listen to like Estrella’s Stay and Bunkface’s Through My Window,  which was used in a sweet commercial of my local ISP about a literal paper boy from one office falling in love with a paper girl from the opposite building and he slides through the window using a LAN cable while holding a paperclip to reach her.

That’s top ten bands/artist I’m currently listening to. Do you like any of them? Have you any suggestion of something similar? I would love to know!