torachan | Entries tagged with 100 things

Oh man, this is what I get for not paying attention to new music that much. I had no idea Amuro Namie had a new album out, but she does and it's AWESOME. *_* The last single I heard of hers was Break It/Get Myself Back, so almost the entire album is new-to-me material and it's all great!

I liked Past<Future pretty well, but the compliation album that came after that was a real disappointment (I loved Wonder Woman, but that was the only song off it I liked), so I was hoping that album was just a blip due to being stuff she did with other people rather than solo stuff, and I guess it was.

This new album actually has quite a few songs that are entirely in English, which I think is a first? (I know she's had some very English-heavy songs before, but not this many and not entirely English.)

Amuro Namie - Uncontrolled
Favorites: In the Spotlight (Tokyo), Naked, Sit! Stay! Wait! Down!, Hot Girls, Break It, Let's Go, Fight Together, Only You

Man, I really wanted to be more on top of posting when I started this thing but I guess that's not going to happen, so whatever. XD Have some songs anyway. This is a random collection of stuff I recently downloaded and can't stop listening to.

Mika - Elle Me Dit, Tah Dah, and Love You When I'm Drunk
I have been in a Mika mood lately and basically just been listening to him non-stop a lot of the time (in fact, the other day I was just listening to Tah Dah on loop for a couple hours). Ugh, his new album is so good, but these are probably my top three songs on it. At first Love You When I'm Drunk was my very favorite, but I think Tah Dah has stolen its spot. It is the best.

Metric - Help I'm Alive and Give Me Sympathy
This is one of those bands where I think I'd heard the name a while back but never heard anything by them? Then I heard Help I'm Alive on Pandora a few times and really liked it, so I downloaded the album it's on and there are some other good songs, too! Including Give Me Sympathy, which I also really like a lot.

Green Day - 21 Guns
Green Day is one of those bands that I just never really clicked with. I like a handful of their older songs, but this is the first song of theirs that's really, really grabbed me. To be quite honest, I could just listen to the part where he sings "one, twenty-one guns" all by itself over and over again for a very long time. XD

Imagine Dragons - It's Time
Alexander sang this at karaoke when we went last and it was vaguely familiar and I liked it. Since then I've heard it on Pandora a couple times and I downloaded it because I really liked it.

One Direction - C'mon, C'mon
I like What Makes You Beautiful so much I finally got around to downloading their albums to check out more of their stuff and was kind of disappointed with the album that song is on, but their other album is really good! I think this is my favorite off it, though.

Ne-Yo - Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself)
Another Pandora discovery. The lyrics make me side-eye so hard, but damn, it's just so catchy! (LOL This song and What Makes You Beautiful together would be like the perfect Nice Guy mashup.)

My Chemical Romance - Ambulance
I don't know if there are any My Chem fans out there who don't know they're releasing new songs right now, but if you don't, hey, they are releasing two songs a month of stuff they recorded before Danger Days but never released. The first batch didn't grab me at first (though I've since warmed to them), but this song from the November release grabbed me right away. It's so good!

Alexander and I went karaoke today and I sang a lot of great songs! So since I haven't done a music post in what feels like ages, here's what I sang today.

1. Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss)
This is such a fun song! A lot of stuff by female vocalists strains my voice too much (including some of Pink's other songs), but this was good. I will definitely be singing it again.

2. Fanatic Crisis - Freedom
I love Fanatic Crisis, but never sing anything of theirs at karaoke because I never remember which songs I know well enough to sing. But this time I was making a list before hand and put this one down. I will have to try more in the future, because his voice is definitely in my range.

3. Wham - Freedom
When Alexander saw the Fanatic Crisis song in the queue, he asked if it was Wham's Freedom, which prompted me to put this in, too. This is too high for me and it was the very end of our time, so I had no voice left anyway and I basically laugh-sang my way through it, but it was fun.

4. Concrete Blonde - Joey
Yessssss. This is such an awesome song, and one I never would have thought to sing if I hadn't been going through my favorites in itunes beforehand. Go me for making a list!

5. Jimmy Eat World - Pain
I rocked this song. Good range for me and fun to sing.

6. Kuroyume - Pistol
I sang this last time we went and realised it was really just perfectly in my range and I can sing it well, so now it will be on permanent rotation. XD

7. Marina & the Diamonds - Primadonna
This was the only song they had by her, but it's my favorite and the one I wanted to sing, so happy happy. Way high, but high enough that I could easily sing lower in my natural voice, so it worked out great.

8. NEWS - Sayaendou
I love this song and it's fun to listen to, but I didn't know it was well as I thought I did.

9. OAR - Shattered (Turn the Car Around)
omg another permanent rotation one. XD Wow, this song is so perfect for me. The thing is, I have a decent voice, but really limited range and anything out of this very narrow range sounds thin, but with this song my voice sounded really full and I was just like damn, yes. I need to sing this more! XD

10. Coming Century - Stay Gold
Old school Johnny's! This song is super nostalgic for me as it came out right around the time I started listening to jpop and I can so clearly picture them performing on Music Station and the horrible outfits they wore. N'aww. Fun to sing, too.

11. Backstreet Boys - Straight Through My Heart
As I said to Alexander, this song is the best because DRUM MACHINE. Drum machine makes everything better. I like to stand and bounce around when I'm singing, so yes. Drum machine. (See also: the Coming Century song above.) We also sang Shape of My Heart, but I only know the chorus, so it wasn't as fun.

12. Bryan Adams - Summer of '69
Always a fun song to sing.

13. One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful
Haha, yes, I have no shame (as if you couldn't already tell by many of the above song choices). The lyrics is ridic, but it's so catchy and so much fun.

14. Mr. Children - Youthful Days
I put this on my list because it's not one I've sung before. There are like five million Mr. Children songs and it's overwhelming to choose and I can't remember which ones I know well enough, so I always sing the same handful of songs. This was a fun one to try (and I did know it well).

15. Bowling for Soup - 1985
Alexander sang Teenage Dirtbag and we were getting all nostalgic over the references (Iron Maiden! IROCs!), which made me remember this recent discovery of mine and I was pleased to see they actually had it. Yay for more nostalgia! It's also super fun to sing.

16. Bruce Springsteen - Dancing in the Dark
Oops, almost forgot about this one. And it's another one I wouldn't have thought of without making a list beforehand, since I don't really know/like any other Springsteen songs enough to sing, so I would just skip past his name altogether.

The Killers are one of my very favorite bands, so I was really excited when I saw they had a new album out. It didn't grab me much at all on first listen, but after three or four times I was hooked.

The Killers - Battle Born
Favorites: Flesh and Bone, Runaways, The Way It Was, Here with Me, The Rising Tide, Heart of a Girl, Battle Born, and Prize Fighter.

Oh hey, I just remembered that the new Pink album was coming out soon and checked to see if soon was now yet and it was! I hadn't heard any of the songs on it before except for Blow Me (One Last Kiss), which a couple of the Pandora stations we use at work have on heavy rotation. Overall I like the album pretty much!

Pink - The Truth About Love
Favorites: Are We All We Are, Blow Me (One Last Kiss), Just Give Me a Reason, True Love, How Come You're Not Here, Is This Thing On?, Timebomb, The King Is Dead but the Queen Is Alive

(The italicised ones are my top-top faves, though nothing is quite as good as Blow Me, which has become one of my all-time favorites of hers.)

Today I happened to hear one of the songs below on the way home from work and it reminded me how much I love when newer Johnny's songs have some of that good old school Johnny's sound.

I couldn't possibly do a post with all my favorite Johnny's songs. I tried that once before (one of my very first daily happiness posts, in fact) and was just barely able to get it down to 100 favorite songs. XD But I imagine I'll have quite a few different Johnny's-themed posts for this 100 Things series.

If you're not familiar with Johnny's, they're Japanese boy bands all put out through the same production company that's been cranking out boy bands since the '60s. I like the stuff from the '90s best and I haven't kept up with a lot of the newer stuff that's been coming out, but here are six more recent songs that have the Johnny's sound that I love.

1. Arashi - Sakura Sake

2. Hey! Say! JUMP - Chance to Change

3. Kanjani8 - Musekinin Hero

4. KAT-TUN - Haruka na Yakusoku

5. NEWS - Ai wa Simple na Curry Rice

6. V6 - Honey Beat

Have some more random stuff I heard on Pandora at work and liked enough to download.

1. Blink-182 - All the Small Things
This one I have actually been hearing and liking for like six months but it was only recently that I managed to be at the computer at the time it was playing to see the title and artist so I could download it at home.

2. Bowling for Soup - 1985
Never heard of this band before, but this came on the other day and the lyrics caught my notice. It's a catchy song and nostalgic for those of us who get the references.

3. One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful
Yeah, the lyrics are ridic, but it's catchy and I'm a sucker for a catchy tune.

4. Fun - We Are Young
This is another one I'd heard for a while but only just the other day remembered to write down the info (this is much easier now that I'm sitting at the desk where the radio is playing!).

5. Band of Horses - The Funeral
Another band I've never even heard of, but the song is very pretty.

I didn't even realise there was a new Hamasaki Ayumi album out this year until very recently and I just finally got around to listening to it tonight. It started off really good, but the second half is not so much my thing, which is disappointing. :-/ I wasn't thrilled with her last album either, and even less so with the mini album she released between the two.

Still! There are some good songs on here and I five-starred several.

Hamasaki Ayumi - Party Queen
Favorites: Party Queen, Shake It, Call, Reminds Me, Tell Me Why

Oh wow, oops. It's been a while since I made one of these posts. Somehow the time just keeps passing so quickly!

Well, this is not going to be the most imaginative post, but hey, it's something. Tonight I am listening to Mr.Children's Shifuku no Oto album and it is just one of those albums where every single song is five-starred and I would give them even more stars if I could and I just have so many feels about it guys. So many feels. The music is beautiful and, as is usually the case with Mr.Children, the lyrics are awesome, too.

Mr.Children - Shifuku no Oto
Favorite songs: Paddle, Tenohira, Hero, Tagatame, Hanakotoba

Since I just saw Matthew Sweet in concert a few days ago, I decided my next post would be my my favorite Matthew Sweet songs. :D (In no particular order, as usual.)

1. Falling

2. Someone to Pull the Trigger

3. Around You Now

4. Sick of Myself

5. Behind the Smile

So, years ago I did a meme where I posted my favorite songs beginning with each letter of the alphabet and because I have too many favorite songs, it got really ridiculous with the amount of songs per letter. It became so overwhelming that it took me two years to get it almost all posted, but I still never finished. I had all the songs picked out, but just hadn't uploaded them all or made the posts, and I've had the last three letters sitting in a folder for almost three years. D: When I decided I was going to do this 100 Things thing, I promised myself I would get these last three letters posted!

So here are the Ls (I posted stuff out of order when I was doing this). There are 50 songs, so I'm not doing any commentary or anything, just...these are songs starting with L that I considered some of my favorites in 2007 when I wrote up this thing. XD

( 50 favorite songs beginning with L )

All the previous posts can be found in the "alphabetical favorites" tag, but I have long since deleted the actual mp3s from my server. If you see anything in there you'd like me to reupload, just let me know and I'll be happy to do so.

Well, somehow a week passed again! >_< The thing is, a weekly post actually feels like a good pace for me, because I don't want it to just be an overwhelming flood of songs (at least, if I'm in that situation, I find I'm often less likely to download stuff because it's too much all at once, idk if that's true for others or not!), but at the same time, a post a week means it's going to take two years to post 100 things, which feels kind of stressful to me? Gah!

Anyway, today's topic is songs that make me tear up. Usually I'm not affected just by listening to them, but these songs always get me choked up when I try to sing them.

1. Hirai Ken - Kimi no Suki na Toko
This isn't a sad song. It's a song about someone listing all the things they love about a person and yet for some reason it just gets to me.

2. Mr.Children - Anmari Oboetenai ya
The ending of this song is so bittersweet it gets me every time. I read on Wikipedia that Sakurai cried while he wrote it and the other band members cried when they played it, so. XD

3. Mr.Children - Yurikago no Aru Oka Kara
This song! Probably my number one sad song. It's about a guy who's been to war and comes back to find the girl he loved found someone else, and I love that it doesn't blame her or make it about how she's some heartless bitch.

4. Rock'a'Trench - Every Sunday Afternoon
I know I'm being manipulated, but it still makes me tear up! I mean, it's a song about how a young girl is dying and she says she's going to be an angel now. You really can't get more deliberately heartstring-tuggy than that, but it works. ^_^;;

5. Sawada Chikako - Aitai
Oh, okay, this one maybe ties for it. The "you promised, you promised me" bit is generally what gets me worst.

Man, I really mean to do more than one of these a week, but somehow never do? Anyway, today's topic is songs I really loved in high school. Of course they're also songs I still love now, or I wouldn't have them on my hard drive to share with you. :)

1. Jon Bon Jovi - Blaze of Glory
This song, man. I don't think you realise how much I loved the Young Guns movies and how much I loved Bon Jovi, so the combination of those two was just like, perfect. XD

2. Pearl Jam - Jeremy
Not necessarily my favorite Pearl Jam song, but probably the one that made the biggest impression on me. It's the first song I heard by them and I still remember seeing the video for the first time (and the millionth time, because wow, was that played a lot).

3. Metallica - The Unforgiven
I don't really watch videos these days, so all of my "videos that give me feels" are pretty much stuff from high school, because I spent a lot of time watching MTV back then. XD Anyway. This video! This song! This album!

4. Timmy T - One More Try
Kind of a one-hit wonder, yeah? But this song is great! Mainly it brings back memories of this guy in my class who loved Timmy T and The Guys Next Door. XD

5. Toad the Wet Sprocket - Walk on the Ocean
Such a pretty song.

Today's post is about covers! To narrow it down, I only chose rock covers of upbeat songs. Also, as usual, just sticking to one song per artist, which made it very hard to choose some of these!

1. LM.C - In My Dream (With Shiver)
This is a cover of a Luna Sea song (from a pretty awesome Luna Sea tribute album) and I also really love the original, but I sometimes I think I like this even more.

2. Brahman - From My Window
This is not a song I downloaded because I knew the original. In fact, I think the original is pretty obscure and I only found out about it because I thought it might be a cover due to the English lyrics (this is a Japanese band) and did some googling. Apparently the band randomly heard the song while on a flight and asked permission to cover it.

3. Gelugugu - Anpanman no March
Awesomest cover of a classic kids' anime theme ever. This is from a compilation album of rock covers of old anime songs, but most of them weren't as good as this. I love this so much, though.

4. The Killers - Four Winds
This is a cover of a Bright Eyes song. I think I listened to the original once, but was forever spoiled by the awesomeness of this version.

5. Hoover's Oover - High Collar-san ga Tooru
From the same anime song cover album as the Anpanman theme. Not as frantic as the Anpanman one, but still very catchy.

6. Beat Crusaders - Kibou no Wadachi
Ahhh, this is a cover of a Southern All Stars song that is really great, but I generally feel that you can never go wrong speeding something up, and that is my feeling here, too. XD Love the original, but this version is just peppier and yeah.

7. Mucc - Nagoriyuki
This was the HARDEST CHOICE because I also really, really love their cover of Tsubasa wo Kudasai. Both are so beautiful and I could just listen to them over and over. (Apparently the version of this song that I thought was the original (by Iruka) was actually itself a cover; I think it was the most popular version, though.)

8. Me First & the Gimme Gimmes - Rainbow Connection
Another tough choice because they have so many good songs! Apparently this is a Muppets song, but I was never into the Muppets as a kid, so I actually did not know of the song before hearing this version.

9. Alient Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal
Probably the most mainstream song on this list, both in terms of the original song (Michael Jackson!) and the cover. Both are good songs!

10. Nightwish - Where Were You Last Night
This is a symphonic metal cover of a eurobeat song. AWWWW YEAH!

Today I have another full album download for you, the newish Marina & the Diamonds album, Electra Heart. Apparently this came out a couple months ago, but I just heard about it today when I came across a song from it on Tumblr and was prompted to google and see if it was just a single or if there was an album. And there was! So I downloaded it! And now I will share it with you!

Marina & the Diamonds - Electra Heart
Favorite songs are Bubblegum Bitch, Primadonna, Teen Idle, and Lies. (Though I've only listened through once so far, so that may change!)

Gah, I really have to remember to do these more often! Anyway, tonight's post is five favorite R.E.M. songs. R.E.M. are one of my favorite bands, so I could easily pick ten, twenty, thirty favorite songs, but here are five I really, really, REALLY love. :)

1. Nightswimming
These are in no particular order, though if I had to pick just one to be the only R.E.M. song I'd ever get to listen to from now on, it would definitely be Nightswimming. It's just so beautiful. *_*

2. What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
Man, I don't understand a word of this song (not really uncommon for R.E.M. songs), but it's just so upbeat and catchy.

3. The Outsiders
It was a tough choice between this and Around the Sun for a song off this album (I made myself not choose two songs from the same album to help make choosing easier), but in the end I went with this one.

4. I've Been High
Ugh, another one that's just so impossibly beautiful I can't even.

5. The Great Beyond
Another catchy one I really love.

Oh my goodness, I tried to pick some awesome ballads and just had a horrible time trying to get it down to a manageable list. D: Even after deciding this post would just be Japanese artists, and then narrowing it even further to Japanese male artists, I had so many songs. D: I did finally manage to get it down to ten, though. (I mean, I'm sure no one is going to complain about more songs, but I think small batches makes it easier for people to download without getting overwhelmed, as well as keeps me from burning out on having to write stuff up!)

1. The Boom - Chuuousen
I love the wistful tone of this song (though the lyrics aren't really particularly sad).

2. Fujii Fumiya - Wara no Inu
He has so many great ballads, it was hard to choose just one! But this is a good one. I love his voice.

3. GLAY - Together
Ugh, this is so pretty. *_* It's an orchestral version of the song and I love it even more than the original.

4. Mr.Children - Kuruma no Naka de Kakurete Kiss wo Shiyou
Another wistful song. I love the lyrics, too (I love almost all Mr.Children lyrics!).

5. Ozaki Yutaka - Oh My Little Girl
This was one of the first songs I downloaded off the internets!

6. Penicillin - Mother Goose
Oh, this song! His voice! The music! Everything! *_* If I were doing these by the amount I like them rather than alphabetical order, it would definitely be in the top three.

7. Raphael - Eternal Wish~Todokanu Kimi e~
I don't know any other songs by them and I don't remember how I heard this one, but it's so, so beautiful. Just wow. Chock full of visual-kei ballady goodness.

8. Spitz - Namida
Hearing this on my ipod today is what gave me the idea for the topic!

9. Tokunaga Hideaki - Saigo no Iiwake
I love his voice so much!

10. Yuzu - Karappo
The harmonieeeeeeeees. *_*

I'm also still taking ideas for future music posts if you have any specific themes you want to see! :D

Today's topic is five ridiculously upbeat songs I could listen to over and over. I am trying not to repeat any songs that have been/will be in other posts, so that limits my choices, but it also made it easier to keep it down to just five!

1. My Chemical Romance - Bulletproof Heart
This did not start off being my favorite song off the album, in fact I think it was fairly low on the list. But then it grew on me and it's just so catchy, I find myself wanting to listen to it over and over. (For a while I would choose it whenever I started up my ipod, though now I usually just pick up wherever it left off when I stopped it rather than choosing a new song.)

2. Backstreet Boys - Straight Through My Heart
I don't actually know many BSB songs and I'm not sure where I picked this up (maybe off my flist?), but it is just SO addictive! I can't stop listening to it! I just really love the beat.

3. Spitz - Boku wa Jet
This is one of their really early songs (like indies early) that they redid on an album several years ago and I didn't ever even notice it until maybe last year? But once I did, I couldn't stop listening. It just makes me want to jump up and down and sing along.

4. Pink - U & Ur Hand
The spelling gives me the eyetwitch, but this is such an awesome song. I love the lyrics and it's just so bouncy. Definitely one of my all-time favorites of hers.

5. LM.C - John
This is so bouncy and upbeat and I love the video game sound effects.

Anyway, I have many ideas for future posts, but I don't know if I have 100 ideas, so feel free to suggest topics you'd like to see. :D

I was going to do a post about something else, but then

cimorene mentioned there's a new Adam Lambert album, so I've had that on repeat all night and cannot possibly stop in order to choose some other songs.

Adam Lambert - Trespassing
Basically, if you liked For Your Entertainment, you will almost certainly like this! If you didn't, then you probably won't, because it's essentially more of the same. My favorites so far are Trespassing, Cuckoo, Never Close Our Eyes, and Take Back.

Today's post is five songs I recently downloaded because of listening to Pandora at work. We have Pandora on all the time and mostly it ends up playing songs I already know, but sometimes there is stuff that's new to me, and often I like that stuff, and occasionally I even remember to write down the artist and title and download it when I get home!

1. Rihanna - S&M
I like quite a few Rihanna songs, but this is one I hadn't heard until it came on the radio. I can only assume there are a shit-ton of fanvids for this? Because um. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me".

2. Alicia Keys - Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart
I actually only know one other song by her (Fallin'), but maybe once I get my music sorted and am up to going through a bunch of new stuff, I should check her out some more, because I really, really love this song.

3. Nickelback - Gotta Be Somebody
I know everyone's super down on Nickelback, but I don't really know why? This is only the second song I've heard by them (the other is How You Remind Me), and they were both catchy.

4. Katy Perry - The One That Got Away
Ughhhhhhhhhhhh. I kind of hate myself for downloading this (and ngl I grabbed a handful of others, too), because I really, really dislike her as a person. But I am weak and this song is really catchy and at least the song itself is not actively offensive the way some of her others are.

5. Keane - Everybody's Changing
I don't think I've ever heard anything else by them, but I downloaded the album this is on and five-starred about half the songs, so that's another one I'm going to look into more once I have a better handle on the music I currently own.

shut up and let me see your jazz hands

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