our experiences with our favourite music

17 Nov, 2025

my friends and i decided to write a collaborative blogpost on our favourite music and honestly this whole thing is an excuse to gush about our favourite songs, albums, artists or genres. i linked everyone's blogs so you can check their writings out and you really should because they are awesome.

mono (me)

i think the band that had the most effect on my music taste is lifelover. they came to my life when i was pretty lost and i could find myself in the music. their blend of genres is really something unique. in just 6 years they released 4 albums and one ep and i think each one is worth a listen. i especially love erotik and i believe it still is the most listened to album of mine.

their music is not that heavy in the sense that it is the most hard to listen to stuff out there but it's loaded with a lot of emotion. i love that especially in erotik they use a lot of clean vocals and that they are not good vocals. they feature voice cracks and imperfections and i think it adds a lot of character. one of the things they do is add samples to their songs and whenever they come up you are hit with a tonal whiplash. for example this is stuff like ending the song with a nursery rhyme. adding to the tonal whiplash is a lot of their songs featuring upbeat rhythms but the lyrical content being the opposite of that. band name also has that dichotomy.

you never know what you are going to get when you listen to them. songs and albums take you on rides that leave you guessing where they will take you next. you can be hit with a keyboard line that will be stuck in your head for the next 2 months or a blood curdling scream or an epic choir or a riff that could come straight out of a death metal album. i just wish the band lasted longer.

kami

I first got into speedcore back when I was still actively playing Osu!. As you might know if youve played that game, one particularly iconic chart there is the song "The big black" by The Quick Brown Fox. It pretty much instantly captivated me back then, and while its honestly a rather mediocre example of the genre, it was how I got into it initially.

Oh, right. I should probably explain what speedcore even is, considering that most people haven't heard of it. Essentially, its EDM that goes really, really fast. The typical cutoff point for when you can consider something to be speedcore is about 300bpm. For reference, most pop songs fall somewhere between 100 and 130. I love the sheer feeling of... well, momentum that speedcore songs have. Its a sound that can't quite be replicated through any other means. Theres nothing that can convey that feeling of speed quite as well as kick drums so fast they blend into one solid noise. That sort of primal aggression, the absurd limit pushing beyond anything that is at all reasonable is something I love about the genre. The repurposing of vocal samples as instruments that a lot of speedcore songs do is also incredibly fun. Anyways, here's some speedcore songs I really like!

Loffciamcore & Imil - At Least Speedcore Artists Aren't In It For The Money

Fairly slow for a speedcore song, but a really nice vocal sample and great melody. Also the title is funny.

Lite Show Magic - TRICKL4SH 220 (22,000 Power Extended)

I really love the upbeat energy of this one and the chaotic nature of the vocal samples.

m1dy - m1dy Festival

I love the sense of momentum this track conveys.

Kobaryo & TQBF - Tool-Assisted Speedcore (TQBF Frame Advance RMX)

I don't usually listen to that much of Kobaryo's stuff, but this song specifically has a really good melody while still keeping the frantic tempo that I love about speedcore songs.

Alright, enough song recommendations!

One thing that always kind of saddens me about speedcore is that it gets written off as a gimmick. I mean, I guess in a sense it kind of is - the whole genre is built on the idea of just going way faster than every other genre of edm - but I do think theres really something there, and if you just accept it for what it is, theres genuine beauty to be found among the chaos here. Which is, I guess, an apt way to describe the genre as a whole. Most speedcore songs are kind of gigantic clusterfucks: they go at ten billion miles per hour and at times stretch the definition of what should even be counted as music. But thats where the fun is. In stretching those limits, you might just find something beautiful. Speedcore songs can often times have genuinely incredible melodies emerging from the chaos, stuff you can't find anywhere else. If nothing else, the sound isn't something you'll ever find in any mainstream genre. And more than any other genre of music, it lets you just sort of turn your brain off and feel the music. For me at least, speedcore has always partially been a comforting escape from reality. A way to stop thinking for a bit. And a way to focus, oddly enough.

I really like speedcore. You should give it a try. Even if it might not be your thing, I think its still an interesting experience, if nothing else.

Oh, right, listen to speedkore 4 kidz as well. Its a good album.

pirate

Music has played a huge roll in my life. I come from a family of music junkies, musicians, and my dad was even a DJ.

My earliest experiences with music was mostly through my mom, who was a huge fan of the band KISS. She had the DVDs, music, memorabilia, everything. It ended up being my favorite band by proxy of my mom. My favorite member being the spaceman, Ace Frehley (R.I.P). My mom probably has photos of diaper-clad me, with a blanket for a cape, her platform boots, and a plush guitar to look like Ace in the "I Was Made for Loving You" music video. I even had Ace in that uniform as an action figure.

I grew up in a time where everyone had CDs, and a lot of people carried their favorites in the glove compartment in their car. I have a distinct memory of being afraid of my Aunt Crystal's Iron Maiden "Life After Death" CD because the band's mascot "Eddie" gave me the creeps. For the most part, I just listened to whatever my parents did. Or I would listen to CDs my dad would burn for me to put in my CD player. Songs included "Rich Girl" by Gwen Stefani, "Lose Control" by Missy Elliot, "Shot in the Dark" by Ozzy Osborne.

I started to form my own taste at around 5. I think one of my first favorites that was of my own accord was Powerman 5000. I got into them because of Smackdown vs. Raw on the PS2, with the songs like "Bombshell", "When Worlds Collide", and "Riot Time". Gaming honestly played a huge roll in how I discovered music. Guitar Hero 3 turned me into a Rage Against the Machine fan, and Rock Band introduced me to Beastie Boys.

It was around the late 2000s that I got a 3rd gen iPod Nano, and my dad through on TONS of songs. "Sabatoge", "When Worlds Collide", Ozzy, KISS, etc. I have distinct memories of jamming to my iPod while reading some massive book about dog breeds. I listened to that thing constantly, but couldn't tell you what happened to it.

Around 2010, my tastes began to shift again when I was introduced to Green Day. I heard some of the usual popular songs like "Basket Case" in passing, but I REALLY got into them when one day I was scrolling through the DirectTV free-to-watch PPV section. It was there I found a few live recordings of "American Idiot", "Holiday", and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". I think I watched those videos several times a day until they got taken off the rotation. I was hooked, and from then on I was a Green Day fan. It got me through some rough times. When my parents and I had to stay in an extended-stay hotel, I was listening to "21 Guns", "Wake Me Up When September Ends", "Holiday". "Holiday" was the first song I ever learned how to play to completion on guitar.

I hit a bit of a low point with the band after Uno was released, and just was listening to more Nirvana due to my uncle. I learned some songs on guitar, and they became my favorite band to kinda fill the void. I put some CDs my dad had burned for me onto my XBOX and have fond memories of listening to Motorhead's "Line in the Sand" and Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy" on relative repeat while playing Total Miner Forge. Playing "Line in the Sand" while exiting a cave after a long session of spelunking is a WHOLE vibe.

I was kinda at the point where I listened to whatever was popular at the time: Sam Smith, Adele, Avicii, David Guetta, fun., Imagine Dragons, Macklemore, etc. I think my dad tried to play some of the more "cooler" electronic music when picking me up to help my abysmal social standing with his sound system blasting the bass. When he died, music really fell into the background for me. I became a lot more casual. In high school, my claim to fame though was the fact that I could nail "Rap God". I had some jams that I used to hype me up for when I had a wrestling match like X Ambassadors' song "Jungle".

I carried this casual enjoyment for a while, every now and throw in a song that I would learn on guitar like "Bad Girlfriend" by Theory of a Deadman, or "Nameless One" by Volbeat. About sophomore year though, I got really into System of a Down because of a friend, which remains a top 5 band for me. However, the curse I had for most of my life was that my music taste was oceans-wide, but kiddie pool deep, never really getting into the deep cuts.

It wasn't until October 2023 that my music taste would get slingshot into the stratosphere. Green Day had just released "The American Dream is Killing Me", and that shit hit me like a freight train. Every now and then you hear a song that makes you feel "oh we are so fucking back", and this was it. Shortly after, I saw they were going on tour and my pregnant wife, my mother-in-law, and I all made the plan to go see them in Colorado. I vowed to make 2024 the year of music. I was getting into physical media around this time, I had already been collecting games, but then I saw people quitting spotify in favor of CDs and an iPod. So I got on Facebook marketplace and got a 5th gen iPod, which also came with a 3rd Gen nano (the silver one that looked just like the one I had as a kid). My music taste exploded, I was shopping local music stores, discovering new artists like MF DOOM (a top 5 for me), getting deeper into artists I already liked, etc. Record collecting became a big thing, with one of my favorites being the first record I ever purchased, MM.. FOOD anniversary edition (the artwork is just beautiful).

Music is now more important to me than ever. Playing music, writing music, jamming along on various instruments. Vinyls, CDs, Cassettes all are part of my listening experience. I love music now more than ever and have a much deeper appreciation for it, having taken the effort to really dive into an artist's discography. I wish I had this sort of mindset when I was younger, but now I can at least share that with my daughter. As KISS was to my mother and I, Green Day will be to my daughter and I. Thus the cycle continues.

ash

My journey with music was full of turns into very different directions. I was switching between jazz, lo-fi, electronic, metal, hard rock, and now I find myself in the yearner songs and rock stage.

My favourite bands of all time (as of now) are Radiohead, Fontaines DC, and The murder capital + many more to a smaller degree.

However, one is clearly a winner - Radiohead. I don’t remember when exactly I listened to them for the first time, but I know the moment. I was driving to my grandparents' house on a gloomy day when my friend, after I had asked about her favourite bands, recommended me a few Radiohead songs. The songs were mostly from The Bends (1995), currently my second favourite album ever. Songs like “Fake plastic trees” fitted perfectly into the weather and how I felt that day, which made a lasting impression leading to discovering all their songs later. “The Bends” doesn’t have any bad songs, for me, every single one is a hit.

The title “The Bends” refers to decompression sickness, which divers get when they surface too quickly and their bodies can’t adapt to the rapid pressure change. Radiohead used it as a metaphor for sudden fame and emotional collapse. After “Creep” made Radiohead famous, the band felt disoriented, trapped between success and self-doubt, like they had come up too fast. The album captures that suffocating pressure and alienation: gasping for air, trying to stay human while fame and modern life distort everything. 

While the album is truly incredible, and a song from this album was my favourite for a long time, called “Black Star”, currently my favourite song is “Climbing up the walls” from OK Computer (1997). It’s one of the most haunting songs they ever produced. At its core, the song voices the terror that lives inside the mind. Thom Yorke has said it is about the feeling of something dangerous lurking within your own head or home - a metaphor for mental illness, paranoia, and invisible violence. 

“Either way you turn, I’ll be there
Open up your skull, I’ll be there” 

The lyrics make that internal voice sound like a predator, showing how fear and despair can feel like something stalking you. Musically, the song is built to disturb: distorted strings (recorded with 16 violins playing microtones apart), heavy reverb, and a claustrophobic rhythm mirroring the panic attack it describes. The atmosphere it creates is what makes it, for me, truly deserving of the title of my favourite song.

ivana

Okay, so you want to know about my favorite music. I don't tend to play favorites it's hard to pin down. It's going to be multiple answers, I shall tell you about music that I feel the most fondest to and then maybe a few general music taste ones.

01

I like a lot of music but there is one album you couldn't pry away from my cold, dead hands ,and that would be Strawberry Skies by Kid Travis

Kid Travis had been one my favorite cover artists for quite a while, then he had announced Strawberry Skies I found out about his original songs and now I've been listening to these releases every since. Still one of my favorites of his, and if someone was to ask where should they start, I'd say start here.

This reminds me of Animo nostalgia, despite the shit with that app. My old friends on there. My unfortunate yearning for love (or at least the idea of it, but that's different blogpost) that hasn't went away, but in general being in my feelings. Lol.

This album has pure nostalgia associated with it.

02

It's so damn obvious on how much I adore the band Matches, I'm dick riding them every chance I get. I love supporting my friends projects and seeing them so happy with what have made melts my heart. I'm downloading their music the second it hits Bandcamp, matter of fact, they are the reason I actually have a account.

I'm so grateful to have seen what goes into making the project what it is. To be friends with such amazing people<3

03

Okay, as a treat, here are some albums I like. Yes it's only four. Typing the rest was too tedious

hung

In Confessions of a Sociopath, M.E. Thomas said that sociopaths still feel the emotions that empaths feel, just not in the way and the context that empaths feel it. But there are some occasions where we can experience roughly the same thing: when we listen to music. Probably, the melody can activate lower emotions in the subconscious. So we will love the music whose evoked emotions coincide with what we love. Me, the best thing I love is a story, especially an epic about the indomitable human spirit. Maybe that's why the music I like often come from other forms of art that I consume, mostly films and games.

On the mountain stands The Church of Mili...

...and I am a devout believer.

I don't know how to characterize Mili's songs. But I know what it causes me to feel. It's κάθαρσις, the feeling of purification and purgation of thoughts and emotions by way of expressing and overcoming them. Cassie Wei with her lullabylike voice and poetrical lyrics with the beats tailored to her by her husband. Délicieux.

When I talk about Mili, I must also talk about Project Moon. For the last 4 years, this duo has provided us Sinners with stories of the same monomyth structure. ANd they have never failed (so far). I attribute 80% of my enjoyment to Project Moon writing and translation (the original is Korean), but the climax will never complete if a Mili's song is not playing in the final boss fight. All of this is to say, a large part of me associate Mili's songs with Project Moon's game lores that I love very much. But in the universe where I never started playing Limbus Company, I probably will still enjoy Mili.

I recommend Key Ingredients and To Kill a Living Book if you want an album. For something lighter, the recent Grown-up Paradise, mini-album Let's Lament, Hero or TIAN TIAN should suffice.

Eminem

I am not a hip-hop person. I listen to rap now and then, but mostly because it's the OST (like for the latest Spider-Man animation). But I listened to the whole Kamikaze album. The only way I can explain it is I love battles and violence, though I am too afraid to go into one (like most people). So I watch instead. And who's better to watch than the Rap God?

Outside Kamikaze, I also listen to the staples. Real Slim Shady, Stan, Venom, River, Till I Collapse, etc. And his battles in 8 Mile. Side note, I think it's miracle that I did not watch the movie before I became an adult. I could not imagine how harder my school life could get if I was also into (battle) rap, among the other nerdy things I liked.

Everything else

Outside the two, I am a generic listener. Name a genre or an artist, and I probably have listened to some of their songs. But mostly it's OST. Jane Doe and IRIS OUT, Kenshi Yonezu, for Chainsaw Man movie (but not KICK BACK since I have not watched the TV series). One Last Kiss, Hikaru Utada, for Neon Evangelion Genesis (I have not watched the anime though). As Alive As You Need Me To Be, Nine Inch Nails, for Tron: Ares (I hated the movie). All of Arcane's album music. Feeling Good, Nina Simone, used in Perfect Days (my favorite movie now). And probably, as I continue to watch more movies.

suliman

My first conscious contact with music was through my aunt, a person who shaped my young self in more ways than I can count. She was a student of English literature at the time my mom got her first mobile phone in 2010 (it was a Nokia dumbphone with a capacitive screen) and the only familiar person in our immediate vicinity with a computer and internet access. She had a big music collection of mp3s from ripped CDs she'd bought or borrowed from friends that she would copy to my mom's Nokia phone for her, but lowkey mostly me, to listen to. That's how I started developing my own music taste, albeit with the selection bias of what my aunt had at all and what my mom asked her to copy to her phone.

For a very long time, my music listening was dominated by iconic Lebanese female vocalists who had their unofficial singing debut in the choir of mostly Catholic or Maronite churches and their official one between the '70s and '90s. This has had a lasting impact on my music taste to this day even though I don't listen to those same singers anymore, mostly because their music isn't fully accessible on streaming platforms—not even YouTube. I prefer listening to full albums which usually doesn't reflect the general population's music listening habits so only singles or individual albums are uploaded to the net. Purchasing those artists' catalogues where I live is impossible. I doubt you can get it anywhere outside the Middle East, and even then you'd probably only find used items if you're very lucky.

The role that music has played in my life can't be quantified. I used to use music to block out noise, whether external or internal. Listening to music was how I coped when books stopped providing the needed escape from reality, especially when that escape was needed while my eyes were busy doing something else. Whether my sensory sensitivity and struggle with concentrating on what I was expected to concentrate on are the product of my PTSD or ADHD, they were present and I had to deal with them without falling back on recreational drugs. And thus, music became my "drug". The transformation into a toxic relationship took place around the second lockdown, although I've managed to turn it around and rekindle my love for music to something that doesn't feel oppressive.

The music I enjoy has been produced with care, yet without intention. It follows a narrative or a concept making a journey that is treaded in order. Transitioning songs into each other is an appreciated bonus; add lore on top and and my spirit is chained to the rhythm ad infinitum. An album makes for a curated collection of individual art pieces that someone decided fit together. Album listening allows me to delve into a chapter of a person's life. It's not even about the autobiographical lyricism. Most music isn't autobiographical and I'd prefer it stays that way. I like to get a glimpse into a person's or a collective's mind(s) to see what they enjoy and what sounds they're capable of producing. It is thrilling and exhilarating that we as a species are capable of voluntarily sharing tiny pieces of the universes that are our minds with each other in a way that allows us to remain largely independent and mysterious giving birth to brainchildren that differ in look, sound and feel from mind to mind.

To be a bit more specific, the projects that have changed me for better or for worse were ones that I wouldn't have discovered if it weren't for my arch-enemy: the algorithm. One of my favorite artists, Ethel Cain, was suggested to me on Spotify's autoplay, the first time it gave me something I actually liked despite the troves of data they had on my listening habits. Her song Sun Bleached Flies had me by the balls that I listened to it multiple times before I actually grasped what I had just made contact with. For the first time I felt someone somewhere understood my crooked faith in fate. To think that this world was made audible to my ears through an algorithm leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth, but it is what it is. Preacher's Daughter was a spiritual and transcendental experience, what I would imagine a good shrooms trip to be. I saw God. I am a convinced atheist, even culturally I'm not Christian; I was raised in a Muslim household of believing non-practitioners. Yet I felt seen. Likely, she's singlehandedly responsible for curing my relationship to music in a lasting way, and for that I'm grateful.

#blog