Well, it’s been a while since we’ve featured the music of Joe Hisaishi, and since I’ve just started playing the excellent Ni No Kuni, what better excuse could there be? Were I somewhat more trained in the technical know how of music, I could probably tell you what makes Hisaishi’s scores so iconic and vivid, but I’m not so you’ll just have to enjoy the beauty of it without the lecture!

You know what this site needs more of? If you were going to say “songs in Spanish!” then you’re right, and also GET OUT OF MY HEAD! Inexplicably, this band is from Switzerland. They really don’t sound Swiss at all, and that’s a compliment (I think). According to the Internets, they feel their music is “death swamp blues” which sounds like a frickin’ awesome genre. To me, this falls under “cooking music,” which IS a compliment. There are not many songs I would want to cook to, and this is one of them. Don’t worry, I will post more cooking music soon!

Just in case you were craving some modern British classics, here’s one by Strangelove. They are a little more obscure, but still pretty easy to find their songs on the Internet. They only released three albums before breaking up in 1998. This song is kind of like dark Britpop, whatever the heck that means. The lyrics don’t make much sense, but who cares? It’s all about that guitar and great singing, man. Don’t you know anything?

Holy crap, we’ve never written about Ween. Granted, I could’ve chosen a song that might be a little bit more universally appealing instead of just patently bizarre, but screw that! This song was clearly written about one Dr. John A. Zoidberg (though this song does pre-date his inception by a couple of years), and was actually used in the credits of The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. Rock and roll cred right there!

We’ve mentioned before that Radiohead’s output tends to be rather divisive. There are those who can’t see anything but their apparent brilliance, but I don’t quite follow that path. I’m at risk here of angry Radiohead fans beating me up, but my point is their output is varied enough to contain some truly amazing music (and a lot of it), and a little bit of what amounts to stuff that you really just can’t listen to. A fair bit of The King of Limbs was the latter, but it did have this little bit of gold. Although somewhat notorious for its video which features Thom Yorke’s eclectic dancing, it’s a rather splendid, spiritual, and chilled-out tune.

I think enough time has passed to be able to post about this song. I say this because the song was appropriated for a commercial (as most catchy, popular songs are), and as a result, this song was known as That’s My Team for a while as it was used for the NRL (Australia’s rugby code). The band were completely behind it (they re-recorded it) so I guess I can’t be too bitchy about it. Anyway, the original still remains a bastion of Australian rock, and probably the Gurus’ best tune.

I know it wasn’t that long ago that I wrote about the magnificent Lana Del Rey, but I haven’t really stopped listening to her either. After finding out the girl I like has a boyfriend, I figured that rather than be sad about it, I would just use either/or for its original purpose (again), as a dating service! That’s what it’s for, right AJ? R-right? Anyway, this song isn’t exactly the most upbeat song in the world, but damned if it’s not wonderful and amazing. I absolutely love her voice and anyone who doesn’t is a big ‘ol dummyhead!

I think it was my British friend Toby who told me about Nick Cave a few years ago. I’d tried listening to his music before and went “meh,” but then he said to listen to this one and I found myself unable to stop. I probably watched the video 5 times straight, which is more impressive when you consider that this song is 8 minutes long! I made sure to link to the video instead of just the song so you can check out Nick’s sweet dance moves, and also some strippers.

Well, I’ve been saving this tune for a special occasion; the special occasion today being that I felt like posting it, ok??? Zero 7 have featured on either/or more times than I care to count (I mean, it’s almost like we’re being paid and hey if you’re reading this Zero 7, being paid would be RAD), but chances are most people who have a passing interest in their work probably haven’t heard this one. Though it eschews their characteristic mellow style for something a fair bit more upbeat, it is still undeniably, unequivocally cool: certainly one of their best, and one of my favourites by far.

A lot of people have heard The Pixies song “Where Is My Mind?” now that it’s been on a million soundtracks, but their singer has a solo career and also has some darn good songs. Not that this is particularly news, as the album is from the early 90s, but whatever. I never claimed to be hip and with it. Anyway, I really love the last two minutes of this song!