Haley’s Favorites

This band is no longer making music as far as I can tell, and I only ever saw them once, in a tiny like bar concert. I don’t remember how I stumbled into them but it was definitely when I was young because the song “Oscar Wilde”, in addition to being a total banger, made me give the author Oscar Wilde a chance. This led to me reading one of my all time favorite books, The Picture of Dorian Gray. I remember carrying the book around with me everywhere one summer, to the pool, the park, with me on car rides. Back to this album though! It’s got a really unique style that has stuck with me for a long time. I don’t listen to it as much as I used to, but with how influential it’s been on my life it doesn’t feel right to leave it out.

My best friend introduced this artist to me somewhere between middle school and high school. Ethereal, beautiful and strange, I immediately felt a connection to her music. While all her albums are great, Lungs will always be my favorite, at least partially because it reminds me of the best things about that time in my life. And somehow I’m still not sick of it! I’m fairly sure I have every song on this one memorized, I’ve listened to it so often. I think it’s so interesting that although Florence writes about deeply personal things, and her life is wildly different from mine, her writing still manages to strike a chord of “wow just like me”. I think it’s because she filters all her experiences through very evocative metaphors; it’s not “I’m having a hard time with artist block”, it’s “your songs remind me of swimming, which I forgot when I started to sink.” If you like florence, congrats you have excellent taste! I would recommend Paris Paloma, Tori Amos, Rabbitology, Kate Bush; they all have that kind of dark witchy vibe and imagery-heavy storytelling in their songs that I love so much.

While it was a very close race between this and Riot!, Brand New Eyes is just full of hit after hit. I remember itunes (back in the ipod days) having the preview for Brick by Boring Brick before any of the other songs released, and me, on first listen, going omg this is going to be the best album EVER. and then it was! and I got to see them in concert not long after that. There’s something powerful about the righteous rage that Hailey Williams conveys in her songs. It’s hard to describe what makes it unique in the world of pop-rock, but I’ve yet to see something that hits quite as hard and authentically as paramore. The driving sound, frantic drums, the belt-able choruses, it’s all so good. Maybe it’s just that I was there at the right time and place? I do think if you like Paramore though, My Chemical Romance also is in the same vein and very cool.

This one is cheating a little bit because it takes some of the best songs from across all of Studio Ghibli’s works (merry go round of life, the legend of ashitaka, a town with an ocean view, and more ) and combines them into one concert. There’s something whimsical and slightly melancholic about Hisashi’s work that always paired perfectly with the lush visuals and worlds that Miyazaki created. Closing your eyes, you can just picture gentle fields of flowers swaying in the wind, wild and mysterious foggy forests, intense and powerful monsters, a warm sea breeze, brave heroines making a stand. If I ever make any kind of music, I hope it can have an ounce of the emotional impact that Mr. Hisashi’s work instilled in me the first time I heard these songs.

A long time ago, in a land far away, Japanese music was not the easiest to get into. Indeed, I might never have stumbled into the rich world of JPOP if not for this artist. You, random person, might even know his name these days because he’s gone on to be Wildly Successful, doing theme songs for anime and generally being one of the most mainstream JPOP artists despite (or maybe because) of his unique style. Weird and crunchy chords, and general odd-ball-ness abound in his music. He started out creating music with Vocaloid, and publishing it under a pseudonym. This is how I found him, because one of the songs he made (Donut Hole (ドーナツホール)) he released with a self-cover on this album, where he sang his song instead of the vocaloid. And that’s not even CLOSE to the best song on this album! The only problem was that it wasn’t available anywhere outside of youtube. I learned how to convert songs to MP3s specifically for this album (and then went on to convert SO many more), and I would buy it again today if I found a record or cassette of it. If you’re curious what the best song is, it’s メランコリーキッチン, or Melancholy Kitchen, which is so funky and upbeat for a song about being awake at the wrong hours and just standing in your kitchen thinking about life. Eve and Hige Dandism are very good artists too if you like this kind of vibe!

There is only one flaw with this album and that’s that her single best song, Rises the Moon, isn’t on it. This is the newest addition to my all timer music collection, in that I only discovered Liana Flores in 2025. Right after I moved to the city, going on walks in my neighborhood, these songs instilled a sense of peace in my summer soundtrack. I’m not generally into music that’s slow and peaceful; I love a hook, a driving beat, weirdness and newness. But something about Liana’s music has been really nice. I think, it’s the intersection of poetry and music. The simple guitar and stripped ambiance really enhance the singing, and put a spotlight on Liana’s lovely lyrics. They’re evocative and creative, working in tandem with the general aesthetic she’s going for. Cuckoo and Orange Colored Day are my favorites on this album for this reason, although all the songs are great. I like the idea that if I ever learn to play the guitar that’s gathering dust in my closet, her music would be really accessible to me to play alone. If you like this kind of music, I think Rebecca Sugar’s work would be my recommendation. It’s not really one album in particular, but it does share a lot of the same qualities of being lyrical, story driven, and relaxed.