**(volume warning for a handful of the bandcamp music players here)**
Genre: Electronic, Indie Rock
June is my all time favorite music artist. I've been listening to her stuff since I was in high school.
Her work has such a textural feeling and sound to it. She really knows how to write lyrics that evoke so much feeling. Even her songs without lyrics carry an emotion. I admire her ambition of not being afraid to branch out into different music styles.
Other listening recommendations: 1988-20XX | Rough Tongue | Kindness
Genre: Synth, Drum & Bass, Electronic
Another longtime favorite of mine. I discovered him about the same time I started listening to June LaLonde! Wolfgun is what got me into synthwave, which eventually led my interest to similar genres. His music is themed around space. And a wolf.
It's wild having listened to his stuff over the years because he regularly pulls bits and pieces from his older tracks into his newer ones. It's fun listening and going "oh wait I've heard this leitmotif before!" or "I recognize that lyric!" His music tells a story, and, more often than not, they're all tied together into a bigger one.
If you enjoy Wolfgun's music, I also recommend Projections, the game he made! It's a really neat procedurally generated hack n slash type game with an outstanding soundtrack.
Other listening recommendations: Lights | GALAXIAN (STARFIGHTER) | Interface
Genre: Electronic
Vandoorea mostly specializes in Valve OST remixes. And he's really really good at it! I already love Valve OSTs to begin with, so hearing them remixed (and a lot of the time, seamlessly transitioned together) is great.
The track below is a medley of several Half Life 2 tracks.
Other listening recommendations: The Squad is Back in Town | You Made It | I'll Make You Wish You Could Die
Genre: New Wave
Mr. Byrne. You know him. I think his voice is soo so pretty.
Strange Overtones is one of my all time favorite songs. Maybe even #1. It's so beautiful it makes me want to cry.
Other listening recommendations: Road to Nowhere | Crosseyed and Painless | Girls on My Mind
Genre: Hardcore, Breakcore, Speedcore
High energy! High BPM! Heavy use of sampling! Music I want to chew up and bite. Music make you loose control.
Other listening recommendations: Garakuta Doll Play (uncut edition) | Little More | Ultrasonic Anthem (Kobaryo's FTN-Remix)
Genre: Electronic, Industrial Hip Hop, Power Noise
The abrasive sounds are definitely not for everyone, but they scratch an itch in my brain. NOISE. SOUND. HARSH. HURT!
[ Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics ]
Other listening recommendations: BNE | LEGO | FORBES LIST
Genre: Heavy Metal, Shock Rock, Punk
I've never had much interest in metal music until the stars aligned in January 2024, in which a series of events led me to GWAR. Their costumes, theatrics, and whole schtick was what got me to give their music a try. They're a very cool group made up of artists and musicians that've been making everything themselves since they formed in the 80s. They're known (and hated by those who don't have a sense of humor) for their grotesque outfits, bloody stage shows, and obscene lyrics. I've seen them live and it was a phenomenal experience. I cannot wait for the chance to see them again.
[ Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics ] [ and visuals ]
Other listening recommendations: Immortal Corrupter | Gor-Gor | El Presidente
Genre: Electronic, Experimental, Synthpop
I love electronic sounds and sampling, if it wasn't already obvious. The unconventional sampling in Graham's music reminds me of Logosamphia's album eLASTIQUE, a longtime favorite of mine.
I think my first introduction to his music was this an0nymooose SFM years and years ago. And then the same song (Null 2) used as a twitch streamer's sound alert. I didn't discover the rest of Graham's music until around 2021 or so, right after TMP2 came out. I have a TMP2 poster hanging in my room because I loved the album art so much.
Other listening recommendations: An Obsession With Kit | gymNYC1999 TMP | barberBARBER.temp
Genre: Rock, Orchestral Pop
I like the symphonic(?)ness of how ELO's music sounds and how harmonic the vocals are. (I don't know anything about music, so I feel like I'm talking out of my ass here lmao) I'm also really into how their branding is centered around their definitive spaceship. It rules.
I’m also a fan of Supertramp, who have a similar sound to ELO.
Other listening recommendations: Telephone Line | Last Train To London | On The Run
Genre: Electronic, House
Lovely little one-off album. Very sample based. Themed around the concept of retail.
Genre: Experimental, Electronic, Neopolka
I mentioned this one earlier. It's another example of music I latched onto as an impressionable teenager and still love 10+ years later. This album is all over the place. There's nothing else like it out there. It's definitely up there in my "music I like that's an extremely aquired taste" collection that lives in my head.
Genre: Chiptune, Drumstep
Yep, it's another album I discovered when I was a teenager! Don't worry it's the last one. Chibi-tech's music goes hard.
Genre: Electronic, French House
Hope you aren't tired of experimental electronic music yet!
Genre: Darksynth
Trilogy is inspired by 80s horror film and is meant to sound like the soundtrack to its own movie.
Genre: Jazz Fusion
Masterfully produced music. Very beautiful. This album was recorded live, if you can believe it, but you genuinely cannot tell until the end of Swear (the last song on the album) where the drummer and keyboardist freestyle and show off a little, while the crowd cheers and claps along with the music.
Genre: Future Funk, French House
I've become more and more of an enjoyer of future funk in the past few years. I particularly like the more electronic sounds of Moe Shop.
I cannot express in words how much I love Portal and everything about it. Everything about both games is crafted to perfection! The storytelling, the humor, the character development, the sound design - all of it! God I love it so much.
I personally love Portal 2 more than 1 because it was the first one I played back in 2012. I've made it a regular thing to replay it once a year. Even 10 years after it playing it for the first time, I still notice little details that I missed in previous playthoughs.
Portal 1 on the other hand, I enjoy speedrunning. Nothing record breaking or anything, but I can beat it in about 45 minutes! Which is impressive enough for my own standards! It's so much fun learning how to play a game faster than you're supposed to. If you've ever wanted to get into speedrunning, I highly recommend starting out with Portal 1! I'm no speedrun expert, but it's a pretty easy game to jump into and learn.
2008. I'm at a friends house. We sit down at the family computer and they open up the new game they just got. I watch in awe as they make a creature from scratch and explore the 3D world. I'm hooked. When I get home, I beg my parents to get me Spore. Come Christmas, they get me a DS Lite and Spore Creatures. I'm disappointed that I didn't get Spore the computer game, but I guess Spore Creatures the DS game will do.
Years down the line, it had enough influence on me that my username most places directly originates from the game.
▸ Spore Creatures (DS)
Ian Stocker composed most, if not all, of the music for the game. He did an amazing job creating such a textural soundtrack that you can almost reach out and touch. Give the original prototype OST a listen when you have a chance. The original Baysee prototype track kills me everytime with how beautiful the harp is. So serene and relaxing and nostalgic. Augh.
Somehow this little DS game stuck with me after all these years. I actually started working on a little project in 2020 where my goal is to redraw all 32 species, with the hope that I can finish them all by the game's 15th anniversary September 4, 2023. I've still got a ways to go, haha.
▸ Spore (PC)
I know a lot of people shit on Spore about it not living up to their expectations (due to the conflict between some developers wanting the game to be educational and realistic, and some developers wanting it to be cutesy and marketable, and then the subsequent compromise between the two.), but I like it! I think it's a great game for what it is.
I like collecting Spore merchandise, whether it's physical or just the digital existence of an item. You'd be surprised how much Spore merch is out there. I currently own Spore: Galactic Edition and the Spore Limited Edition Bundle: Prima Official Game Guide. I plan on eventually dedicating a section of this site to Spore, focusing on any and all merch that got made, the defunct 3D printing service, advertising, and more.
2007. I'm at the same friends house that I mentioned in the previous Spore anecdote. (You see where I'm going with this.) They introduce me to this cool virtual pet game. I've been obsessed with animals and pets my whole life, so I am naturally drawn to this game like a magnet. I make my own account and create pets of my own. I make a blue kau named something along the lines of "ICU42" (Meant to be read as "I see you for too". I thought I was being clever using letters and numbers as shorthand for actual words, even if they made no sense put together.) and I also make a few kougras named "tiger" with a string of random numbers behind the name. I soon after forget my login information, and end up making a new account. Over the next year or so, I am still very much into Neopets. I have my own neopet ocs and I collect the Limited Too and McDonalds plushies.
My interest in Neopets fades by the time I'm in middle school. Time goes by. In 2016, I revisit Neopets, drawn in by nostalgia, and I get caught in its clutches once again. I have not broken free since.
Honestly, I think the biggest part of Neopets that attracts me to it is that it's such a good jumping off point for making characters and building the world around them, working off of the structure and lore that's already in place. Neopets has been a huge influence for me and my art.
I haven't really touched the original neopets.com since the summer of 2022, during the uh. whole leaking of passwords mess TNT got themselves into. Not to mention the nft shit they tried doing to make some quick cash, alienating a good chunk of the playerbase in the process. Aaand TNT's poor handling of converting flash games when flash died, despite having plenty of time to prepare for it. Really, the site's in a pretty sad state right now, dying a slow death.
*cough* On a lighter note, I've been playing Virtu.pet, a newer Neopets clone, since early/mid 2022! I'd never played any of the many Neopets clones that're out there before, so I was a little apprehensive at first, but it renewed the joy I got out of Neopets, making a group of guys with different personalities and just having fun playing in the space! I've been having a great time playing it and becoming friends with others in the Virtu.pet community.
I loove the atmosphere and story of Half-Life. I'm a big fan of the aliens. Especially the vortigaunts and bullsquid.
I have (briefly) played Half-Life Alyx. I'd watched one or two playthroughs of it before I tried playing it myself. It looked fun, so why not? I quickly learned that watching someone else play a shooter + horror VR game is a lot different than actually playing a shooter + horror VR game yourself, as someone who is bad at fps games and doesn't enjoy horror. It's a superb game that broke tons on boundries! Just not built for someone who gets soo so scared.
Yes, Pearl was my first Pokemon game. How'd you know?
Feature length YTP. Extremely funny if you've watched Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Probably still funny even if you haven't. That minute long sequence at 15:44 makes me cry.
You know the nostalgia phenomenon where people's first pokemon game usually remains their favorite years later? Yeah this was one of my first introductions to YTPs and it still holds a place as one of my favorites. The creator also submitted it to a local film festival one time.
Criminally underrated YTP. As I am writing this, it only has 328 views. Fucked up.
Have you ever wondered if that 5 second clip of Penn from Penn & Teller saying "You need to shut the fuck up" could be extended into a 5 minute youtube poop? Well the answer is yes.
(hate that the video is age restricted. >:( ruining my layout.)
RULE OF OBEDIENCE NUMBER FOUR 👏 TEEN 👏