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Welcome to ‘The Book Blogger Hop’ originally hosted by Jen @ Crazy for Books
The ‘Book Blogger Hop’ has a new question every week that every blog participating must answer. This week’s question is:
Do you listen to music when you read, and if so, what are your favorite reading tunes?
The answer is, yes, I love a bit of background music or ‘mood music’ as I like to call it. In fact, I use music as a primary source when writing too, so I have little collections of albums that help conjure up certain themes and emotions. One of my most treasured playlists is called ‘One For The Road’. It’s full of tracks that are sometimes dark and laid-back that conjure the essence or experience of late-night driving. It took me a while to get the tracks in order, but when they play, they tune in and out of each other seamlessly. Oh, and the tracks are all Japanese. I love my Japanese music.
Here’s what’s on the list:
1. Buck Tick – Utsusemi
2. AYA – Overnight
3. Buck Tick – Gessekai
4. AYA – Chains
5. Atsushi Sakurai – Sacrifice
6. AYA – Sentaku No Asa
7. Atsushi Sakurai – Wonderful World (Injection to NY Mix)
8. Buck Tick – Kagerou
9. HYDE – I Can Feel
10. Mika Nakashima – Isolation
11. Kagrra – Satsuki
12. Ken – The Shadow of Your Smile
There’s an awful lot Buck-Tick and Sakurai (frontman of Buck-Tick) because I LOVE him. No seriously, I feel an affinity with his music. Firstly, we share the same birthday (7th March, same as Brett Easton Ellis!), and secondly, he’s got the most awesome voice, and there is not a single track that he has made that I can say is bad. I highly recommend his work. He’s like a Japanese David Bowie, but with a lot of cybernoir thrown in. The same goes for HYDE and all the Laruku songs. Ken and Kagrra got added to the list after much consideration, but I think they fit well too.
Best song on the list? WONDEFUL WORLD!!! Cool, americano, loose. The best intro yet… to put it simply, I’m quite literally cruising across the Las Vegas desert in the ‘Great Red Shark’ with the good doctor and the Great Gonzo.
I’ve read Murakami’s ‘After Dark’, the Ring Trilogy’ and Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’ to these songs as well as ‘Fear and Loathing’. Though for ‘Fear and Loathing’ I had to make some agjustments in the way of ‘White Rabbit’ by Jefferson Airplane.
Well, that’s my literary soundtrack. What’s yours? I’m hopping off to find out!
See you on the blog hop!
Novroz said:
Hopping in 🙂
Nice list…tho I only know half of them. I lost interest with nowadays J-rock band. I still listen to the old ones more than the new ones.
I have hundreds of song in my player, so I can’t write them all like you did 😉
mywordlyobsessions said:
Hi Novroz, thanks for hopping over 🙂
I’m not much into the JRock today. I like the older stuff too. Like you I’ve got loads of tracks. Laruku takes up a lot of the space though. Come to think of it, I haven’t listened to HYDE’s ‘Roentgen’ album for awhile. I must do a little revisit down memory lane.
What’s your fav Laruku song? I love ‘Dive To Blue’ and ‘Anemone’.
Novroz said:
Fav Larc’s songs? hehehehe I honestly don’t know!! I love them too much and I love ALL their songs.
My favorite songs are changing all the time, depend on the mood.
debnance at readerbuzz said:
I love the silence when I read. Beautiful silence.
I found your blog via the Hop. I’m a new follower. I’d love for you to stop by my blog and become a follower.
http://www.readerbuzz.blogspot.com
mywordlyobsessions said:
Hi debnance! thanks for stopping by. I’ll def. take a look at your blog.
They say silence is golden – I wish I could read to silence.
jvoss said:
Howdy, visiting you via the Book Blog Hop. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Janna
http://www.primoreads.com/
mywordlyobsessions said:
Hi Janna! Thanks very much for visiting. I hope you have a wonderful weekend too 🙂
Elle said:
Hello! Lovely blog. 🙂 I don’t usually listen to music while I read, but Japanese music sounds like something new I should try, because almost everyone else is opting for classical music.
mywordlyobsessions said:
Hi Elle, I say definitely give it a go. It’s a bit strange when you first listen to it, but it’s a lot of fun once you get used to it.
I love classical music. I usually write to classical music.
leeswammes said:
Wow, Japanese music! I don’t listen to music much, but my husband likes Kitaro which is instrumental, it’s quite quiet. I like it too (well, I got used to it, of course!). There are also one or two other instrumental ones that I like.
But I like them best in the car or so. At home, I like silence.
mywordlyobsessions said:
Ooo, Kitaro? I must go and listen to some right now. Some traditional Japanese music can be very relaxing. I like the sound of the Shamisen.
gnoegnoe said:
Mood music! That’s a great word for it 🙂 I often read in silence because I find music too distracting, but I like my bit of supportive ‘mood music’ every once in a while as well.
I’ll be checking out some of the songs on your track list! I have no idea if we’ve got anything of it in our HUGE iTunes library already (we have a lot of Japanese music as well) but otherwise I guess Mr Gnoe can find me some anyway 😉
As I wrote in my Hop post I associate completely different music with The Lord of the Rings :))