This was my first post hardcore record and it changed my world view. I had grown up listening to my parents music: the Beatles, steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, and my sisters music: an amalgam of 90s hip hop, Tori Amos, and grunge. My older cousin, who I looked up to, had been out and came back to his parents house and I remember hearing this album playing in his car and the only thought I had was “music can be like this?”. And this sent me down a path of post hardcore, hardcore, emo, and art punk that I still love today

Who doesn’t love the magic and mystery of a Ghibli film and who better to score it than the master himself, Joe Hisaishi

I had gone into a rabbit hole of listening to city pop during the pandemic when the algorithm pushed it on a lot of us. The song midnight cruisin was one of the many songs on the list and once I checked out the rest of the album, I wondered where this album had been for me. Equal parts pop, jazz, and funk, it’s a great album for just about any mood and any setting.

Out of all the Beatles records I listened to growing up, this was the one I kept coming back to. Between Here, There, and Everywhere and And Your Bird Can Sing, to Eleanor Rigby, Taxman, and For No One. You can find a song for any mood, any place, and any time. I’ll die on the hill that this album is better than Abbey Road.