| 1 | Gacharic Spin | "ゴーストルール" | Go Luck! 5 | I want to call this a golden age of Japanese music, because that would be fun to declare, |
| 2 | PEDRO [BiSH AYUNi D Solo Project] | "自律神経出張中" | zoozoosea | but of course I don't actually know enough about the current or past states of Japanese music to be the one who calls it any kind of age. |
| 3 | Mahousyoujoninaritai | "Start" | Start +3 | But what I can say, for the same reasons, is that this is at least the beginning of the end |
| 4 | みんなのこどもちゃん | "死ねばいい" | 壁のない世界 | of the dark ages of being a non-Japanese fan of Japanese music. |
| 5 | Malcolm Mask McLaren | "Light on!!" | single | When I first started trying to figure out what was going on in Japan, |
| 6 | uijin | "daylight" | everything is practice | my best tactic was to go to Chinatown and buy a bunch of bootleg anime compilation CDs, |
| 7 | Candye Syrup | "Secret Doll" | Idol Can Dye Sick Rock!! | and then hope I could make enough sense of the track listing to follow up for real on anything I liked. |
| 8 | CY8ER | "GOOD LUCK" | single | This was a pretty bad method. A couple years of night-school Japanese classes improved it to a point of rudimentary utility, |
| 9 | Predianna | "STAND UP" | STAND UP +3 | although arguably a point that was at least as useful to mail-order Japanese CD companies as it was to me as a listener. |
| 10 | Tsuyogari Sensation | "UG stepper" | UG stepper +3 | A year of Spotify in 2018 costs less than what it cost me to buy 4 CDs from Japan in 2002, |
| 11 | YukueshirezuTsurezure | "MISS SINS" | MISS SINS +2 | and I do not mean that I only bought 4 CDs from Japan in 2002. |
| 12 | Uchikubi Gokumon Doukoukai | "忘れらんねえですよ" | 冬盤 4 | Not all of those CDs I bought in the 2000s are available for streaming in the US, even now, |
| 13 | PiGU | "Kakurenbo" | Roots Rock iD 5 | but some GLAY compilations finally showed up last week, |
| 14 | GOKIGEN TEIKOKU -The Movie- | "Kiminona Chikainoyoru" | Stand up | and one of these weeks some Japanese label executive will finally decide that foreigners have earned the right to hear BUMP OF CHICKEN and Garnet Crow. |
| 15 | woltanative | "Give Me Mayday -From The Heart Of The End Of Clarity & Wrong World-" | woltanative ep | One of these years some Japanese label executive will realize that J-Pop could have been K-Pop before K-Pop, |
| 16 | [Alexandros] | "アルペジオ" | Sleepless in Brooklyn | but that being K-Pop after K-Pop is better than isolationism. |
| 17 | ONE OK ROCK | "Stand Out Fit In" | single | The world isn't, temporary border setbacks notwithstanding, |
| 18 | Swanky Dank | "White Flag" | single | going to get any less open. |
| 19 | yourness | "凩" | Shift 6 | And while we're definitely still missing some things, it kind of doesn't matter. |
| 20 | Die/May | "Odium" | Odium | If you don't already know about BUMP OF CHICKEN from mail-ordering, |
| 21 | ACME | "SENKOU" | SENKOU | any of these bands can be for you what BUMP OF CHICKEN was for me. |
| 22 | BLUE ENCOUNT | "Freedom" | Freedom +2 | The catalog is hyperlinked, you don't have to learn kanji just to look up a band. |
| 23 | DEXCORE | "Brain Washing" | Brain Washing +2 | A part of me wants to say that it's not quite the same, that my experience of this music is richer because I had to laboriously learn a tiny amount of a truly foreign language in order to get access to it. |
| 24 | TK from Ling tosite sigure | "Katharsis" | Katharsis +3 | It's true, of course, that my experience of the music is richer because I did learn some Japanese. |
| 25 | MONO | "Breathe" | single | My musical life is also richer because I spent a ton of time and money in record stores when that's what you had to do to discover music. |
| 26 | Unreqvited | "Dreamscape" | Mosaic I: L'amour Et L'ardeur | But it wasn't better, in either case, that I had to. |
| 27 | Tides from nebula | "Paratyphoid Fever" | single | Pain makes you stronger, but this is a consolation, not a justification. |
| 28 | R-chord | "像水一樣" | single | Streaming is better. Borderlessness is better. |
| 29 | AmaLee | "Lifelight" | single | Listening is better than shopping, better than collecting. |
| 30 | YOHIO | "Merry Go Round" | Merry Go Round +1 | I loved record stores. I don't miss them any more than I miss Egghead Software. |
| 31 | Dan Bull | "I'm McCree, I'm A Weirdo" | I'm McCree, I'm A Weirdo +1 | I loved getting those boxes in the mail from Japan. |
| 32 | Lovebites | "プレッジ・オブ・ザ・セイヴィアー" | single | I love the indie spirit of Bandcamp, but it's an online service in the shape of a shipping service, |
| 33 | Wiley | "Flip The Table Freestyle" | single | and we don't need that any more. |
| 34 | AJ Tracey | "Doing It" | single | I wouldn't have mail-ordered a new goofy Dan Bull single every week. |
| 35 | ITCHY | "Kill Tomorrow - Bonus Track" | single | Actually, honestly, I probably would have, but most people wouldn't, |
| 36 | Don Diablo | "Survive (feat. Emeli Sandé, Gucci Mane)" | single | and Dan Bull's relentless, cheerfully hyper-episodic career wouldn't have made any sense that way. |
| 37 | First to Eleven | "Thank You, Next" | single | We are only at the beginning of the native streaming era, only beginning to figure out all the new forms it enables, |
| 38 | Ceres | "Kiss Me Crying" | single | for both hearing and making music. |
| 39 | Altarage | "Cyclopean Clash" | single | We are, maybe, at the beginning of the end of the era of borders. |
| 40 | Evergrey | "A Silent Arc" | single | Maybe. |
| 41 | MyGrain | "Deliverance" | III 3 | Some Japanese music-label executives and some American charlatans haven't accepted their fates, |
| 42 | Within Temptation | "Firelight - Single Edit" | single | but there's good ramen in Boston and good sushi in Stockholm, |
| 43 | Kalidia | "To the Darkness I Belong" | The Frozen Throne | and there's power metal in Italy |
| 44 | Tigersclaw | "Force of Destiny" | single | and Germany and Russia. |
| 45 | Tragodia | "Star-Driven" | Before the Fall | Oh, and Italy. |
| 46 | Conception | "Grand Again" | My Dark Symphony | Last time Conception made an album, we still communicated with ravens. |
| 47 | GEMS | "Medusa" | Medusa Deluxe | Now our love is everywhere invisible in the air. |
| 48 | Valley | "There's Still A Light In The House" | MAYBE - Side A 6 | We had occasional new waves; now we have standing waves constantly. |
| 49 | Distant Cousins | "Like Me" | single | But this was always going to happen. |
| 50 | Vistas | "Fade" | single | Radio and recording released us. |
| 51 | Thyla | "Blue" | single | Television and airplanes released us. |
| 52 | Blood Red Shoes | "Howl" | single | History released us, proud of what we have learned, even if we sometimes forget. |
| 53 | 32 tens | "So Nah" | single | And yes, it's true, none of this is entirely unscary. |
| 54 | Moving Units | "Song Forever" | This Is Six | We had ways we understood, and sometimes they sound like they haven't changed, |
| 55 | The Animal In Me | "Careless Whisper" | single | and is that a trick? |
| 56 | Marie Davidson | "La Ecstase" | La Ecstase +1 | Wasn't the future supposed to be terrifying and austere, |
| 57 | Ligovskoï | "Mungu" | Esam | all static and jumpsuits? |
| 58 | Across the Atlantic | "Lights" | single | Noodles don't taste like we live in space now. |
| 59 | ENEMY AC130 ABOVE | "Suspended Animation" | Enemy Ac130 Above | We don't really transcend so much as we subsume, |
| 60 | Wings Denied | "Message in a Bottle" | single | but still, slowly, things change. |
| 61 | Danheim | "Hausrunir" | single | Slowly, against rituals of intransigence, |
| 62 | Pictureplane | "Sex Trigger (Burn in Heaven)" | Sex Trigger (Burn in Heaven) / Low Key 2 | amidst witch hunts in our houses, |
| 63 | Care of Night | "Love Equals War" | Love Equals War | down nighttime highways in open cars, |
| 64 | Labirinto | "Divino Afflante Spiritu" | single | into roiling darknesses, |
| 65 | Miss Caffeina | "Merlí" | single | and out again, |
| 66 | Repion | "País Interior" | Donde Escapa la Luz 5 | not exactly unscathed |
| 67 | Carolina Durante | "Perdona (Ahora Sí Que Sí)" | single | but unstopped, |
| 68 | Miriam Rodríguez | "Mejor Sin Miedo" | Cicatrices | unbowed, |
| 69 | Karma Fields | "An Underground System of Forgotten Machines" | single | we persist. |
| 70 | Pkew Pkew Pkew | "65 Nickels" | single | Commission all the submarines you want, Canadian punk bands can get here over land. |
| 71 | Nuno | "Fuera Luces" | single | You can go from Canada to Mexico in three strange days. |
| 72 | Kudai | "Dime Como Fue" | single | Joy streams into every country from every direction, |
| 73 | Jesse & Joy | "Te Esperé" | single | disguised as hope |
| 74 | EXID | "I Love You" | I Love You +1 | disguised as love. |
| 75 | (G)I-DLE | "달려! Relay" | 달려! Relay +1 | We smuggle it in inside wind-up toys |
| 76 | Toygar Işıklı | "Şahin Tepesi Jenerik Müziği" | Şahin Tepesi (Orijinal Dizi Müzikleri) 2 | and cavalry, |
| 77 | Obliteration | "Cenotaph Obscure" | Cenotaph Obscure | crushed into powder |
| 78 | Scandroid | "Phoenix" | Phoenix +1 | and reconstituted by algorithm. |
| 79 | Hamlet | "No Sé Decir Adiós" | Berlín | This is a German-titled album by a Spanish band named after an English writer's Danish character. |
| 80 | 22 | "Chroma Key" | You Are Creating: Limb2 | This was always going to happen. |
| 81 | Hafdís Huld | "One Moment In Time" | single | The vikings were here, but decided we weren't ready yet. |
| 82 | Jay Smith | "My Everything" | single | Maybe we're not ready now, either. |
| 83 | Gathering Of Kings | "Love Will Stay Alive" | single | Our hearts are free, but our preconceptions are dynastic. |
| 84 | Billie Eilish | "come out and play" | single | Our children, born under lowering skies, will have different choices to make, |
| 85 | Вера Брежнева | "Любите друг друга (Из к/ф "Ёлки последние")" | single | together, |
| 86 | Sulphur Aeon | "Yuggothian Spell" | single | not all of them easy, |
| 87 | Nitroday | "ジェット" | single | but all of them inescapably whole. |
| 88 | Grooving In Green | "A Little Soul" | A Little Soul +2 | The old cults disband. |
| 89 | Francois van Coke | "Ware Liefde" | single | We were sold sanctuary, |
| 90 | Kotak | "Beranikan Dirimu" | single | but we opened the doors and walked out. |
| 91 | Rizky Febian | "Menari" | single | Now it's a coworking space |
| 92 | Naura | "Karena Kamu Artinya Cinta (Sentuhan Ibu)" | single | with an in-house coffee roaster |
| 93 | Wardruna | "Vindavla" | Skald | and a row of insulated motion-activiated windows for better ravenflow. |
| 94 | Black Swan | "Oni" | Oni +1 | Now everywhere we congregate is a living archive of whatever we are still trying to allow to no longer define us, |
| 95 | Chelan | "Dear Miracle" | Dear Miracle | and the moments seem individually impossible but collectively inevitable. |
| 96 | Echos | "Revival" | Revival +3 | Now we hear ourselves again, |
| 97 | Sidonie | "Fascinados (feat. Joan Manuel Serrat, Leiva, Vetusta Morla, Iván Ferreiro, Loquillo, Zahara, Dani Martin, Albert Pla, Mikel (Izal), Noni (Lori Meyers), Santi Balmes (Love of Lesbian), Xoel López, Anni B Sweet, Jeanette, Carlos Sadness, Nina (Morgan), Juan Alberto (Niños Mutantes), Miri Ros, Javiera Mena, Jorge Martí (La Habitación Roja), Rafa Val (Viva Suecia), Marc (Dorian), Alondra Bentley, Abraham Boba, Carlangas (Novedades Carminha), La Bien Querida, Martí Perarnau IV (Mucho), Nita (Fuel Fandango) & Shuarma (Elefantes))" | single | disguised as somebody else's heroes. |