| 1 | 工藤晴香 | "旅立ち" | 流星列車 | 工藤晴香 is Kudō Haruka, something I do not appear to have internalized, despite having put four of her earlier songs on these playlists in the last two years. |
| 2 | PIGGS | "小さな叫び" | 小さな叫び +1 | I would like to remember this now, as 流星列車 (Meteor Train, or something like that) is one of my two or three favorite albums of the year so far, |
| 3 | MiiS | "星回りバイアス (Hoshimawari Bias)" | LINKING CELL | and the bad way would be to just assume any name that begins with 工 is her. |
| 4 | Kolokol | "Story Line" | single | This simplification fails immediately, because 工藤遥 is also a Japanese singer and actress whose name comes out Kudō Haruka when romaji'ed, |
| 5 | #2i2 | "Shutter speed" | single | but a different one, younger, who was in Morning Musume and on a Power Rangers show. |
| 6 | MAD JAMIE | "What is it worth?" | single | 藤 is a marvelously elaborate combination of 艹 (flowers), 月 (moon), 水 (water) and that tangle in the middle-right that somehow means "gladiator" but only in combination with other things, |
| 7 | NEO BREAK | "Answer" | High Five!!!!! | such as, in this combination, wisteria. |
| 8 | Pastel*Palettes | "Brand new Pastel Road!" | single | You learn 日 for sun and 月 for moon pretty early in Japanese, because in a bit of helpful annotative exuberance that other languages could really benefit from, |
| 9 | KANKAKU PIERO | "Monochrome Sentimental Believer" | single | Japanese quantities are always labeled by typed counters, and 日 and 月 are, naturally, the counters for days and months. |
| 10 | Morfonica | "fly with the night" | fly with the night +1 | 工藤晴香, the older Kudō Haruka, is both a singer and actress, too, but in her case an anime voice actress and a solo singer. |
| 11 | 星街すいせい | "TEMPLATE" | TEMPLATE/Wicked feat. Mori Calliope 4 | 晴香 has two suns and a moon, and 遥 has none of either. |
| 12 | METAMOLFOURZE | "CYALUME" | single | Whether I will remember this is unclear, but it's possible to imagine myself remembering it, which is a start. |
| 13 | 工藤晴香 | "HOPE" | 流星列車 | Repeat listening ought, morally, to help, but really doesn't. |
| 14 | Nevaria | "Battle Cry" | single | I mean, it helps, in that it increases my motivation to remember, |
| 15 | Dreamtale | "Last Goodbyes" | Everlasting Flame | but realistically, I long ago gave up on name-memorization as an exploration constraint. |
| 16 | Windrunner | "Cyan" | TAN | I don't have to look up "Dreamtale" or "Windrunner" to remember what words the symbols spell, |
| 17 | Venus 5 | "Because of You" | single | but do I remember, offhand, where either of those two bands are from or how many times I have wondered this in the past? |
| 18 | Synlakross | "Death / Hate" | Ideas Are Bulletproof 3 | No, the answer is no. Dreamtale is a power-metal band from Tampere, Finland, and Everlasting Flame is their 8th album, |
| 19 | Memoremains | "Paralyze" | single | which took me two different searches to figure out, because for some reason their sixth album (but only that one) isn't available to stream in the US. |
| 20 | Halflives | "Dynamite" | single | Windrunner is a progressive metalcore band from Vietnam, and TAN is their second album, |
| 21 | September Mourning | "Mausoleum" | single | which took me three different searches to figure out, because Encyclopedia Metallum, my usual second search for metal info, |
| 22 | Dianthus | "Realms - Radio Edit" | single | maintains an adorably dedicated aversion to anything anybody has ever referred to as metalcore, |
| 23 | April Art | "Sky Is The Limit" | single | no matter how little like Sevendust or Spineshank they sound. |
| 24 | Volturian | "Harley" | single | When I dislike metalcore, which I do frequently enough to mostly support EM's anti-metalcore rigidity, |
| 25 | STELL/\RIS | "Scars" | single | it's usually due to some combination of brutish exaggerated masculinity and gooey groove-metal indiscipline. |
| 26 | Death Verified | "Pestilence" | single | Windrunner have a female lead-singer, and get to their -core via techy cyber/industrial crunch, |
| 27 | Rachel La Scalla | "Milennia" | single | which works for me, well enough that this is the eighth time I've had them on these playlists, but not so well that I could remember that fact without looking it up. |
| 28 | LionSoul | "Amber Of Illusion" | single | But now we're thirty songs in, and I'm still reconstructing what I know about 4 artists, |
| 29 | 4Order | "Silence" | single | one of whom isn't even involved in this. |
| 30 | Battlelore | "Firekeeper" | single | That's one way to listen. |
| 31 | Trick or Treat | "Have a Nice Judgment Day" | Creepy Symphonies | It's the way I grew up listening, |
| 32 | Lords of the Trident | "The Blade" | The Offering | and the way I half-implicitly learned that one should listen, |
| 33 | Pure Reason Revolution | "Phantoms" | single | the serious way: |
| 34 | Satan | "Earth We Bequeath" | Earth Infernal | one meticulously scrutinized album at a time, |
| 35 | Dark The Suns | "Kun Aallot Kallioihin Murtuu" | single | each artist ruthlessly contextualized, |
| 36 | Kampfar | "Urkraft" | Urkraft +1 | each step patiently and deliberately taken. |
| 37 | Tombs | "Ex Oblivion" | single | This is a listening practice for a small world |
| 38 | Watain | "We remain" | We remain +2 | you don't plan to see much of, |
| 39 | Batushka | "MARIA (POSLEDNEJE PISMO)" | MARIA | for a canonicalist's statuary and the careful avoidance of surprise. |
| 40 | Extravaganza | "Barocco" | single | It is a depth-first exploratory methodology, |
| 41 | Manntra | "Nightmare" | single | with the accompanying assumption that the most interesting treasures |
| 42 | Kjell Braaten | "Rísa" | Blóta | are buried exactly where you happen to be standing. |
| 43 | GGGOLDDD | "Like Magic" | This Shame Should Not Be Mine | That might be true. |
| 44 | Frayle | "Skin & Sorrow" | single | Or, more likely, it might be true that you can dig anywhere and find something treasurable at any specified depth. |
| 45 | Andromida | "WRATH OF THE VANGUARD" | Wrath of the Vanguard | I believe that, but no more surely than I believe that you can also find treasurable things scattered on the ground, |
| 46 | Sorbus | "Gokiburi" | single | or hanging from trees, |
| 47 | Disconnected | "Your Way To Kill" | We Are Disconnected | or beckoning to you from the sky. |
| 48 | ANSIFLE | "FOLLOW ME" | single | There are many ways to listen. |
| 49 | Neptune Rain | "Final Round" | single | Digging and memorization are slow. |
| 50 | Gräce | "Atreyu" | single | I have spent slow years, already. |
| 51 | Nothing’s Carved In Stone | "Fuel" | single | What you learn, when you start to move faster, |
| 52 | The Mills | "Nadie" | single | is not that no good things are ever buried, |
| 53 | Da Igual | "Prefiero 1k veces 1 beso que 1 like de Instagram" | single | but that confident assertions about where to dig are almost always |
| 54 | K!ngdom | "La La La Luna" | Quiero meterme en tu cama 5 | new styles of dowsing. |
| 55 | don't get lemon | "The Film Star’s Car" | Hyper Hollow Heaven | If you want to dig where you are, just dig. |
| 56 | Slow Crush | "Billow" | Blue / Billow 2 | You don't need grand claims about what you think you're going to find, |
| 57 | Colours Of One | "To The River" | Vessels | you just need a sense of purpose for how the digging is going to justify itself, |
| 58 | Fatherson | "Everything" | Normal Fears | for how you will find worlds nested inside of each other, |
| 59 | ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION | "Be Alright" | プラネットフォークス | for how you will dig in one place as if you are digging everywhere at once, |
| 60 | Nightly | "hate my favorite band" | single | for how to stand expansively still |
| 61 | amazarashi | "1.0" | single | while the 日 and the 月 circle above you, and the 花 and the 水 swirl around you. |
| 62 | Senses | "butterflies" | single | But that is not the only way, not the only serious way, not the way you have to choose. |
| 63 | biteki | "falesia" | single | Another listening practice for a small world is the absurd and impatient attempt to hear all of it. |
| 64 | Namasenda | "Black Ops 2 - umru Remix" | Unlimited Ammo : Infinity 2 | You live on a planet where a former Helloween tribute-band can make a dance-without-tears-in-our-eyes anthem for the fear of the end of the world. |
| 65 | cookii | "oh no" | popstyle | You live on a dirt-covered rock that you share with 8 billion people. |
| 66 | renforshort | "made for you" | single | You can't dig all the way through it. You can't learn all of their names. |
| 67 | Heather Sommer | "ON DEMAND" | single | Depth and breadth are geometrically orthogonal, but morally parallel. |
| 68 | Chloe Lilac | "how does your girlfriend feel about it" | single | One sun and one moon |
| 69 | Bronnie | "Friendzone" | single | form infinite possible days and nights, |
| 70 | Beach Bunny | "Fire Escape" | Fire Escape +1 | but you can only have a few of them. |
| 71 | Lauran Hibberd | "Still Running (5K) (feat.DJ Lethal)" | single | You can run in place, or walk away. |
| 72 | Monica Naranjo | "Ey!" | single | You can adore precision |
| 73 | Kool Jane | "Dünya" | single | or lovingly relinquish the responsibility of recall. |
| 74 | Makhadzi | "Vhusiwana" | Pain Ya Jealous | You can measure your relationship with the world by the displacement you cause, |
| 75 | Pongo | "Vida" | Sakidila | or places you incoporate |
| 76 | Djely Tapa | "Le sais-tu ?" | single | into movement. |
| 77 | Mamadou Diabate | "Duniya banaba" | Seengwa | There are many ways to listen, but you only need one |
| 78 | Terakaft | "Jagwar" | Jagwar +2 | in order to hear every noise at once. |
| 79 | Dotorado Pro | "Gaita" | ALL-IN 6 | There are too many songs left, and too few days, |
| 80 | Fire-Toolz | "Mosquito Mouth" | I Can't Die Again 4 | but only if you think |
| 81 | Minniva | "Fear of the Dark" | single | you're alone. |