Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

Ever since I got to fully understand the great conveniences that the Internet has brought upon mankind, I’ve always been on a long quest in search of the perfect ‘Evergreen Playlist’. An evergreen playlist is basically a music playlist that one will never ever grow sick of even after thousands of loops. Yes, I will not deny the fact that to accomplish such a playlist, mp3s would be required.

Tjhan happily growing his Evergreen Playlist

 

Despite the fact that the RIAA/RIAS has been claiming foul play by the mass consumers of music who are embracing p2p, I seriously find this intellectual property issue a joke in Singapore. Singapore is home to one of the world’s biggest mp3 player companies aka Creative. Does anyone really think that mp3 players can thrive just solely on online-purchased digital music? There is a point that I agree with Darkmirage. He basically stated that modern age comes with modern technological trends. When this convenient new technology becomes mainstream, old restrictions will no longer work. Instead, alternative commercial options of better flexibility should be provided if companies want to survive. Restricting mainstream technology habits is like asking everyone to stay in the stone age so that you can cheat them of their aboriginal wives. So if the Singapore HIP! campaign is really serious in what it says, I guess it’s not that hip afterall, more like brainwash and mind control. Especially when their recent advertisement looked like some cult propaganda. Laws in place are obeyed according to a code of conduct between the people and the government. If laws are not for the benefit of the majority of the population, then it’s a useless law.

I digressed. Badly. Please ignore the above paragraph.

There are absolutely no songs that can be looped forever and not be grown sick of. However there are songs that remain catchy even after a hundred loops. Such an audio lifespan accompanied with a nicely planned out playlist interval using other long-lasting songs can indeed produce a playlist which could last for months. Over the years of attempts of growing and trimming various playlists, several songs have managed to stay on my pseudo-evergreen list for at least 3 playlist refreshes.

They are mainly:

1. Houki Boushi (Bleach)
2. Thank You! (Home Made Kazoku, Bleach)
3. Shounen Heart (Home Made Kazoku, E7)
4. Waltz (Suneohair, Honey and Clover)
5. I Say Yeah! (Some music starring quite a few groups, including Home Made Kazoku)
6. Gungrave ED single (This Scoobie band thing is totally awesome)
7. Hachi Gatsu no Serenade(Suga Shikao, Honey and Clover)
8. Gogo no Parade(Suga Shikao)
9. Natsuyasumi no Shukudai (Makino Yui)
10. Slide (Goo Goo Dolls)
11. Mata Aimashou (SEAMO)
12. All Our Happiness Is Plucked From The Thoughts Of Each And Every One Of You(Unionest)

Do understand that being “Evergreen” merely means that they have a high rate of replayability and does not necessarily mean that they are good songs. Beautiful songs like Tori no Uta and Light Colours aren’t on the list simply because I’ve Sound songs tend to cause some brain damage when given an overdose. Any song that can get you tapping your feet to the beat even after a hundred continuous loops is most probably an evergreen song.

I used to loop YUI’s ‘Life’ and ‘Tomorrow’s Way’ together with Houki Boushi but the latter proved to be much more evergreen than the former. I shall emphasise once again that this does NOT mean YUI’s songs suck. Well, maybe her recent songs are shitty but her earlier works were made of win. One more thing to note is that Shounen Jump anime productions usually get the best songs for their OP and ED despite being the shittiest anime out there.

SEAMO is some rapper dude which I categorise under the same type as Home Made Kazoku: Hit-or-miss. Their good songs are really catchy but most of their songs are generally crap. SEAMO recently had an album release of his best songs and even so, half of them were crap. Only one song of the better ones made it on my Evergreen list. ‘Kiseki’ and ‘Fly Away’ were rather good but I grew sick of it after 20 loops but it has potentially to last through my next playlist refreshing. His ‘a love story’ combi song with Bennie K would have been much better without him shouting non-stop like a moron. Home Made Kazoku has quite a few notable songs not on the list, such as ‘Nagareboshi’ and ‘Home Sweet Home’. Nice for listening with headphones on the go, and both have a really cool tune to them. Sadly, they don’t really last on my looping meter.

I’d thought of putting Starlight Destiny from Soul’d Out on the list but I realized that I had long grown sick of it a few months ago and Soul’d Out is a rather gay group.

Suga Shikao is some really flexible singer with a rather sexy voice. His songs were used in anime like Honey and Clover and xxxHolic, and his others were mostly rather great songs for chilling out to. I used to loop his songs together with Hirai Ken’s during my conscript days but Hirai Ken’s songs aren’t actually good for looping in the long run so he got refreshed out of my list. People who’d never heard of Suga Shikao should give him a try, not that I would promise that your taste is the same as mine.

Makino Yui is that totally cute voice that sang ‘Euphoria’ and ‘Undine’ for the ARIA anime production. Those two songs could put anyone to sleep and I mean that in a good way, like a lullaby. Despite that, she had this catchy song ‘Natsuyasumi no Shukudai’ in her album ‘Tenkyuu no Ongaku’ that has been stuck on my playlist for many months now.

‘Slide’ by Goo Goo Dolls is the only English song that has been on my list for months ever since tjhan fed me with it. Sad thing is, rock songs generally don’t do well on my looping chart, so I end up replacing one rock band with another. Chinese rock band ‘May Day’ does quite well on my list though, just not lasting enough. I just realized that my playlist is a bastard of languages, I should start listening to Tamil and Malay songs too. There was this really cool Malay pop song I heard the other day but I would never know what it was because I simply do not understand the language.

The last on the list is some Unionest Touhou remix, fed to me by Kwok. It has a freakin’ long name so I shall skip that. The only reason why this piece of remix can last so damn long on my evergreen chart is because that it’s seventeen damn minutes long and composed by several different people who later merged it together into one piece. This song also boasts the power of growth, and by that I mean it’s the kind of song that starts off with a rather mediocre, if not bad, impression but later becomes so catchy to you that you can’t bear to delete it off your playlist. I expect it to stay on for many, many more months to come.

So my Evergreen Playlist is usually a combination of the above songs mixed with several of the recent anime songs that play the role of creating intervals between the main looping songs. Over time, I am quite sure that these songs will be eventually phased out too but brought back to life once in a while. That would probably be a matter of around one to two more years.

Feel free to bash my tastes because you’ll only be labelled as a moron as I’ve already stated that “good” songs and “evergreen” songs are a different matter. Not being on an evergreen list does not mean a song sucks, vice versa wise, good songs do not necessarily have to be on your evergreen list, otherwise I’d have placed all of riya’s songs in it. If you have a long evergreen list, it just means you don’t really understand the concept of “evergreen”.

Question now is, how do YOU build your own Pseudo-Evergreen playlist? State some of the songs that are already on your evergreen list and elaborate if you like.

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