Put a Tune to It (Tag Post)

So, it’s time to show off my taste in music (which has shown up in awards and tag posts before, but not as much as it has in this particular capacity). Depending on your own tastes, you might like all or none of them…your call.

I decided to pick up Chris Joynson’s (Never Argue with a Fish) nomination for “anyone else who is interested” for this tag. Kudos to him. Also kudos to Dewbond at Shallow Dives in Anime for starting the original tag.

• Choose any number of western songs (any genre) that you think best sums up an anime or manga of any type or genre.
  • If you want to pick more than 1 from each section that’s fine. Or if you can’t think of one for a specific category that’s fine also.
• Explain why you think your choices could work. Is it the lyrics? The tune and the beat? Or just the music video?
• Link back to the original post so I can read people’s suggestions, I’d love to read everyone’s ideas.
• Include Put a Tune to It in your tags so everyone including myself can find them all easily.
• Nominate around 1-5 bloggers.

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Rocky – Tiesto and Kaaze (any battle shonen anime/manga set in the modern day or in the future)

I’ve mentioned this song on this blog a grand total of once, but it sounds exactly like it should belong to a shonen battle scene and wouldn’t feel out of place alongside instant-hype tracks like You Say Run. Apparently the song is very ’80s-inspired.

The reason why I specify “modern day or the future” is because I can’t see Demon Slayer working with it…then again, I can see close substitute Lion (Feel the Love) (this is the Fedde le Grand/Michael Calfan instrumental mix – I’ve heard a version with vocals by Max’C that doesn’t work as much) working with Demon Slayer, so there you go.

Blank – VIP – Disfigure (any anime/manga with a female yandere in it)

A prime yandere song (just listen to those lyrics paired with that breakdown!), so maybe it would suit something like Future Diary or Renai Boukun/Love Tyrant.

Stars Align – Kaskade (Hoshiai no Sora)

It may share its name (by sheer coincidence) with the English name for Hoshiai no Sora, but if you listen to the lyrics, it could be taken as a song for unrequited love. I think it rather aptly suits Yu’s scenario around the time he landed the position as the manager for the soft tennis club and its rather low-key nighttime vibe is a contrast to the more dramatic parts of the series.

Sidebar: According to SortYourMusic.com, Stars Align (the song) has 125 BPM, making it faster than Carry You Home but slightly slower than Starflight.

Get Outta My Way – Kylie Minogue (Amazing Stranger)

Another weird association I made based on the English localised title – the lyrics are actually “perfect stranger”, but somehow I got the song so mangled up it ended up that way (and so I get this mental image of the figures parading about like they own the place). Then again, I haven’t watched Amazing Stranger (aka Choukadou Girl 1/6) anyway, so I don’t know if it works out.

Carry You Home – James Blunt (Boku Dake ga Inai Machi/Erased)

Aside from brief references to America, this song is pretty bang-on for Kayo…or at least, what would happen to her, had Satoru not chosen to intervene.

Starflight – R3HAB x Skytech (any mech or sci-fi anime/manga involving battles)

It may just be the name and the progressions that happen within the song, but Starflight would work perfectly for a mech battle or a high-energy space opera.

Anti-Gravity – Runaground (Bungou Stray Dogs)

I actually have someone I can blame for this, namely tsukiko-ciah on Tumblr. Basically, it’s the perfect Chuuya song aside from Darkness my Sorrow (his official song…yes, he has one). It’s pretty darn angsty-sounding too, which helps its case a lot for the so-called (by the fans) “Angry Hat Rack”.

Parachute – Otto Knows (Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu)

Crazy, I-saw-it-in-a-dream music video aside, there’s a bit of a story behind this one: I had a fanfic idea at one point where the characters of SGRS had Abilities (from Bungou Stray Dogs, but associated with the rakugo they’re best at instead) and I specifically used this track to brainstorm for it – to this day, I still think Yakumo Yurakutei 8th with a shinigami, much like Demon Snow, is a really awesome mental image. I used both the original mix and the Zastenker remix at different points, so you can find the remix below. (The remix carries the SGRS drama vibe better because it’s quieter…it’s both sonically pleasing and yet kind of unsettling.)

Although the lyrics don’t really match up and I haven’t progressed with that fic in years since I don’t know what to assign a lot of the characters (nothing works as spectacularly as Shinigami does, really), the mood does fit and the association has lingered ever since.

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Nominations

No pressure on anyone whose name isn’t Shoka.

• Astral (knowing your background in music, this should be interesting)
• Voyager (get some use out of that personal blog of yours or give it to the whole Galvanic team to do, it’s your call)
• Shoka (because I can)
• Iniksbane (because he already has an idea or two but doesn’t seem to have been nominated yet…or maybe he did and it escaped me)

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I do have some other tracks I had to exclude by default – notably, Cyberangel by HOYO-MiX (which drove me nutty at one point due to how many Honkai Impact ads I was getting on Crunchyroll) has obvious ties to anime due to the aesthetic of Honkai Impact, but it’s Chinese. I also excluded Anime by Greg Maroney (who is apparently American) because I used that joke back when I still had the Productivity Pile.

So what’s your candidates for Western songs that could make great anime tracks?