My favorite band of all time. The songs, the lore, straddling the border between Spirituality and Silliness- the perfect band. RIP to the Wilson brothers.
This is my favorite video game and favorite soundtrack. My favorite song from the soundtrack changes a lot but most days it's 'Sogen Town'.
The music in this game is very nostalgic to me, I especially love 'Fantasia', 'Omega Sector: Finding Forest', and 'Aqua Dungeon: Deep Sea'. My mousepad is a map of Victoria Island and I have good memories of slaughtering ribbon pigs to silly songs.
I love their early power-pop songs the most.
Daniel Johnston's lyrics and recording quality specifically.
Made me want to 'get good' at acoustic guitar.
His guitar-playing stood out to me and made me want to learn chords outside the cowboy style and 'get good' at electric guitar.
Dorival Caymmi, Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Novos Bainos, Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, and Jorge Ben are my favorites. Shout out to 'Clube da Esquina', the weird harmonies from MPB4 and Os Tincoas and Heitor Villa-Lobos' classical guitar songs.
His songs are beautiful (and full of major 2 chords).
The length of their songs made me want to write short songs that are rewarding with each new listen.
Luminous Orange- this band has 2 phenomenal albums in the pop/shoegaze genre, 'Songs of Innocence' and 'Drop You Vivid Colors'. Check out the songs 'Violet', 'I Saw No More' and 'Give a Hint'. They need to put their song 'Riverboat' online though cause it's their best one.
MBV- I like their 1st album and s/t album a lot, 'loveless' is alright but I wouldn't say I was inspired by it as much as their EPs or other albums.
Sweet Trip- Lotsa good songs with strong melodies.
The Replacements- Lotsa strong songs with good melodies.
Bradford Cox- Atlas Sound and Deerhunter are very cool, I love Bradford Cox's music and I found out about Stereolab from an interview somewhere. I also think Moses Archuleta was one of the best drummers of that era.
Robin Pecknold- I really appreciate his melodies and think his songs are consistently engaging.
Grant Kirkhope, Yoko Shimomura and Koji Kondo-I grew up obsessively playing games featuring their music, Grant Kirkhope's use of chromatics are sick, Yoko Shimomura's piano and orchestra are hype incarnate and Koji Kondo was one of the first sources of bossa nova and latin-influenced music I ever heard. Their drums are wild.
Mew- Last mention for inspirations but not least because this is a special band. Mew's albums up until 'No More Stories' are incredible and their debut album 'A Triumph for Man' is very underrated. I miss Bo.
Only included musical inspirations here- if you are interested in my non-music inspirations feel free to check out my Writings page or just reach out and ask!