Playlist of the Week

Last month I completely forgot that it had been two years since I created my favorite playlist Sounds of Asia: Heavy Metal (originally titled Asian Metal). In late 2020, I started listening to the band Krypteria (now known as And She Came) fronted by a Korean German singer named Ji-In Cho. As a result of listening to her band, I was inspired to do a deep dive into exploring the heavy metal scenes all over Asia (predominantly East and Southeast Asia). I started going on YouTube and Spotify to find bands from China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philipines, Thailand, and so on. 

Little did I know it would drastically change the trajectory of my listening habits. I soon found myself listening a lot less of post-punk/EBM and more metal. As someone who grew up with absolutely no Asian representation in the media I consumed, hearing music, especially death and thrash metal created by people who looked like me totally blew me away. And to be honest, in the past few years between the pandemic and rise in Asian hate, and the unrest following George Floyd, I have seen some racism coming out of the goth scene which also made me rethink about listening to Euro-centric post-punk and EBM bands. Not sorry for saying that but when you have seen anti-Asian jokes coming out of a particular scene, you would be turned off too. Sorry not sorry. You can either take it or leave it. I am fresh out of f**k with some white people.

While I will confess the majority of the metal I listen to comes from Japan, there is also some really killer music coming out of China like Mysterain and Silent Elegy, India (Bloodywood), Vietnam (Reborn VN and Windrunner), and Mongolia featured on my playlist. 

I thought I would celebrate a belated 2nd anniversary of my favorite playlist I made on Spotify. Here is a list of songs from my playlist that really influenced me over the years. 

Most Influential Songs:

"Cycle of Addiction" by TELECiDE (damn shame the band is no longer together, really dug their metalcore sound)
"Graceful Gate" by Cross Vein
"Leaves Burned to Ashes" by Serenity in Murder
"Valkyrie" by Silent Elegy
"When Destinies Align" by Lovebites
"The Song" by Black Kirin

"The Hymn of Despair" by Reborn VN (feat. Quan of Bloodshed)