Unpopular opinions we have on fiction (2025)

As for my own tastes, for the examples I'm going to list, I'm leaving out the songs I listen to for their contexts, and will just have the ones I think stand on their own sans context. I'll also be listing mostly vocal songs, despite primarily listening to non-vocal songs, because I think that's what most people mean when they ask for music recommendations. The few non-vocal songs are ones I still think are worth mentioning, just for how often they're on my playlists. Despite that, only in a few cases do I pay attention to the vocals, because I'm more about the instrumentation and backing track; the voices are just another instrument.

For yet another caveat, these are not the Best Examples, or even Fully Representative. They're just songs I happen to be able to think of at the moment, rather than being top of the rankings or something. They are also in no particular order.

• If you were to force an answer from me of "what genre of music do you listen to", I'd probably answer "electro-swing".
  • "Suspect" from Hololive, in this case Aki Rosenthal, Roboco, and Ayame Nakiri.
  • When I want to just set a genre on Spotify and let it choose for me, I use Fake Type as the starting seed. "Urban Caravan" is the representative, and I also like their collabs with other artists, like "Alkatraz" by Demondice. As might be obvious, Fake Type is both electro-swing and Japanese rap, which I'll get into later.
  • For a vaguely English example, there's "Cinnamon Girl" by dunkelbunt.
  • "Booty Swing" by Parov Stelar.
  • "Bella Belle" by Electric Swing Circus.
  • Caravan Palace has several songs which I consider especially catchy: "Lone Digger" and their cover of "Black Betty" are standard, but I've also been partial to "Beatophone".
• As mentioned above regarding Fake Type, I also like what is generally part of Japanese rap, but largely only if they have a strong melody. This often means a sung chorus.
  • Tamaonsen is a group I know largely through Touhou remixes, like "66 Ondo" as my favourite, with "Parfect Mic Relay" (sic) a close second.
  • "Bling Bang Bang Born" by Creepy Nuts is probably well-known among the anime fandom, being covered by plenty of other anime-adjacent singers.
  • "Lurvatorrrrry" is (suggestive lyrics aside) originally a Vocaloid song, but I like the Reol version best. Reol in general is also a good Spotify seed for me.
• To link from "Bling Bang Bang Born", being an anime fan means I am largely exposed to new music via new anime, and I can feel safe in saying these are "contextless" because sometimes I don't even need to watch the anime to like the song. (And in the case of BBBB, I don't even watch the anime in the first place.)
  • "Daddy Daddy Do" by Masayuki Suzuki is my favourite of the Kaguya-sama Love Is War openings. (This one is from the second season.)
  • "Onegai Muscle" by Ai Fairouz (in her role as the character Hibiki Sakura) is from How Heavy Are The Dumbbells You Lift, which I honestly didn't like that much, but the song itself is great. Possibly because it's also a great exercise song, fitting for the anime.
  • "Kien Romance" by nanawoakari, from Edomae Elf (occasionally localized as Otaku Elf).
  • ""Koi wa Explosion" by Masayoshi Oishi is from Love After World Domination, which is an affectionate parody of super-sentai shows, and it's shown in the instrumentation. The bass guitar lick during the chorus is my favourite bit.
  • "Bon Appetit S" is by Blend A, which is a bespoke unit from the lead voice actresses (Azumi Waki, Akari Kitou, Anzu Haruno) of the anime Blend S. Might be familiar due to meme-ry, but I particularly like the bridge at 3:16 on its own terms.
  • "Adrenaline" by TrySail is the ending for Eromanga-sensei, and is just a cheerful song in its own right.
  • "Shikairo Days" by Megumi Han is probably just on this list due to the intro, which has also been memed a lot, but the song itself is also cheerful, so it's fine.
• Other than anime, there's also games, and again these I like even without context. Since they're game soundtracks, sometimes they're non-vocal, and other times they have vocals, and yet other times the vocals are just another instrument.
  • "Zero" from Ace Combat Zero is possibly my favourite piece of video game music ever. Technically has vocals, but they're just "aaaah" and faux-Latin chanting remixed to unintelligibility.
  • "Travellers Of The Wind" for Rune Factory 4 I like for the alternating male and female vocals (by Joe Rinoue and Saaya Mizuno).
  • "Rivers In The Desert" from Persona 5 for a vocal theme. The enunciation is a bit Engrish, but "A river in a dry land... a heartbeat for a tin man" are great lines. The strings that take centre stage after the chorus is my favourite part, which is a recurring preference for me.
  • Final Fantasy XIV, my MMORPG of choice, is a fount of these. Again, I'm just picking the songs that I think are good without the context of the game:
    • "Equilibrium" is the song that got me into FFXIV in the first place. I was looking up the game, came across this song (since it was then just released in the major patch of the time), and decided it was a great game just from that.
    • "Of Countless Stars" (spoilers for the endgame of the Endwalker expansion) is my current favourite. The thumping drums (described as "war drums"), the melancholy piano, the soaring strings in the background. It's also a remix of the zone theme this instance takes place in, which itself is one of my favourites, but that one is better with context, so it's disqualified.
    • Speaking of strings, "Dedicated To Moonlight" for the prominent fiddle. I also like the change to major key for the chorus.
  • Keeping with the love for strings, the prosaically named "Seaside Town Shatolla (Day)" for Harvestella has the strings going wild in the background.

Thus, there's really no one (or even a few) "genre" I listen to, and trying to narrow down to a few standout songs runs into the difficulty of picking "representative" songs. If I have to narrow it down, I think the songs I like can be broadly divided into "fun rhythm" that can be described as "toe-tapping", and "fun instrumentation" that makes use of a lot of strings and horns.