Ever sit down and wonder to yourself why you’ve been placed on this god-damned world? Sometimes I do, but other times I prefer to glance it over and snub it aside as a thought in passing. Times like these I need to just sit-back and relax to some music. Normally I’d be showing you all the songs that are just plain loud and seem to “drop-the-beat,” whatever the heck that means.

I wanted to start off with something different though. You guys read my last culture post (I would hope), and saw that it had this American-Japanese pseudo-cultural rant to it. No idea why I have culture corner again in two weeks (this section should just be labeled the Honorable corner), but I’m beginning to love this section the most.

So I have a Playstation 4. I have this weird addiction where I like to immerse myself in video games for hours at a time, playing mainly role-playing games that have a story to it. I just finished FFXV (Final Fantasy 15 to all you non-gamers) and was just shocked at how great the soundtrack was in setting the tone.

If there’s one thing that rubbed off on me throughout the game, it’s that the music makes the mood. Seriously. One second I’m driving down the road with all my frat-boy looking teammates (apparently I’m the heartless, apathetic main character who can’t get the hint that his best friend has an inferiority complex because he’s just a normal plebeian while you’re apparently of royal blood), the next thing I know I hear the piano start shrieking in my ears (the sign that a demon has just spawned out of the ground and so the battle begins).

THIS MUSIC IS THE REASON WHY I KNOW A BATTLE IS ABOUT TO START, AND I LOVE IT.

But see, I think culturally we are not just ‘one’ single culture. Music empowers me, it makes me feel like I am an amalgamation, a gestalt WHOLE of many cultures.

Now, I shall service you all to the kind of music I feel that defines me the most, because it’s the kinda dance-party music I love.

P.S. the channel FUNKYpanda has some great music! It’s metaphorically the Onur channel. No, I take that back, it IS the (electroswing) Onur channel.

The way in which this kind of music just swings back and forth from loud to louder, soft to softer, and then mixes these beats up, surprising you in ways that you wouldn’t have expected, makes me SUPER happy. And continuing on with this idea of music that just swings around back and forth from a variety of different pitches, I want to present one last song that most people wouldn’t expect from me.

It’s my way of finishing off this post not as that electroswing-loving guy but a multicultural individual with a wide variety of taste.

A music video from BTS, released on Feb 26, 2017. Enjoy.

Onur A. Ayaz