Music for “Dreamer” – The YinYue: Music Under the Moon playlist

I am actually quite happy to showcase this playlist as I have been thinking on it for a while. Dreamer is very music based – as in, one of the primary settings is in a music store named YinYue: Music Under the Moon, countless music acts and genres are mentioned throughout the book, etc etc – so I really wanted to make a music list. Especially since not everyone may know every genre or performer mentioned, such as dark wave or Polysics.

I’m a very musical person, as I have mentioned throughout this blog several times. I even have a background of being around the music industry and, thus, working with performers (don’t worry, the playlist isn’t Nepotism Central, I include many folks who I do not personally know or have hung out with). This means I obviously would like to share such music.

At YinYue, they have a music set up for the day: “Soft Time”, which is classical music in the morning, then the regular mix of harder genres (punk, metal, etc) and then, to let everyone know it’s time to close, a melodic jazz cabaret as a swan song goodbye. They also have special hours throughout the week, one dedicated to international music and another dedicated to independent music. I was super stoked to make a playlist loaded with independent and international artists such as Spoek Mathambo (South Africa, indie), Capsule (Japan), Dummy Toys (China, indie), Meet Me @ The Altar (USA, indie), The Prodigy (UK) and Hitchhiker (South Korea). The playlist closes with Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz”. There is even polka, due to a humorous reference in Dreamer.

I was really happy to throw in all these various artists, as well as more, such as: Straight Line Stitch, Nonpoint, The Gorillaz, Le Chevalier de Saint Georges, Blindside, DJ Sisen and Butcher Babies. I’ve been listening to them for years so, yay, I get to share them with others. I even have featured Chester Bennington’s first band before Linkin Park, Grey Daze. Their song is “Kill the Flies”, a demo I have had in my personal collection for years.

Some songs I had to add because they were so apt: “Nightmare” – Avenged Sevenfold, “Sleepwalking” – Blindiside, “Fiction” – Avenged Sevenfold (I tried to keep everyone to one song per band/musician but this song is so good and so is “Nightmare” ;_;), “Brighter Days (Are Before Us)” – Meet Me @ The Altar, “Psycho Therapy” – Polysics, “Black Veil” – Straight Line Stitch, “Came Back Haunted” – Nine Inch Nails and “Neverland” – Bad Rabbits. Some songs have cursing so that means the playlist is explicit.

This music playlist is about 12 hours long, so roughly a day at YinYue, if not a little longer, and is filled with music that spans genres and actual diversity (it should be beyond obvious a Black person put this playlist together lol. Other music playlists with these genres I have found pale in comparison, in way more ways than one. Deathly pale) so please definitely give it a listen and don’t forget to read the Dreamer preview and pre-order! Dreamer is out March 18, 2022.

Thank you for listening to the YinYue: Under the Moon playlist