I love to quote myself time to time, you know? This time around though, I seriously thought twice as to why this actually happens. Maybe it's just me, but maybe it's also a trend, but what would even drive any music production or artist into making sure the second last track of every album has a specific mood? I don't even know.

THE TRACKLIST OF ALBUMS

We've all listened to music albums. Whether they are the first time you heard of them, or it's just purely instrumental like SPECIAL OTHERS (which I must say if you have never heard before you should), albums tend to have a listen of 10+ tracks, of varying lengths, sometimes with preludes which are very short instrumental or songs which are excluded from Klassic Note of course, but even so, there is always an order. No surprises, the artist or music production behind the releases, determine the track order of these albums. Whether the best song should be at the front, or we conclude the album with the best, there always is some due thought into these... but how far do they go? Do they arrange the tracks in order to convey a mood? Do they want to allow a rollercoaster range of emotions when you listen to it? That brings us to this very specific position of each album, and I meant in those albums with a standard track list of songs, we don't care about best albums or the smaller releases like mini-albums here.

THAT SECOND LAST TRACK

So, the second last track of an album. As mentioned above, production (as we will refer to loosely from here on since I don't know how to refer to them tbh) tend to conclude an album with a happy song, something with more impact, so that it wraps up as if like, a happy ending of a movie, a good ending of a novel, sort of feel. This much, try your nearest album review for confirmation. As such, there is much freedom in the placement of tracks everywhere else, after the intro and into the ending. But what somehow is important and many are emphasizing on, is the song to place before the ending. It typically is strong with emotion, filled with a dampened mood, but not as quite as a turning point of a movie or something. From Minase Inori's "Catch The Rainbow!" to  THE ORAL CIGARETTES " SUCK MY WORLD" to even SPECIAL OTHERS "Have A Nice Day", there seems to exist similarities between these releases, just at the point of mellowness, I can't even describe. It doesn't even matter if they are independent or just backed up by a music production, somehow, they know this track is the most important place to make a difference. And trust me, I've given the above I've mentioned to realize that.

WHY THOUGH?

Perhaps it's just to convey an emotion? That's as far as I can think of though. Because looking at the ones who don't comply with this rule, I can't help but think if those that do now follow such a pattern are not well thought out in the first place. Heck, I even arrange my compilations in Klassic Note after this concept. Whether that really makes of a better listening experience? I am not really sure. But somehow, somehow I get hooked into these tracks more often than ever. Not that I have statistics to prove it, but considering that when I get too into giving albums often more than just giving a couple of tunes, I tend to end up giving this specific track every other time. Maybe being part of a bigger package, that one song suddenly became more important than the others. That, is what I think anyways.

Honestly though? This is still just a thought. But I'm glad I can just point this out and talk about why I think this rule exists. It's strange, isn't it? Perhaps the next time you listen to a full album, will you notice how that song is more emotional, more prominent, even more than ever better, than the other songs you hear from the list. I know I will. Cya guys next time for more irrelevant logic from listening to Japanese songs for too long.