My first blog post was about one of my all time favourite Japanese indie/jazz/shibuya-kei artists Lamp. I poured a lot of my love and knowledge into that, and at the end of it I was really happy with the result!
Today the thought occured to me that I should talk about another one of my favourite music artists (I was a little inspired by mourningdovesoap), so I picked someone I also really really love who in my opinion has never made a bad song.
Today's topic is... John Roseboro!
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Who Is John Roseboro?
No, I am not talking about the famous baseball player John Junior Roseboro. The Roseboro I'm talking about is a separate musical figure best associated with the Post-Bossa genre!
Now John Roseboro doesn't have his own wikipedia page, but he does have his own website. John Roseboro is an Brooklyn-based artist who draws his inspiration from João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim, mixing elements of brazillian jazz and bossa nova to create a unique and recognisable style in his music! The topics of his songs drift from Jesus Christ to love to human rights. It's all a beautiful use of his soothing, buttery voice and his amazing strumming.
John has a spotify podcast titled "THIS IS POST BOSSA" and has 145.3K monthly listeners on Spotify. He also has 8.31K subscribers on his Youtube page. He has worked before with artists such as Liana Flores, Mei Semones (These two are really good friends actually!), signcrushesmotorist, Brad Stank and Perry Maysun.
John's website mentions him wanting to be forgotten, which I find quite upsetting because of how awesome his music and he is, but I suppose that's another one of his qualities.
Next I'm going to talk about some songs or albums that stick out to me and why I like them so much!
#1. Va Va Voom
I am first going to talk about John's newly released (on 02 Oct 2026) album Va Va Voom!
As I said before, John's music is very bossa-esque. This album is a prime example of that! Most tracks are quite lively, while others are slow and breathe lots of meaning with their words. My favourite songs from Va Va Voom are Bonanza, Touché, I Do, A Song and Wait Till You See Her.
TRACKLIST:
1. This One
2. Bonanza
3. A Song
4. Players Bawl
5. Dream A Dream
6. Touché
7. Fools
8. Wait Till You See Her
9. Va Va Voom
10. I Do
11. Heavenly Bodies
#2. Fools
Fools is actually the album that led me to discover John, specifically through his track with Liana Flores: "Crumb". This album also contains one of my favs John ever made (The Charm) which is something I like replaying in the back of my mind when I'm walking around through my city or when it's raining outside. I'm gonna go ahead and repeat myself and say that John's music is incredibly bossa, and this album is no different. I think I'll get into the ones lacking that kind of sound in a bit.
My favourite songs from Fools are The Charm, Crumb, I Did The Math and 80 Summers.
TRACKLIST:
1. Johnny
2. 80 Summers
3. Psycho Moment
4. Hit
5. This Is My Home
6. The Charm
7. I Did The Math
8. Crumb
9. Alt Ego
10. Fourth Seal
#3. Johnny
By far Johnny has to be my favourite album because I genuinely love every track present here. I don't quite have much to say about this one except I also truly love the album cover (visible on the spotify page here. I suppose this one does have a couple tracks you might not associate with [post] bossa at all, but it does carry John's really lovely strumming style all through out. My favourite tracks are Fetal Position, The Empress, The Banquet, Chicken and Gethsemane.
TRACKLIST:
1. Fetal Position
2. How To Pray
3. The Empress
4. Chicken
5. The Banquet
6. I Took The L
7. Topo Chico
8. Freak
9. Coke
10. Gethsemane
11. Hahaha
12. Violent Crimes
#4. Human Nature
This one's also got a little bit of songs that fit indie more than bossa, but that's okay! Human Nature has a very fitting name because it's tracks talk quite a bit about just that: human nature. It's really sweet and thought provoking, as is most of the music John produces. My favourite tracks have got to be La Nuit Des Temps, Universal Themes, Black and White, Mere Mortal and Cheat Death
TRACKLIST:
1. Mere Mortal
2. La Nuit Des Temps
3. Human Nature
4. Universal Themes
5. Joy
6. Black and White
7. Cheat Death
8. Antihero
9. Pilgrim's Proces
#5. Miscellaneous Tracks from Various EPs and Singles
I have quite another bunch of songs I like from other EPs or Singles or collabs that John has done. I'm not going to say much about them since they all come from different collections, but I hope you give them a listen too!
1. Tooth Fairy - Tooth Fairy (Mei Semones ft. John Roseboro)
2. Close To You - Close To You
3. Juna - Juna
4. How To Go To Heaven - The Four Cantos
5. Waters of March - Waters of March (ft. Mei Semones)
6. Carpe Diem - Carpe Diem
7. Johanna - Johanna
8. Fool Moon - Fool Moon
9. Crying - Crying/Gauze
10. Apocalypsis - Homage
11. Son of My Father - Homage
12. On Prophets - Homage
13. Woman - Woman
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That was about everything I wanted to say about John Roseboro. He is so severely underrated and I wish more people would have a look at his art because he is such a hidden gem. If this blog post somehow managed to convince you to start listening to his music then I'm glad.
Have a nice day or night!
-dilemmaaaa
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