We’re starting a thing again!

This week’s features include: みゆな (miyuna), クレナズム (culenasm), mahina, MINOR THIRD, and 雫 (SHIZUKU from POLKADOT STINGRAY)

In the most recent Roundup Awards, I mentioned wanting to start up something that I’ve had in the works for a while now.

Specifically, this came about when I noticed that Spotify recommends songs that you might want to add into an existing playlist that you made based on songs that are already on there. As some of you may know, I myself keep a running playlist of Japanese music that I personally recommend as part of the Monthly Recommendations Roundup series that I do here on the blog, and it was while I was looking at said playlist that a thought crossed my mind ー

How good is Spotify at recommending songs to me ?

In this series, we will be putting that to the test.

Every other week or so starting this week, I will take five songs that Spotify has picked out for me. I’ll give them a listen, give you guys my initial reactions to them, and if they’re a hit, they get to go on a special playlist made specific to this series. The goal is to see just how full this playlist will be by the end of the year.

If Spotify knows me well, we’ll have well over a hundred amazing songs in there no sweat. If not, then Spotify can just leave the recommending business to me and my far superior Roundup playlist (XD)

Will Spotify end up making a better playlist than me? Stay tuned to find out 😉

Welcome to the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft!

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Here’s what we have for this week:

A good mix of familar and unfamiliar names to me, the latter specifically being something I’m definitely more excited for so yeah, already off to a good start!

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♥ DeadRock by みゆな (miyuna)

Okay, this first one’s on me. Miyuna was one of the first artists that I featured very early on in the Roundup but somehow she kinda just got lost in the mix of other bands and artists that I started following around the same time. That was my bad, and I’m here to make good on that here. Everything about how DeadRock sounds is 100% right up my alley, especially Miyuna’s vocals. Definitely going in the playlist

♥ ヘルシンキの夢/helsinki no yume by クレナズム (culenasm)

I’ve sung enough of early culenasm’s praises on multiple occasions during the Roundups so this really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Something to note about this series is that there’s a decent chance I’ll just end up getting songs from like the same album as a track that I featured in the Roundup playlist but, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, Helsinki no Yume is an absolute go.

♥ 羊/hitsuji by mahina

mahina’s not a name that’s familiar to me, and after hearing Hitsuji here I’m honestly kind of ashamed to admit it. I mean, c’mon, she’s out here sounding like freaking aimer (XD) and I’m like, how in the world does she have so few monthly listeners (at least relative to how many listeners I would have expected her to have). She has since gained one in me though, and I look forward to checking out more of her stuff.

x 学級会/gakyuu-kai by MINOR THIRD

Yet another unfamiliar name to me in MINOR THIRD, but unfortunately they will be bringing to us our first “miss” in the Draft. I mean, I do like the lively drum work at the start and the whole intro was actually kinda nice, but almost the entire second half of Gakyuu-kai here is a tough listen. Just way too much going on in there (at least for me) and at the very least it’s not my cup of tea. Maybe next time.

♥ POSE by 雫 (shizuku) from POLKADOT STINGRAY

I’ve been off my game keeping up with Polkadot Stingray’s releases recently, so I didn’t even know that the band had a collaboration with Google Nest of all things. As such, not only was I unaware of POSE, I also didn’t know that this unplugged version of it existed and oh my lord Shizuku’s raw singing. I’m a huge advocate of bands putting out acoustic versions of their songs so this one’s definitely a hit.

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This Week’s Total Likes:

♥ ♥ ♥ x ♥

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The Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft playlist is now live on Spotify which has now been updated with this weeks draft picks!

So yeah, this is pretty much the gist of what I want to do here with this new series. Specifically I really wanted to have some sort of short form content here on the blog that’s a bit more informal and less-structured than the Monthly Roundups. I had a lot of fun conceptualizing this one but let me know if it’s as fun for you guys seeing something like this in practice 😛

I personally find it somewhat refreshing in a way as, unlike the Roundup features which are curated by me (thereby making them songs that I would recommend to you) these recommendations are coming my way this time around. Kind of like a… “shoe on the other foot” kind of thing 😀

What do you guys think? Lemme know your thoughts on the series in the comments section down below! Like, if you think I should reconsider the songs I passed up this week or in succeeding weeks, convince me otherwise! (XD)

That’s it for this week though. Catch y’alls later.

Happy Listening!