This week’s features include: the blue hour, エルスウェア紀行 (elsewhere kikou),
RAMMELLS, アイラブミー (I LUV ME), and POLKADOT STINGRAY

Coming to you with a slight delay in what is perhaps a long overdue adjustment in terms of scheduling, but more on that later. For now, welcome back once again to the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft! If you don’t know how this works ー

The Draft, inspired by player drafts in traditional sports and draft formats from popular trading card games like Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh, is a bi-weekly series where we try to answer the question;

How good is Spotify at recommending songs to me ?

In this series I will test Spotify’s ability to recommend to me songs that I would like based on songs that I already do like in the form of my own Recommendation Roundup Playlist on Spotify. Specifically this involves making use of Spotify’s built-in suggestion feature on user-created playlists to gather a total of 5 (five) songs for me to check out and listen to. Songs that I like will get “drafted” and go on a separate Draft playlist, where the goal is to see just how big said playlist will get by the end of the year.

If it makes it past a hundred, Spotify gets the W over me, and if not, we get to declare the Recommendation Roundup playlist as the vastly superior playlist (XD)

This is the last Draft before we cross over to the latter half of this year so it’s gonna be interesting to see where the numbers lies at the end of this week.

ーー

Here’s what’s in store for us:

Got a bunch of bands this time around which is always nice to see, with a lot of these I’m already familiar so right away it’s looking to be a good time.

ーー

♥ 螢火/keika by the blue hour

Interesting little number here from 2022 Roundup standout in the blue hour with Keika here. Seems to be meant more as an album opener if not potentially an interstitial track with how short it is (clocking just under two minutes of play time), but it sure as well is enough for vocalist Pari to showcase her deep and powerful vocals. Short and sweet offering from a promising up-and-coming Alt Rock band.

♥ 普通の毎日/futsuu no mainichi by エルスウェア紀行 (elsewhere kikou)

We have another Roundup alum showing up for us in the Drafts here in Elsewhere Kikou. Contrary to their feature on the Roundup however, which showcased the band’s “new age” approach to Prog Rock, Futsuu no Mainichi actually sounds a bit nostalgic. At the very least, I’m personally reminded a lot of suneohair here, especially with those melancholic guitar melodies.

♥ SMOKE by RAMMELLS

The only band to have yet to actually make an appearance on the blog here in this week’s Draft is RAMMELLS here, potentially due to the fact that the band has since ceased activities back in 2021. Which is a shame since, as you’ll hear here with SMOKE, the band had a very interesting Rock/Acid Jazz type of sound going on. However much its worth, they get my appreciation of it here.

♥ ナイフ/knife by アイラブミー (I LUV ME)

I LUV ME make their second Draft appearance with Knife… which is a vast departure from what we heard from them the last time they were here. I mean that in a good way though as these kinds of explosive choruses are right up my alley. You just never know with these singer/composer collaborations nowadays where it seems like with the right pairing the possibilities are just endless.

♥ トーキョーモーヴ/tokyo mauve by POLKADOT STINGRAY

While I have historically been very vocal about POLKADOT STINGRAY’s sound with regard to how much it has since changed over the years, one thing that has stayed consistent throughout (if not even better than it already was when the band first started) is Ejima Harushi’s slick guitar work. It’s always a treat for the ears and it sure as heck on full display here on Tokyo Mauve.

ーー

This Week’s Total Likes:

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

ーー

The Draft Playlist is now updated with this week’s picks 😀

Spotify gets the five likes from me this week and, if you’ve been keeping track, that makes it now a total of 51 songs now drafted to the playlist after thirteen weeks. What’s interesting is that there’s exactly thirteen weeks of the Draft left before we close out the year, which means the list just barely (!) made it past half of the 100 songs that it needs to meet right at the midway point of the year. I’ve been saying it for a while now but it really is gonna come down to the wire once it’s all said and done.

Just a note on the schedule change I mentioned at the start, the Draft from here on out will be coming out on Saturdays instead of Fridays like it has at the start of the year (rather, technically it was always meant to be for Saturdays, but I was just being stubborn in not changing the original timezone settings on my blog, lol)

Lemme know your guys’ thoughts on this week’s Draft picks and how the list has been shaping out so far down in the comments!

Happy Listening!