This week’s features include: SHISHAMO, tiny yawn, POLKADOT STINGRAY,
Cö shu Nie, and SWALLOW

We’re back! And in relatively quick turnaround considering we just had the Recommendation Roundup for August just a couple of days ago but hey, if you’re keeping up with both series then I got your Japanese music listening needs covered for this weekend 😉

Before we start however, if this is actually your first time here and have found yourself wondering what is exactly that we do around here 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)

Last month’s Roundup actually saw a previous Draft pick get featured for the first time so if you’re into sneak peaks and early previews, this is a place for that too.

ーー

Alright, here’s what we’re cooking with:

I said this last time but yeah no, how is this fair??

ーー

♥ 壊したんだ/kowashitanda by SHISHAMO

We don’t see them a whole lot on the Roundup but make no mistake, SHISHAMO is still one of the most accomplished and well-respected bands in Japanese music today. That being said, Kowashitanda is perhaps a kind of sound from them that we (or at the very least I myself) am used to hearing from the three piece owing to its calmer and more subdued nature. I like it a lot actually.

ーー

♥ breather by tiny yawn

Talking about calm and subdued, tiny yawn make an appearance here in the Draft. I came across the band late last year/early this year, and they have since showed up in a couple of Roundups now as well. If it wasn’t evident enough, I have high hopes for tiny yawn for exactly what you hear in breather here, with its “iyashi-kei” (healing) type of vibe contrasted by some Math-y guitar play.

ーー

♥ トゲめくスピカ – タテヨコ ver/togemeku spica – tateyoko ver by POLKADOT STINGRAY

I do find it funny that this is now the second “remixed” version of a Polkadot Stingray song to make it here on the Draft (the first being all the way back in the first Draft week with POSE). Like I mentioned before, I haven’t been doing a good job keeping up with the band’s releases so I had to retroactively familiarize myself with the original Togemeku Spica for this one, but this more laid back version is nice too.

ーー

♥ 黒い砂/kuroi suna by Cö shu Nie

Similar to my relationship with Polkadot Stingray, it took me a second to figure out why this Cö shu Nie song sounded familiar despite me not really being as up to date with the band’s releases as much as I would like. I did recall a bit later on that Kuroi Suna was one of the songs that they performed for their appearance in THE FIRST TAKE FES which I watched when it premiered. Love those rhythm switches. 

ーー

♥ ULTRA MARINE by SWALLOW

SWALLOW is a band that I only recently got acquainted with and subsequently became a fan of because of the very Yakousei-like nature of their songs. I’ve been wanting to feature them on the Roundup since, but I guess the Draft will have to do. Slightly related to that, ULTRA MARINE actually makes an appearance in a playlist video I published not too long ago for a bit of an odd coincidence.

ーー

This Week’s Total Likes:

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

ーー

The Draft Playlist on Spotify has been updated with this month’s featured tracks 😀

Look, I’m just gonna say it, this is without a doubt the best week that the Draft has had. I mean, we’ve had 5-hit weeks before, but for what it’s worth these songs had no business being here in the first place (lol). Of course, not to disparage the songs that＊have＊already been featured here, but what I meant by that is these songs didn’t need to be recommended to me. I would’ve liked them on my own anyway (XD)

At least I would like to think so but still, Spotify got us again, so credit where credit is due. Well done.

How about you guys though? What did you think of this week’s Draft? Lemme know down in the comments which one (or ones) were your favorite!

See you guys later, and Happy Listening 😛