This week’s features include: 青虫 (aomushi), 湯木慧 (yuki akira),
みゆな (miyuna), SHE IS SUMMER,
and 東京事変 (tokyo jihen; “Tokyo Incidents”)

What’s poppin’? Me? Just dropping in real quick to present to you guys yet another week of the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft! Those of you who know where to go from here know to stop reading around this part, BUT if you’re new to the blog, please stick around before proceeding to the songs proper for a quick primer on what this series is all about.

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 ongoing Recommendation Roundup Playlist on Spotify.

Making use of Spotify’s built-in suggestion feature on user-created playlists, we will have it gather a total of 5 (five) songs for me to check out and listen to. In addition to my own playlist however, for this season we will ALSO be including the 100 Draft picks from the previous season into the mix, thus (in theory) refining Spotify’s recommendations even further while also ensuring that we don’t get any repeats (songs that weren’t picked from last season though will get another shot if they get recommended to me again). Songs that I like will get drafted on a *new* Draft playlist, where the goal is to see just how big it gets by the end of the year.

What else new in Season 2 of Draft, you might ask? Well, we will actually be introducing a couple more things that weren’t present in the previous season. The first, is what we will be calling the Score To Beat. Last time Spotify only needed to reach a 100 songs for it to get the W at the end of the year. We will treat that 100 as the *current* score to beat for the series, so for this season Spotify now needs to get 101 or higher before the end of the year in order for it to win.

To keep things fair however, seeing as Spotify juuuust barely reached its goal last year, we’ll be incorporating the Wait List; a separate playlist of songs (max 3) that I think I might reconsider drafting should it come down to it.

This is now Week 18 of Draft, in what has just been week after week of Spotify trying to make up for lost time with back to back stellar weeks of picks. Let’s see if it can keep it up for this week as well.

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Queue it up!

… Feels like I pulled an Ultra Rare in this pack hold up.

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x 記憶の部屋/kioku no heya by 青虫 (aomushi)

Aomushi gets another shot at being a Draft pick this week with their song Kioku no Heya. Their first entry in the series, which came at the very start of this season, fell a bit short. To be honest, my impression of their music hasn’t changed much since then. The beat is really well-produced, but overall, the song feels a bit flat. If I had to pinpoint the issue, I think it’s the singing that’s leaving me with this impression. It’s definitely something they can work on, especially since they’re still relatively new. I’d love to see them featured again in the future, but for now, this just isn’t it.

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x バースデー/birthday by 湯木慧 (yuki akira)

Yuki Akira makes their first appearance in Season 2 of the Draft. Some of you might recall that in Season 1, they appeared a total of three times, with two of their songs earning a Draft pick. They have a strong track record in that sense, but much like their debut last season, I’m going to pass on Birthday this time. The song is uplifting and carries a positive message about living with optimism, which is great. However, as a listening experience, I’m not as fond of the chorus as I would like to be.

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x color by みゆな (miyuna)

Up next is Draft Season 1 standout Miyuna with her song color, which is used as the ending theme for the game “SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays.” While I’ve become a fan of Miyuna through the Draft and have since listened to much of her previous work… I can’t confidently say that color is a song I wouldn’t skip on a playlist. The glitchy, syncopated electro-synth track overpowers Miyuna’s singing a bit too much for my taste, and since her vocals are usually the main highlight of her songs for me, it makes me want to listen to a different track of hers instead.

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♥ あれからの話だけど/arekara no hanashidakedo by SHE IS SUMMER

Although this marks SHE IS SUMMER’s official Draft debut, it’s worth noting that we previously discussed her on the blog through the J-Music Exchange/Rate, where I had the opportunity to review her album WAVE MOTION. In that review, I mentioned my familiarity with her work as part of the group Phenotas, of which I was a fan, and noted how she seemed to have moved away from the sound she was known for with Phenotas in that album. However, Arekara no Hanashi Dakedo feels like a callback to that earlier style, and it’s one that I don’t mind revisiting.

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♥ 獣の理/kemono no ri by 東京事変 (tokyo jihen; “Tokyo Incidents”)

We’re closing out this week’s Draft with one of the most celebrated Japanese musical acts of the modern era: Tokyo Jihen. There’s really no denying this band in any capacity, much less the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft, especially when I’m presented with the beautiful melodies and irresistible jazz sounds of Kemono no Ri. And, of course, there’s the sultry stylings of Sheena Ringo, which I just can’t pass up.

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This Week’s Total Likes:

x x x ♥ ♥

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The Draft playlist on Spotify has been updated with this week’s Draft picks 😊
There were no new additions made to the Wait List.

Oof… Spotify went from the best couple of weeks of Draft it had for this season to one of it’s weakest ones to date. Thankfully, Japanese music vets SHE IS SUMMER and Tokyo Jihen were able to clutch it out at the end, giving us a 2 ♥ week. If not for them, this could’ve gone a whole lot worse.

What are your thoughts on how this week’s Draft turned out? Do you think Miyuna’s color might actually be deserving of a Wait List spot? Lemme know in the comments!

Happy Listening!