This week’s features include: POLKADOT STINGRAY, 和ぬか (wanuka), Scenarioart,
ぼくのりりっくのぼうよみ (boku no lyric no boyomi), and CYNHN

Hello, Hello! And welcome back to the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft! Just like that, we’re already venturing into the second week of our Japanese music rogue-like adventure, but if you’ve been following this series since Season 1 then you should be more than geared up for what’s up to come. However, if you’re only now joining us and you’re not entirely sure what lies ahead, please give the following a quick read to get you up to speed—

The Draft, inspired by player drafts in traditional sports and the draft formats of popular trading card games like Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh, is a bi-weekly series where I tackle a simple question

How good is Spotify at recommending songs to me ?

In this series, I put Spotify to the test by seeing how well it can recommend songs I’d enjoy based on the ones I already do. I do this by leveraging Spotify’s built-in suggestion feature for user-created playlists, using my ongoing Recommendation Roundup Playlist as the starting point, coupled with the final Draft playlists from the previous seasons.

This curated pool of over 800+ songs will serve as the basis for Spotify’s recommendations, fine-tuning its algorithm to better predict the songs it thinks I’ll enjoy.

I’ll let Spotify generate 5 (five) recommendations for me to check out every two weeks. Songs that make it onto a Draft playlist and will count as successful picks. Tracks that didn’t make the cut last season get a second chance if Spotify suggests them again. The ultimate goal? To see just how big this playlist can grow by the end of the year.

In Season 2, I added two mechanics to spice things up. The first was the Score to Beat, which sets the season’s target. Last season’s score was 101, so this year, Spotify needs to hit at least 102 successful picks to “win”.

The second change we implemented was the Wait List, a smaller, separate playlist (with a cap of three songs) which allows me to save tracks for later reevaluation.

Now, for this season, I’m shaking things up again by introducing a new mechanic: the Exempt List.

Think of this as a “hall of fame” of sorts: any bands or artists placed on the Exempt List will have their songs automatically ruled out for drafting this season (and possibly in future seasons as well). The idea for this came up while prepping for this year’s Draft. I noticed a pattern—Spotify kept recommending a lot of songs from the same handful of artists. While they’re all great, I felt like the series might start to feel repetitive if the same five or six names kept popping up every other week. The Exempt List, then, is my way of (ideally) ensuring we keep Spotify’s recommendations fresh and different each week.

Check out the Week 1 post for Season 3 to know the rationale behind the following artists being exempted from the Draft: Yorushika, ZUTOMAYO, YOASOBI, みゆな (miyuna), Hakubi, POP ART TOWN, whaledontsleep

Bands and artists can be removed from the Exempt List over time, though naturally, more names can—and likely will—be added as the season progresses, depending on how things shape up. Something to keep in mind.

This is Week 2 of Draft as I mentioned earlier, and we’ve actually been off to a good start all things considered. Here’s hoping we can keep it up!

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Queue them up!

Oh wow. Some of these are quite the throwback.

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♥ ストップ・モーション/stop motion by POLKADOT STINGRAY

It honestly feels like I’m always giving POLKADOT STINGRAY a hard time, whether it’s here, in the Roundups, or even in my Exchange/Rate review of one of their albums. But let me just say—I’m still very much a fan of this band and their sound, even in its current form. Sure, PDSR’s music now is a far cry from how they sounded when they first burst onto the scene, but that doesn’t mean their newer, cleaner approach is somehow worse. If anything, the polish highlights the technical brilliance of their musicality, as you’ll hear in Stop motion here.

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♥ 進め！そっちだ！/susume socchi da by 和ぬか (wanuka)

Wanuka will always be one of those artists who, for better or worse, could never quite escape the shadow of their biggest hit. For most people, he’s always going to be the Yoriyoi guy. And while I know he’s put out some solid tracks both before and after that, Yoriyoi is still the song that immediately comes to mind when you think of Wanuka. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, of course, but it does pigeonhole him a bit—which, to me, feels kind of unfortunate. A lot of his other work ends up overshadowed, even though it’s equally deserving of attention. Susume! Socchi da! is a great example: a more-than-serviceable track that still highlights Wanuka’s unique flair.

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♥ ナナヒツジ/nanahitsuji by Scenarioart

I honestly forgot just how much I enjoyed this song when it first came out. I was already a fan of Scenarioart when the anime adaptation of Subete ga F ni Naru started airing, and hearing that they’d be performing one of the themes was actually one of the main reasons I decided to check out the show myself. Nana Hitsuji has everything I love about their music: the erratic yet mesmerizing melodies, the fun and energetic drum work, and those signature twin male-female vocals. It’s such a perfect reminder of why Scenarioart’s music is always such a captivating listen.

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♥ 朝焼けと熱帯魚/asayake to nettaigyo
by ぼくのりりっくのぼうよみ (boku no lyric no boyomi)

Speaking of anime themes, Boku no Lyric no Boyomi’s Asayake to Nettaigyo was another standout for me during the season it aired—one I ended up really enjoying. Unlike with Scenarioart and Subete ga F ni Naru, though, I wasn’t familiar with “BokuRiri” at all when I decided to check out the anime Kokkoku, where this track was used as the ending theme. I just remember being completely hooked the first time I heard it—the song was such a vibe. A lot of that is thanks to Tanaka’s silky-smooth rap, gliding effortlessly over a laid-back yet incredibly pleasant track arrangement.

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♥ 氷菓/hyouka by CYNHN

Hyouka showing up in this week’s Draft feels almost serendipitous. Lately, I’ve been diving into a bit of a rabbit hole with mol-74, discovering their music for the first time and lamenting the fact that they’ve been around for years while I’m only now getting into them. Something about their sound just clicked—it carries this undeniable sense of nostalgia that’s hard to put into words. Funnily enough, I find myself feeling the exact same way about this track, and wouldn’t you know it? mol-74 were the ones who composed it! That’s not to say this wouldn’t have been a pick on any other week, though—CYNHN sound as remarkably pleasant here as they always do.

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This Week’s Total Likes:

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

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The Draft playlist on Spotify has been updated with this week’s Draft picks 😊
No new changes or additions have been made to the Wait List.

How about that? Another 5 ♥ week! This marks the most successful start to a Draft season that Spotify has ever pulled off since this series began. Unreal. Could this be the result of the newly implemented Exempt List clearing the way for other tracks to shine through the algorithm? Let me know what you think in the comments—I’d love to hear your take! Likewise, lemme know too which songs you liked the most from this week’s Draft!

Before I sign off, just a quick heads-up: the Monthly Recommendation Roundup is back on its regular posting schedule starting this month. Be sure to swing by on January 31, 2025, to catch my recs for January 😉

Happy Listening!