This week’s features include: FLOWER FLOWER, 門脇更紗 (kadowaki sarasa),
みるきーうぇい (“milkyway”), 青虫 (aomushi), and SILENT SIREN 

Hello! I hope you’re all well-rested and ready to go, because it’s time for another run through the gauntlet that is the Spotify J-Music Playlist Draft, the Internet’s one and only rogue-like playlist builder series. Leading the charge, as always, is yours truly. If you’ve joined us on one of these outings before, you should know the drill by now.

But if this is your first time here, welcome aboard! Please take a moment to check out the following primer so you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into:

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 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 now Week 14 of the Draft, and if you’ve been along for the ride so far, man, what a hot streak it’s been pretty much this entire season, huh? I’m not waving the white flag just yet, but it really does feel like Spotify’s got me all figured out at this point.

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We’re going down swinging though, so have at it!

Yeah… I’m still getting cooked aren’t I-

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♥ 蜜/mitsu by FLOWER FLOWER

Astute, long-time fans of Japanese music will likely remember FLOWER FLOWER as the band project of acclaimed singer-songwriter YUI, whose voice some of you probably recognized right away in Mitsu here. I wouldn’t necessarily call it an “old” song (it was only released in 2020) but the Japanese music landscape moves so quickly that even a few years can see big shifts in what’s popular. That’s what makes it all the more fascinating how well this track holds up five years on. If I had to pinpoint why, I’d say it’s the killer bass line more than anything that really gives it that modern feel.

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♥ トリハダ/torihada by 門脇更紗 (kadowaki sarasa)

Japanese singer-songwriters and their music are honestly some of my favorite things to both listen to and feature here on the blog. If you’ve been following the Roundup for a while, you’ve probably noticed how often they show up. By that same token though, it can be hard to keep tabs on all of them, and more often than not I end up stumbling back into their work once they get their big break. That’s pretty much exactly where I’m at with Kadowaki Sarasa. Torihada is such a good reminder of how promising I thought she was when I first discovered her music. I still have no doubt she’ll have her moment in the spotlight.

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♥ ドンガラガッシャンバーン/dongaragasshanbaan by みるきーうぇい (“milkyway”)

I’ve mentioned this before back in the very first season of Draft when milkyway first showed up in the series, but they’re one of those bands where every time they pop up, I’m convinced I must have talked about them already. Their music gets recommended to me so often that I just assume I must have featured them before. Same thing happened again with Dongaragasshanbaan here, and honestly, at this point it feels like I’m just making up for lost time not having had them on the Roundup all these years. No complaints though, since their sound is so right up my alley. This track is just ridiculously catchy.

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♥ ゆぶね/yubune by 青虫 (aomushi)

For those of you keeping score from last season, aomushi’s Yubune is actually making a return appearance here after failing to make the cut the first time around. If you recall, back then I mentioned that their singing came off a bit flat for my liking. Funny enough, listening to it again now, I don’t really get that same impression anymore. While I wouldn’t say it’s the best I’ve heard, it’s definitely not as lacking as I initially thought. My guess? I was probably using a super flat-tuned pair of headphones at the time (shoutout to the Sony MDR-CD900ST for those curious). Vocals aside, I’ve always thought the track itself was really clean, and rightfully so, considering it was produced by none other than whaledontsleep.

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x チラナイハナ/chiranai hana by SILENT SIREN

Even though I’ve known about SILENT SIREN for ages (they were honestly one of the first twenty or so bands I got into when I started diving into Japanese music), I wouldn’t say I’ve ever followed their releases religiously the way I have with other bands. Because of that, even now I’ll stumble on songs from them that are completely new to me despite having come out years ago. Chiranai hana from their SaiSai album (released over a decade ago now) is one such example. I say it every time, but I really do appreciate the Draft serving up these kinds of deep cuts. That said, while I loved the vocal harmonies they went for here, the song overall did run just a little too long for my tastes.

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This Week’s Total Likes:

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ x

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

Another 4 ♥ week. What else is new? Clearly not much, since Spotify just keeps on delivering. Like I said before, unless things completely fall apart from here, it’s pretty much locked in to set this season’s Score to Beat if it keeps up at this rate. And honestly? There’s been zero sign of that happening so far. Looks like we’re just along for the ride. Though hey, maybe if Spotify sets the bar too high this season, it’ll be its downfall in future seasons, and that’s when we’ll get our revenge (lol).

Let me know what you guys think down in the comments! Likewise, lemme know too which songs were your favorite from this Draft week.

Happy Listening!