Since CDs have largely become obsolete in the last 10 years and listening has moved over to Spotify, one can’t help but notice how often the same songs (often retro stuff, or songs from your favourites) are recommended through shuffling, selecting a song’s “radio station”, or the newer AI-generated daylists. Some of those daylist titles are amusing, pointed even. “Shiny city pop Wednesday.” “Midwest quiet folk afternoon.” “Lazy go outside today funk.” Ok, I made that last one up. The point is, human beings do a better job of curating music than computers.
Go to bandcamp.com and scroll to the bottom, where Bandcamp's staff shine the spotlight on their new favourites. Live events sit above this. At the top, you'll see a roll call of which single/EP/album or piece of merch is bought every second. In the last minute alone, listeners have made purchases in Ukraine, Romania, the UK, and Austria.
At one point, the independent record label Nature Bliss, run by Naohiko Sugimoto, floated into view on Bandcamp. Started in 2005, they have issued albums from within Japan, but also foreign selections including Frisian poetry, Argentine acoustic guitar, and at least five albums of Estonian music. This includes physical CDs — as explained in The Economist, “In 2023, 39% of recorded [music] revenues [in Japan] came from CDs...”). Sales are also made out of the Ethnorth Gallery in Taito City, Tokyo.
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