No, there is very little that I do in anything that makes the money back đ
What would the better version of myself be doing right now? đ€
If youâd like to watch some of the reactions you can find them here (I recommend starting with the most popular one, which is for Gordon - CLASSIC). The most positive reaction is for Rillrail - Sifflet.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCqLKwkb46zCXseURkUG7GQYs6WSiDVne
Oh I should say for Gordon in particular sometimes itâs better to look for âGordon officialâ. Iâd love to know what you think of these!
I forgot how reposts work, but I can paste my top-10 below. You can also search for âUnderrated Music (99% Japan)â to find the TikTok, which probably has 300 bands in it by now.
10 bands from Japan you need to check out
- BAND-MAID
- Tengoku Oginome (è»éçźć€©ç)
- tone spoon
- Gordon
- tomedonakukawaki (æąăćŠăȘăăæžă)
- Rubens (ăȘă„ăăłăč)
- TORANOKO (formerly Jusan-ya Calace)
- KIKIAIAI (ć„ć„ææ)
- Shinkoku Na Error (æ·±ć»ăȘăšă©ăŒ)
- Oh No Darkness!!
This year I spent $1,000 on livestream music requests (paying a popular YouTube channel to listen to songs of my choice, and giving their honest opinion). Why?
At the beginning of 2023 I found out about the incredible Japanese band, BAND-MAID, and it wasnât lost on me that I was discovering them for the first time on their 10th anniversary. So that got me thinking: Are there other bands in Japan that are just as good, that are in the very beginning stages of their careers? In my opinion the answer is YES, to the tune of hundredsâpossibly thousandsâof great bands who deserve to be celebrated and supported. Many of them have been around for years and still have not found the support that they deserve.
So these livestream requests were part of a larger experiment to find out what I could do online to raise awareness and hopefully create new fans of their music, who will go on to support and celebrate these bands in their own way. I tried /r/JapaneseMusic, /r/ListenToThis, Twitter, Instagram, Nostr, TikTok, Noderunners Radio, and the livestream requests on Twitch. There ended up being small but distinct communities in each one that appreciated what I was doing.
At first, what attracted me to paying a relatively huge amount of money on the livestream requests was that these reaction videos would be edited down to individual song reactions and would go on to live in the âYouTube network,â which could potentially benefit from that algorithm and reach even more people that find it much later on. Around 99% of the reaction videos sat at 100-1,000 views, and then a couple were hitting 3,000 views with dozens of people subscribing to the official YouTube channels of those bands. A few people even told me they bought all of a bandsâ albums after learning about them from those reactions. But something unexpected happened that really surprised me: Because everyone in this community was in agreement that BAND-MAID was the pinnacle of high quality music in Japan, it became a fun challenge for me to prepare requests that could meet this standard by each deadline, which was often every Tuesday and Friday for months on end. Sometimes the song I chose would work, sometimes it would flop, sometimes a song I thought was truly outstanding would get a lukewarm reaction, and I would need to go back to the drawing board and start over. And so what shocked me was that this process of researching the music on my own and then bringing it to a community for review (and paying for the privilege) motivated me to learn about new Japanese bands far, far beyond what I would have ever done on my own. It became a responsibility: I took it upon myself to find a great new song every day, and especially because of how TikTok works, I can share what I find there in real-time to an audience eager to hear what Iâve found.
All this to say: It remains to be seen whether any of this moves the needle. It has definitely been helpful to a lot of peopleâperhaps more than I know. My focus right now is on TikTok, because the algorithm there seems to be the most conducive to going viral. But now I am on the lookout every single day for great new musicâJapan is certainly holding its end of the bargain by creating it.
October 15th, 2023
Wow Iâve never played Stardew Valley but Iâm impressed that itâs all by one game dev.
This is one of the earliest songs from Japan that I loved. Itâs been in my head for almost 20 years
nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s nostr:npub1h50pnxqw9jg7dhr906fvy4mze2yzawf895jhnc3p7qmljdugm6gsrurqev nostr:npub1yn8hfcgjtqe7jaftfpp79zraahwldyggjmnws23daa5vs5napq2qex6pzj nostr:npub1pfezegswrn8lpt0aerp2hvyhj4lsuzln9kcccs5p7qch2m2sawxsxcelvf nostr:npub1w8rrew9yye3lla4hr5uuh7zx9he6qu2rd55hwx9ctyyp0rjqz45q9ch663 nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z nostr:npub1ewe0qgak4gykym236t6w4x06jyuw4q8v040lmn5lamude434yqcsz7uqlw nostr:npub1h696566r0sf2kg9mg0nmeanpy8sfuah7ptlng8ynj3hyctjyjzjqe9z27a nostr:npub10000003zmk89narqpczy4ff6rnuht2wu05na7kpnh3mak7z2tqzsv8vwqk nostr:npub1k979np6dcpwh7mkfwk7wq3msezml48fh7wksp9hakakf8pwk3y5qhdz7te nostr:npub1uvl7vhclmezvdhqha6eclkksln40rjhgwgsggvew683jf93fr4pq3mq3sd nostr:npub1vxd0dfst8ljvwva2egrpc53ve8ru78v8aaxfpravchkexmfmmu3sqnrs50 nostr:npub1qex7yjtuucs6ac49kjujdgytrjsphn5a4pdscu2w3qlprym4zsxqfz82qk nostr:npub19v2e3xgzwa7xydw7k7ky9tngjcmtnpqgpctzvl9ak3v37mkn54js988kdv nostr:npub1mm0eraw9am3l8pjwas6t9r7fn34ge3zty5yg3n856rvds485342qlqnm32 nostr:npub1y25u8t5358r6m6haq0tf5ukvq4t8hsm2sntw090kmyw7l3y89rrqttdgut : unfollow nostr:npub16yh7kd9nacfqggacrrxcmkj8qqrrnwlvnfhwd5e3065gdmzmpp8syusv37 please
Done!
This music video needs 300,000 views ASAP đ I am told watching 5 times per day, 30+ seconds each will count.
This seems like a big deal đ€ 
Blastbeats in an instrumental song? Yes please