What’s the song of the summer? Tough to say. That fun little news hook might not be so useful in an era of fragmented, digital media. Besides, not all of us are able to take off to the beach — PinkPantheress and Ice Spice, NewJeans or Kylie Minogue blaring out the car stereo. Some of us have to work.
What’s good for work, though? A carefully curated playlist. The kind we got acquainted with during the pandemic and aren’t so ready to give up now that COVID-19 rules have relaxed. And when it comes to J-pop, Spotify seems to have our summer vibes packaged nicely in Gacha Pop.
The playlist was launched by the tech company in late May. At first glance, it seems like another effort to simply promote newer J-pop to the world at large, using the idea of a “gachapon” toy capsule machine as a “cool, Japan” hook: “What pops out!? Roll the gacha and find your Neo J-pop treasure,” reads the official description.