This Sunday marks a special anniversary: Weekly5 celebrates its 200th edition. And because a proper celebration needs a gift, as of today, Weekly5 is free to read again.
So if you want five new, hand-selected tracks every Sunday morning, check the email preferences in your profile and make sure you’re subscribed to the Weekly5 newsletter.
And there’s a new way to go deeper: Ghost Notes. Every week, paying Supporters receive a short audio essay. Four to five minutes on the one song I couldn’t stop thinking about. Not a review, not a pitch, but an exploration of why it haunts me. Like a ghost note: present and essential, but barely audible.
Join the club and support Negative White for only $3.50/month.
200 editions add up to 1,000 carefully curated songs since 2021. Did they all stand the test of time? Definitely not. Were there tracks that will accompany me for the rest of my life? No question.
Artists I discovered in the process of creating Weekly5, such as Linn Koch-Emmery, Moyka, The Haunted Youth, Soft Loft, or Moonpools, stuck around in my personal heavy rotation long after their first feature.
Curating and producing Weekly5 can be quite tedious. Ploughing through hundreds of promotional emails, scouring social media and other playlists to come up with a selection that’s hopefully not only worth your time but also introduces you to something new and exciting.
Janosch Tröhler-Nordström
Why do that when algorithms have already measured your taste and deliver hyperpersonalised recommendations?
And yes, at times, when I was struggling to find enough exciting songs, when I was tired just by looking at all the unread emails, I asked myself: Why am I still doing this?!
The truth is, Weekly5 isn’t designed for mass appeal. It‘s not pigeonholed into a specific genre. I’ve recommended harsh techno beats and shredding metal riffs, catchy pop clichés, experimental challenges—and everything in between. You won’t love every song in every edition. That’s the point: Weekly5 will always encourage you to look beyond your taste. It’s for the bold and curious.
And that’s why I’m still holding on to it. Because I believe that music recommended from one person to another is something truly meaningful.
Nobody remembers the moment an algorithm suggested a song, even if they love the song. But a human recommendation creates a memory, maybe even a relationship. And whenever the song plays, you think of the first time you heard it and, by extension, also about the person recommending it.
When I hear KEZA, I think about August Charles telling me about her at SXSW London last year. When I hear Chalk, I remember how Leo dragged me to their show at m4music. When I listen to Fjørt’s lod, I think about Vinzenz sending me the song after we had a beer in Zurich as I was walking to the train station.
It’s without a doubt the corniest statement: “Music is the soundtrack of our lives.” But there’s truth here. Attached to people and memories, music becomes invisible, emotional tissue connecting us. If we delegate it to algorithms, we not only lose this connection, we also degrade music to a passionlessly consumed commodity. Background noise, devalued and devoid of real emotion.
Weekly5 has always been my small and personal rebellion against the dehumanisation of music recommendation. 200 editions in, the rebellion continues every Sunday morning. You’re welcome to join it.
