Oregon, US

Oregon, and especially Portland, has been one of the epicentres of indie and folk music in the 2000's. A lot of bands from somewhere else have also moved to Portland for it's laid-back atmosphere. I only attempted to list bands and artists that originate from this state. Portland's music scene doesn't include any crazy musical genres, but there is a staggering amount of excellent indie-folk bands there. Some of my all time favourite artists have their roots here. The artistic environment and closeness of nature must effect the amount of great artists. For such as small population Oregon must be one of the areas that has produced most great musicians. The playlist is almost five hours long and has almost 80 artists or bands. Enjoy the greatness of Oregon! The playlist: Oregon

Japan

There's only one word to describe the Japanese music scene: Weird! The mainstream in the country seems to include quite a lot of bubblegum pop, Asian schlager and metal. I don't particularly like any of these genres, so there's not much of mainstream on this list. The Japanese also like to make noise  music. Unfortunately it's a bit too noisy for my taste. There simply are no melodies there. So what is my list about? There's some endearing indie pop, shoegaze, rock n' roll, punk, post-rock, electronic music, some classical koto music, jazz and psychedelic rock. This is one of the most versatile lists I have made so far, but I guess that reflects beautifully the true spectre of Japanese music. I suspect that there are quite a lot of great artists missing from this list due to a simple reason that many of the Japanese artists are not on Spotify, which was my main way to work on this list. I would be happy to hear from your further suggestions on what to include on this list: Japan

Stockholm & East Middle Sweden

Sweden is a peculiar country in a sense that Stockholm, as the capital and the biggest city in the country, does not actually contain the best selection of great artists and bands. Second biggest cities Gothenburg and Malmö have more vibrant music scenes. Even so, you can count on the Swedes to have great music in whatever area and Stockholm has its own fantastic artists. I also include in this blog post the whole East Middle Sweden with cities such as Västerås, Uppsala and Örebro. Some of these areas close to the capital have excellent additions to this list. This list has a wide selection of different genres from folk to indie rock and from jazz to skate punk. This list once again proofs that Sweden is one of the best countries in making popular music. Not many other countries have such vibrant music scenes when taken the size of the population into account. So enjoy this three hour playlist: Stockholm & East Middle Sweden

South East England

I am going to go through England by dividing it into nine regional areas. I have already covered London before, but this is the first regional area in England that is not centred around on specific city. South East England includes cities like Brighton, Oxford, Southampton and Winchester. The folk scene seems to be quite vibrant in this area. There are also many melancholic alternative rock bands in there. What surprised me, was the amount of really popular bands from this area, where there are no big cities. I guess the proximity of London has made an influence and many of these bands are currently situated in London. There's an almost five hour playlist included in this post and it can be found here: South East England