I’m a giant fan of Spotify. I’ve been a subscriber since 2013! Before Spotify existed, I relied on a massive 400GB music library that I had been building since 2003. When I got to Berklee College of Music in 2005, the exchange of music was overwhelming. The size of my library had tripled in just a couple of years.
Once Spotify came around, my need to rip CDs and trade music became obsolete. I could discover new artists by going down tangents like the ‘if you like this artist, you’ll also like…’ services that Spotify offered. I was instantly hooked.
Pandora was another way to discover new music at that time, but I found their algorithm for introducing new artists to be quite shallow, to the point where it seemed like it was repeating the same songs in the same order. Spotify, on the other hand, would gently deviate from the artist or genre you were listening to, and over the course of an hour, you’d find yourself in a brand new genre and space you didn’t expect. It was magical.
So, what to do with all this new music to listen to? Well, I wasn’t a playlist type of person back in 2013 because I found the iTunes playlist interface to be annoying and too much work to organize. Also, Spotify had an advantage because, since I didn’t have an existing library, I could build playlists as I discovered new music rather than needing to sift through my existing library to organize them into playlists.
So, I made playlists, but I didn’t want them to be categorized by genre or artist. Instead, since I was already streaming different artists at different times of the day, I wanted the playlists to reflect those moods or times of day. That way, I didn’t have to think too hard about it in the future. I could just put on my ‘RISE’ playlist during my morning coffee, the ‘CHILL’ playlist when I’m winding down at night, or my ‘TRIP’ playlist when I felt like I needed a dose of psychedelic music. The only small exception was that I created a ‘REGGAE JAM TOWN’ playlist, but I think reggae music is not just a genre; it’s also a mood. Are you feeling irie, mon?
Shuffle & enjoy!
RISE
MEDITATE
REGGAE JAM TOWN
GET PUMPED
SET BREAK
PARTY!
TRIP
CHILL
SLEEP
Here’s a couple bonus playlists….
JAZZ
CLASSICAL