At this point, I’m pretty sure I have a playlist for everything. I have a playlist I listen to when I study, a playlist for when I’m pregaming with my friends and a playlist I listen to when I’m driving. I have a playlist for when I shower, a playlist for when I’m doing my makeup and a playlist for when I’m about to go to sleep. I have a playlist for when I’m feeling happy, frustrated or in need of a loud, ugly cry session. Basically, any emotion, mood or situation you can think of, I have a playlist for it, and honestly, I love it. Music is capable of adding color to the most boring situations, making us feel like the main character and helping us process our emotions, so why not have a soundtrack for your life?
The thing is, though, I didn’t actually make a lot of these playlists. I did make some of them (my loud, ugly cry session playlist is very specific and very personal), but as for about half of the others, I simply typed a keyword into the search bar of Spotify and scrolled through the results, of which there were plenty. The internet is certainly not short on playlists. Typing in keywords like “sad” or “happy” or “car” — no matter the platform you’re using — brings up hundreds of results, all by different users and all with different genres of music. This is largely thanks to the collaborative setup of apps like Spotify and Apple Music, which makes it so that as long as your account is set to public, your playlists will be available for others to like and listen to on their own time. In some cases, people are even able to add to other people’s playlists. That, coupled with the sheer amount of music available on the internet, makes it so that there is a playlist for just about every single thing you could ever think of.
What kind of things, you may be wondering? Well, there’s playlists for just about every popular TV show or movie you could think of. Some center around specific romantic relationships, while others just encapsulate the general vibe of that film or TV show. If you’re in search of something a bit more applicable to your own life, there is also an abundance of playlists perfect for activities such as screaming in the car with your friends, pulling an all-nighter to study or hanging out on the beach. If you’re looking for a healthy dose of nostalgia, there are also early 2000s playlists perfect for making you feel as if you are back in your childhood bedroom, having a “High School Musical” watch party.
That, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. What truly sets these hundreds upon hundreds of playlists apart is just how hyperspecific they have gotten over the last several years. They have begun to go way beyond just “childhood vibes” or “chill beats to study to.” There’s everything from “driving to that one 7/11 at 2:13am,” to “lost in the depths of a forest,” to “drunk girls pile inside an uber,” all of which are not exactly aesthetics I regularly seek out in my day to day life (at least by choice), yet they still have plenty of likes and saves, meaning that somewhere in the world, people are listening to them when they want to feel like they’re lying in a forest, driving to 7/11 in the middle of the night or piling into an Uber with a horde of their drunk friends.
Moreover, no matter how random the theme of a particular playlist, they do not feel like a mashup of incoherent songs. Instead, each song feels as if it was made to be on that playlist, with even the order of the songs possessing some deeper meaning. Each song transitions seamlessly into the next, creating a kind of “sound movie” that can transport you to a certain place or time period. Together, the song choices and order helps to tell a story that alludes to the name or theme of that particular playlist, making playlist-curating an art form in and of itself. It’s similar to a concept album in the way that each song contributes to an overarching theme or story, except in this case, the content is curated instead of created. The person behind the playlist puts in large chunks of time meticulously selecting the songs which will contribute most effectively to their playlist’s theme. It’s such a careful process that when I listen to a playlist, I’m usually not paying much attention to each individual song and its meaning, but more so to what that song in particular possesses adds to the theme of that playlist. Fortunately, because these playlist curators are so effective at what they do, it usually doesn’t take me long to discover what exactly that is.
It’s also important to note that the curation of oddly specific playlists is not a concept unique to Spotify or Apple Music. As a kid — before I was ever allowed to have an account on one of those apps — I would surf YouTube and turn on playlists that I thought matched my 11-year-old “aesthetic.” Then (and sometimes now), it tended to be something along the lines of “you’re at hogwarts but it’s a playlist,” and “pov: you’re sitting at the campfire at Camp Half Blood” and as I sat there listening to those playlists in my room, I really did feel like I was sitting in the Hogwarts library, or laughing around the campfire with my friends. Their composition was perfectly constructed, with each song helping to set the scene for what I was supposed to be feeling. Like I said earlier, music has the power to make even the blandest situation feel exciting, so who’s to say it couldn’t make us feel like we’re at a fictional school for wizards? Or a camp for demigods? In fact, I think that if playlists are curated correctly, they can be their own source of magic and escapism, perfect for a healthy dose of daydreaming.
Still, platforms like Spotify and Apple Music do offer a new dimension to this phenomenon. These apps have almost begun to function like a public art forum, allowing for sharing and collaboration among those who are in search of the same kind of “sound movies” as other users. People can create playlists together — something I have done countless times with my friends in preparation for long drives, or a night out — and then can continue to edit them even after they share them for the rest of the app’s users to see and listen to. In this way, the playlists are able to evolve with whatever art form it reflects, as well as with the person who made it. They are not static, but are changing and evolving with each new song and new listener, much like a public art project that is reflective of its participants’ feelings and experiences.
It is this collaborative aspect of playlist curation that has made it so that music is not only capable of connecting us through universal experiences — driving in the car with your friends, watching a popular TV show or movie or going through a breakup — but can also connect us through oddly specific experiences which may not be considered universal, but are still felt by many. In a funny way, it can be oddly healing to know that someone else in the world also likes to listen to Harry Potter-themed music while studying, or needs a soundtrack that makes them feel like a princess running through a castle. No matter how odd the theme, it’s comforting to know that someone else in the world may be listening to that exact playlist at the same time you are, possibly feeling the exact same way you’re feeling. It creates a sense of camaraderie and connection, forged solely through the existence of a niche playlist.
So, next time you’re browsing Spotify or Apple Music in search of an oddly specific playlist, pay a bit more attention to their composition. I think you’ll find that it’s a lot more intentional than you first thought. Maybe even chance a glance at who created it and pay a visit to their profile. If you’re lucky, their other content will be visible to you, and you may just find a host of other playlists that somehow perfectly match the “aesthetic” you’re going for. That’s the beauty of what these playlists have to offer.
Daily Arts Writer Rebecca Smith can be reached at rebash@umich.edu.