For most of us, music is a major part of our lives. We’ll have it on while we exercise, party, study, and walk from class to class. With that in mind, just how do we manage to build the kind of playlist that will wow everyone around us? Here’s a short guide to getting started.
Disclaimer: This guide works best with longer playlists. Of course, not everyone has the same taste in music or style as I do, so if you find something else that works for you, go for it! Music is super personal, and you should always do what feels right to you.
Figure out what the playlist is going to be for.
Building a playlist is a little bit like designing a room -- how you decide to design it is based a lot on what you’re using that room for. You wouldn’t decorate a dining room, living room, and bedroom the same exact way. Likewise, whether the playlist is for running, or chilling everyday, or a party is going to change what you put on it. So the very first step, naturally, is figuring out exactly what you’re looking for: is it an upbeat playlist for running? Is it going to be an upbeat dance party or are you looking for chill ambience?
Build your base.
So, if you’re designing a room, one of the first things you’re going to do is put in the flooring, paint the walls, and paint the ceilings. These things for the base of how you’re going to design the rest of the room. In the same way, you’ll want two or three artists that for the majority (probably about 45 percent to 55 percent) of the music of your playlist. These are the artists that you really want your playlist to sound like -- they won’t necessarily make up the majority, but it might feel that way because so few of them make up so much. The artists you pick here will influence your future music choices for the playlist.
Fill it with your “furniture.”
Once you’ve painted the room, it’s time to add the big pieces that’ll make the major statements -- the furniture. In the same way, you need artists that’ll make up slightly less (about 30 percent to 35 percent) of your playlist. These artists both build on tweak the original base that you placed – when you think about it, you wouldn’t paint in a room in modern, cool colors and then add an old fashioned chair to it. Likewise, if your base is full of modern, shimmery pop artists, you wouldn’t necessarily want trap music to make up another big chunk. Part of building the playlist is making sure that the pieces go together. That being said, feel free to get a little bit more creative as you add these artists in – you’re going to want two or three songs from each, so go ahead and add the slight deviations.
The accents.
This is the one that’s probably the hardest to master but could make the difference between an amazing playlist and a great one. In the same way that you might want to add a novelty lamp or a bold-colored knick knack to inspire some conversation and liven up the room, these are the songs that you’re going to add that may not fit perfectly in to the playlist, but are close enough that they work. It could be in the form of adding some acoustic pieces to an otherwise highly produced bunch of songs, or adding something more slow tempo to an upbeat running playlist. They’ll be the novelties that, as you’re listening through, will make you perk up and go, “Huh. I thought I’d forgotten about this, but I really just forgot how much I enjoy it.”
Chuck out all the rules.
The most important part of making any playlist is having fun with it and creating something unique, personal, and, most importantly, something you. While those four guidelines have helped me out in building playlists that I’ve enjoyed, ultimately you’ve got to play with the music yourself and come up with a system that helps you design a playlist that you’re going to love. There are no hard and fast rules to follow, so go ahead and give it a shot. Add songs, take them out, tweak the order, put it on shuffle with modern streaming services like Spotify®
