Creating a playlist sounds so simple, right? Taking a bunch of songs with one common theme and just throwing them together, that’s all it is. Yet every single time I set out to do just that, I simply can’t. There are several answers to why I think that is.
The first is my passion. This passion and love for music is why I want to make great playlists for my future music-listening self. But this passion defeats itself when I’m editing a playlist. I listen to a song, and decide it’s going in there. All of a sudden, I’m three related artists and two albums deep into music I’ve never heard of. Or, I am already nodding my head to songs off the same album, my eyes closed without not a care in the world. It’s a marvel I’ve added the first song at all.
The next is a bit hard to explain. Sometimes I enjoy the surprises of shuffle, and other times, order just doesn’t matter. Sometimes, though, I listen to music in a very particular way; I like an order to my music. This order varies, either by songs that are related in a certain aspect, such as bass or rhythm or tempo, and other times by songs that are unrelated- opposites in fact – to really enjoy a song for how it can be so different than another song I also love. All of these serve the purpose of gaining a new perspective on the song. I want so much potential variety for my next song, to have all of these possible song-to-song combinations on one playlist is impossible, simply put.
Another is because of platform. I have some music I listen to on Spotify, but contrary to what some may believe, not all music worth listening to is on Spotify. So, I also download music from sites like SoundCloud and DatPiff that end up on my phone’s mp3 app. I can’t have one playlist on two platforms, at least not in a way that can smoothly transition so that I can choose a song from one after using the other. Having both would also just drain my battery to further oblivion.
Last is the playlist creation itself. It’s hard to make a playlist that is specific enough, yet broad, so that it's not too short nor too long for comfort. And on that note, as I change, so does my music taste. Before I realize it, I find myself skipping half the songs that play, and then deleting them. Yet other playlists that were small grow like a magic beanstalk to a height where I can’t scroll so far to find the song I want next by the time my three and a half minutes are up.
I love music. I have a passion for it, to get lost in it, to analyze it, and to create it, too. Mostly, this is easy to do. Making perfect playlists for myself, though, seems impossible. Nevertheless, I am driven to try anyway, over and over again. Changing them up each daily, nit-picking until the end of time.
