Those Damn Spotify Playlists

The earliest musical influences I can remember come from XM Radio in my car — XM kids, a station dedicated exclusively to radio’s most belovedly corny kid-friendly pop, broadcasting classics like Starfish and Coffee or the Bear Necessities. Eventually, growing up in the Presbyterian church would expose me to contemporary Christian rock, with artists like Chris Tomlin and Starfield piqueing my interest in the sounds of electric guitars, drums, and bass — “rock bands”. These relatively vanilla influences coupled with the occasional 80’s pop oldie from my mom’s radio stations would leave me feeling almost satisfied with the music around me, pushing the limits on the few genres I had access to, desperately trying to find a sort of creative empathy that ultimately wasn’t there.

Then one fateful day, my 11-year old self would come to discover that YouTube had more than just funny home videos — YouTube had lyric videos for all sorts of music. Thus began my journey into the fringes of punk rock, swimming from influence to influence via “Related Videos” rabbit-holes.

I’d spend so much time digging for music I’d occasionally find incredible songs with a relatively subtle influence. I took great pride in finding this music — I had to work for it, clicking and clicking, re-routing, taking risks on that sidebar until I ended up somewhere magical. Something about the misalignment between the songs I’d find and the influences in my life made the connection seem more authentic, because our paths would never cross — what are the chances some suburban kid from San Diego finds a band like The Love Language, or even the Avett Brothers, you know?

And that’s how it was for a while — until about 2013, when I made my Spotify account. Initially, it didn’t change much in the way of music discovery— it was more about access. Sure, there were “Related Artists” displayed alongside artists, but I never went down the same discovery journeys, as the platform was much less refined back then, and the somewhat clunky layout ultimately made the discovery process unpleasant. As time went on, I found myself gravitating to the platform more and more, but the 30-second ad intervals and need for cellular data (I was still in high school) meant my go-to library was still the one I had downloaded to iTunes. Somewhere around 2015, though, Spotify stepped its game up. I decided to get a Premium account, part of a sweet “Family” package. The ability to download my library meant Spotify would finally take the place of my iTunes library.

For a while, I just used both apps, going to Spotify when I wanted to find specific songs I didn’t already have. I kept my playlists in iTunes. My favorite was “Top 25 Most Played” — a low-tech playlist that seemed to know me well. I had experimented with playlists in Spotify, but they felt produced, like a product, something made in a corporate office with a numerical goal. Playlists are personal. When I make a playlist, it means something to me; I’m capturing an emotional experience as best as I can. Or I need music to accompany an activity. Or I want to create a specific atmosphere. No matter what it’s for, the selection process, the listening, the composition — it’s all personal. So when my friend shares the playlist “Bedroom Pop” with me, and I find all of my favorite songs strewn about, I feel sort of violated — almost like someone went through my desk drawer and pulled out all my mementos.

And that was my general attitude towards curated Spotify playlists for a while. To be honest, though, I’d reluctantly accept these curated suggestions and would usually end up really enjoying them, conflicted as I was.

The other night, though, I went to a concert.

It was at that moment I realized music is just as personal to the artist as it is to the listener. Obvious, I know, but it took me a while to get that.

I love the way good music makes me feel. It’s something that’s different for everyone, unspoken but unmistakenly there. Only when I realized music was made by people — that good music comes from mining of the soul — did I realize that my authenticity problem had nothing to do with Spotify. It had nothing to do with quick delivery or ubiquitous, on-demand access.

It was because I had no connection with the artists.

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