How I upgraded my music habits in 2022
Tips on how I Shazam, Search and Spotify
This year I listened to 61,118 minutes of music on Spotify. It hardly compares to the whopping 432,870 minutes of some, according to this article from the Atlantic last year, but it’s no competition. I do however, share a common behaviour with these folks as I too, very often go to sleep with music streaming in the background. I’ve always loved music and grew up around parents who would keep the radio on all night while sleeping as well. But I use Spotify’s Sleep timer feature, so rather than playing all night, I save my device’s energy by automatically going quiet within 45 minutes or so. If I didn’t, my streaming minutes would probably be well in the 100,000s as well.
My taste in music isn’t particularly eclectic, although it is quite a good mix of popular and alternative. Nonetheless, this year was different for me. I paid more attention to my music habits, and I listened to music on 5 different players (my Phone, iPad, Laptop, Car and Amazon Echo devices). And before the hype around Spotify Wrapped dies down, it’s itching me to wrap my Spotify behaviour this year from my own perspective.
Capturing music
Although Shazam has been around for years now, it’s quick access from the iOS Control centre since 2021 has been a total game changer for me and many others, considering it was used over 1 billion times in 2021 alone.
It isn’t just the fact that I can quickly recognise music, but I can quickly bring music to me anywhere with a single-click. This is a function I take full advantage of. I use Shazam in coffee shops, cafes and concerts. I’ve undoubtedly used it while watching TV shows and movies, but I’ve also used it in hotel lobbies and shopping malls. It’s also the perfect tool to use in social situations where everyone seems to know a particular song, but you are ignorant and too shy to ask.
Shazaming in public, has a Dumbledore-holding-out-his-deluminator-esque feel to it, capturing sound rather than light. Last month, I shazamed my way through Bangkok and made a playlist out of it. This was a beautiful way of capturing the essence of my trip, of re-living memories and of discovering new foreign music. Sure I could have searched for an existing playlist, but for me the appeal of curating my own music means I can construct specific vibes strongly attached to specific personal memories. I know fully well that I was walking down this particular street when I first heard a certain song on the playlist. Fascinating, ingenious, the many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic…
Curating and publishing playlists
As soon as I Shazam a song, I search it up on Spotify and give it a Like. The song then goes and sits in my Liked Songs for later consumption, and allows me to quickly carry on, as I’m usually on the go while doing this. My Liked Songs in a way then acts like a waiting room for my music, until I return to decide its fate. Whenever I get time later I’ll come back to my Liked songs and triage the list, by listening to each song fully to decide if I actually enjoy it or not. Often I may have just caught a glimpse of it in a film scene and don’t actually enjoy the full song, so I’ll unlike it. If I really have discovered a great song that I enjoy, I then decide to either add it to an existing playlist I have, or make a new playlist depending on how much I enjoy its vibe. When I create a new playlist, I take the help of the algorithm to discover similar music to add to it, which are often a hit or miss, nonetheless I get to discover and decide. This all may seem tedious to some, but it’s a process I have really come to enjoy.
My Rules —
- There’s only one foundational rule I’ve come to learn while curating music. Only add a song to a playlist if you really like it. It’s the end of 2022 for crying out loud! This is no time to be listening to music you think you’re supposed to be listening to, or because it’s popular. It’s the age of personalisation! You get to decide what you consume, and this can have a great effect on your entire lifestyle! This simple tip has helped me actually enjoy all of my playlists and consistently brighten up my entire day. There isn’t a single song in any of my playlists anymore that I don’t truly relish in some way, and not doing so earlier used to make me subconsciously avoid certain playlists altogether.
- Avoid making playlists to fulfil some particular desire to complete a clichéd collection. For example, when making a playlist around my Bangkok trip, I had the urge to add stereotypical Thai music, or songs that I didn’t really like but had a title that suited the vibe, which made me add a song called Mango sticky rice by Thai rapper Milli. It seemed like a perfect fit, only to remove it later because neither did I really enjoy the song nor did it match the vibe of the rest of the playlist. Don’t just add all 80’s music to an 80’s playlist, there are already enough of those playlists out there! It’s time to get more personal with your music.
- Avoid making playlists that are too long. I only have a couple of playlists that exceed 3 hours, and those are specifically for slow situations like exceedingly long roadtrips for which I have a 14 hour playlist, or recurring activities like working out for which I have a 6 hour playlist so that I’m not listening to the same music every time I perform the same activity. If I did, I would tend to attach a negative feeling of dull repetition to the mundane routine. I try to avoid making a playlist public if it’s under 1 hour long, and the ideal time for a playlist I’ve found is around 2 hours, so that it encompasses a quick everyday routine — shower, travel, or nighttime. Less than 2 hours makes the playlist get boring quickly with the same songs on repeat, while longer than 4–5 hours means the playlist is rarely going to be played beyond the first 2 hours because that’s the optimal time period for which I want to experience a particular feeling before changing it up. If you care enough, test playlists of different lengths before deciding your own optimal length.
- Lastly before making the playlist public, I go the extra mile of always play-testing, reordering, and maintaining a consistent personalised format — name of the playlist in small-case, always followed by two emojis, always with a display image evoking the spirit of the playlist in some way. In doing so, I know that a private playlist is always still a work in progress. I spend time listening to the entire playlist many times, always placing my favourite songs of the lot on top, so that I am always inclined to hit replay, and I at least hear my favourite songs even when I can’t finish the entire playlist.
Head over to my profile, where I have over 60+ carefully curated playlists of varying genres.
Considering I like to order playlists in my own order of preference, I still make playlists just focused on specific artists, even when Spotify provides these already because those lists may not have all my favourites or may contain songs I don’t like.
Apart from artist-centric playlists, I mostly curate playlists around a genre or vibe, sometimes a particular TV show, or even a particular personality, like a Youtuber I like.
I sometimes have series of playlists like this Tropical House trilogy, each with increasing intensity:
Sunscreen caffeine, Sunscreen dopamine, and Sunscreen Trampoline.
or this Dance series, full of varying categories of ambient Dance music: Dance sparingly, Dance periodically, Dance covertly, and Dance afrofunk.
Some of my favourite unique playlists with interesting stories also include:
Pepperoni princess, Chic musique and Goofball bops.
Update your Crossfade settings to enable continuous playback, and you’ll never want to stop listening either.
These are all the tips that have helped me come a long way from the days of saving every other pop music video, to a single colossal mess of a Youtube playlist simply entitled ‘Music’, which contained over 15000 random songs that I had to wade through and avoid because most of it was rubbish. And I’m sure a large majority of people still keep all their favourite songs in a single Liked folder, and then just hit shuffle.
But why don’t I just let the algorithm do all the work for me? I think in the same way that artists and designers try to justify why Dall-E won’t replace their job but will act more like a tool to help aid, discover and suggest, I use the algorithm to primarily help me find new music but I like to make the decisions myself. Simultaneously, AI generated playlists, or Netflix’s ‘Surprise me’ feature are available for those who don’t want to make decisions, but still want to create and consume media that fulfils their needs. On the other hand, I have found that paying attention to what I consume helps me live a more conscious and happy life.
There are only few things in life I am arrogant about, and one of them is my loyalty to Spotify over Apple or Youtube Music. I refuse to be convinced otherwise.
