The Art of The Playlist
I'll give you my heart wrapped in a song...
I love decoding everyone’s methods for putting together a playlist. I feel we, as Gen X, have a headstart in this regard as it’s a natural extension from the days of high school and college where we not only curated the perfect mixed tape but also added artistic flair to those Memorex 90-minute liners. Let’s face it: we were legends.
As I mentioned before, I often received tapes from my sister after she left for college.
And while I appreciated every one of them (and kept a couple of the covers up until earlier this year!), they aren’t the ones I always remember.
My freshman year of college, my then-boyfriend set up a tape in “our cubicle” in the library. It was ridiculously romantic, I will admit and meant more to me than just about anything else he could have done. The song choices dripped with cheese, but it was the first time in my life that someone loved me - and then showed it in song. Chicago (Hard To Say I’m Sorry) blended into Toto (I’ll Be Over You) which lead to the perennial declaration of love in 1992, Can’t Fight This Feeling from people who clearly knew love, REO Speedwagon (a song infinitely better than Keep On Loving You, which is nowhere near a hill I would die on as I don’t actually LIKE REO Speedwagon, but it’s still true). The tape ended with ‘our song’: Bryan Adams and Everything I Do (RIP Alan Rickman…) and my tears.
Like I said. Cheese.
However, if you were to scroll my Spotify playlists right now, you would indeed find every one of these songs in a playlist I call Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E. (what do the kids say? IYKYK?). It’s the go-to playlist for every song from my childhood through today that is, well, pretty cheesy, but I could belt out every word given an enclosed space and two seconds. (I’m looking at you Savage Garden!) This playlist is everything a good playlist artist prides themselves on - a punny title and then a theme running through each and every track.
The only other mixed tape I remember well enough to speak on with any sort of clarity was one I gave to my best friend in college. I was hopelessly in love with him and I’m certain the feeling was mutual. In a rather embarrassing twist of courage, I made him a playlist and wrote him a letter. And I mean, it was a thing of beauty, this multi-paged modern-day sonnet. I poured my soul into both, list after list of potential songs that would convince him I was THE one. That final playlist, in full, is safely ensconced in a journal in a box in our garage. I think. I haven’t laid eyes on my college journals in a couple of decades, but faith they are there in all humiliating glory.
This tape was specific to “us”, so gone was Chicago. In its place? The Devil Went Down to Georgia, of course. And, because it was the early ‘90s, the country didn’t end there. We had John Michael Montgomery (either I Can Love You Like That or I Swear. Knowing me, it was probably both). Even with my toe dipping into an at-the-time popular genre, I was still me and JMM was paired with Depeche Mode’s Somebody. The only embodiment of love I was willing to entertain. The title for this ‘Please Love Me’ playlist was simply “Always” and it was a darn masterpiece. A masterpiece that failed miserably.
When Spotify came around, I was knee-deep in motherhood and didn’t use the service to its full advantage for many years. But as my child grew and my mind came back to me little by little, I started saving a few playlists here and there. A dive into the many facets of Glen Hansard and Neil Finn for any day of the week. Family favorites. Work-out heavy spots for my husband. Music dumps for travel. All very basic and serviceable, but not at all flashy.
But a few days after the world stopped in 2020, I suddenly remembered my not-at-all-marketable skill and made my Covid quarantine playlist. I think it started as me trying to teach my very young teen the method to my madness while staving off terror and boredom. It ended as a top-notch mix. We’re talking Hands Clean by Alanis, The End of the World by The Cure, Disease from Matchbox Twenty, Wasting Time by Jack Johnson, Shake the Disease by Depeche Mode, Round and Round by Paul Weller, and Doctor! Doctor! by the Thompson Twins. Nearly eight hours of world-ending madness sound tracked by the likes of The Offspring (Come Out and Play).
I was surprised at how much I had missed that part of my brain. That part of my life. And how quickly it all came back from there.
My playlists have grown over the past handful of years. Grown so much, actually, that I took a minute a few weeks ago to list them all out in my journal, to see if I could find any holes and to make sure that my playlist list flowed how it should. (Tell me you’re Type A…)
My latest one, not included above, entitled “Trent Crimm, The Independent” is naturally my 4th of July mix. I am using this year to make one for every major holiday, in fact. And this particular playlist, much like my current feelings toward the home of my birth, is chaotic and complex. It starts off with Johnny Hates Jazz (I Don’t Want To Be A Hero), Peaches by The Presidents of the United States of America, and 505 by Arctic Monkeys as a nod to my home state. Of course, American Idiot makes a showing as does The Kids Aren’t All Right and Why Don’t You Get A Job. Rebel Rebel (Bowie) and Drive by Incubus, Under Pressure and I Fought the Law (The Clash) all get a turn as well. We end with George Michael’s Freedom ‘90, She Drives Me Crazy, and then Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Ok. Maybe not complex, but definitely chaotic and right on the money for our current reality.
It’s far possible I think about this far more than any adult should. It’s also possible that I could have done any number of things with the brain space this takes up, but that’s an essay for another day (and it’s already started. Spoiler: it mentions the karaoke scene from The Bear.). But I know I’m not the only one who talks love through mixtapes. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s a hallmark of our generation and I propose we reclaim it fully and in all its glory.
And if you haven’t, may I suggest reading this book by Rob Sheffield? It’s easily one of the best things I’ve ever read. At least twice. Go. Read. And then make the best playlist ever and come and tell me about it. I’d love to hear it.
I relate to so much of this post on The Art of the Playlist. I love learning about your playlist passion. And that book suggestion is a good one, I've always wanted to read it. This made me laugh in recognition: "...I took a minute a few weeks ago to list them all out in my journal, to see if I could find any holes and to make sure that my playlist list flowed how it should."