Why do people make such long playlists?
I know I’m old school but we used to put together 90 mix tapes of carefully curated songs to create some kind of personal mood, y’know, if you were any good at it. This meant things like the 1st song, the 2nd song, the last song on side one were all very important choices, as were the 1st song on the second side and, of course, the final song. You were restricted by time but had the opportunity to create multiple shifts of mood that demonstrated a kind of skill. At least if you were going to listen it to repetitively and share it with others, etc.
Nowadays people send me these “playlists” and it’s like, WTF is this? Who actually listens to a 50 hour playlist? At most, I scroll through the selections but probably only listen to the 1st hour. I mean, it’s more of a radio station than a playlist. I have my own music I listen to, I don’t need somebody’s randomly thrown together 50+ hour playlist.
So what is this about? What are these people thinking? I mean, send me like 18 selectors, make it mean something, y’know?
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | December 3, 2024 2:53 PM
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It’s pretty simple. Back in the day cassette tapes could hold 30, 60, or 90 minutes of music so there was a limit to the number of songs you could put on them. Today the capacity is limitless, so you can put 1000 songs together if you want to. But yes, the constraints of tape forced people to be more selective and it was conducive to putting together a more curated mix.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | December 3, 2024 11:35 AM
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Possibly because they work from home or drive. A LOT.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | December 3, 2024 12:00 PM
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My personal playlist is right now at about 10 hours of music. It may seem excessive but I listen to it on random play.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | December 3, 2024 12:43 PM
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Yes but would you share a 30 hour playlist with somebody? I realise it was “back in the day” but if you made a mix tape for someone, it was personal, a kind of gift with the objective that the recipient would listen to it.
How can you listen to a 50 hour playlist? A person could probably read 8 books in that time.
So has the etiquette and expectation changed then?
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | December 3, 2024 12:47 PM
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Because they can. Because you're not supposed to pay attention. Everything is wallpaper now.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | December 3, 2024 2:30 PM
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R8 is correct - music went from art to commodity to utility - you open a tap and it streams just like water - so it all has become Muzak now.
People can’t even watch tv or a 30 second ticktoc video without subtitles / words all over the fucking screen because no one under 35 ever learned to pay attention or focus.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | December 3, 2024 2:53 PM
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