Music streaming services are constantly coming up with ways to make their service more desirable and personalized for their users in the competitive market between Spotify and Apple Music. For my fellow peers that are avid users of Spotify, you might have discovered a fairly new generated playlist- “daylist”, that is a personally curated collection of songs that match to similarities in your music taste, all centered around a particular mood or niche emotion, time or place. Spotify on their website states “algorithmically-curated playlists, regularly updated to collect “the niche music and micro- genres you usually listen to during particular moments in the day or on specific days of the week“. As I sit and write this, my current Daylist collection is entitled “Mountain Music Natural Sunday Afternoon”. The description reads, “Halle, you listen to mountain, and folksy music genres on Sunday afternoons. Here are son forest, crunchy, cottage core, natural sounds”.
I found the creation of these “daylists” to be an interesting shift in direction for Spotify, potentially leaning on AI and collective harvested data and user trends to market a unique experience formulated towards the individual listener. Now let’s be clear, not all of these songs on my daylist are inherently good, and a lot of them are just other songs/tracks off of albums I’ve previously added to my other self-created playlists. However, I have been introduced to a variety of new songs and artists within my favorite genres through the creation of these daylists. I additionally find the concept unique and well thought out- the creation of personalized playlists and sounds to set the mood and match the habits of the consumer/user is brilliant, and the inclusion of a witty, almost laughable title makes you come back for more to see what Spotify will curate for you next as the day goes on. With the success of Daylist, I’m interested to see how Sound Cloud and Apple Music will counter this creation with their own software or service, and if these small personalized touches will send Spotify further into success, or will the use of AI in music curation and user experience be a set back for the brand? The public’s aversion to fully trusting and putting their faith in AI and it’s capabilities will be a development I have curious to see play out, and how the rise in artificial intelligence will shape the music industry for better or for worse.
I could not help but conclude this segment with my favorite Daylist titles my friends and I have received over the past few weeks, and yes before we jump to conclusions…all of these are very real. Enjoy!
- Motivational Ibiza Tuesday Morning
- Standing on Business Battle Royale Wednesday Afternoon
- Outdoorsy Granola Vibes Thursday Evening
- Techno Doof-Doof Friday Night
- Theatre Show Tunes Sunday Night
- Dance Anthem Bush Late Light