The Human-Touched Playlist

Intent on doing some heavy-duty writing tonight, I set out to find the perfect playlist to be my background noise.

Since I'd just remembered that I had a Pandora subscription, I logged on to see if I could find anything instrumental and bouncy, something I could use to energize me without distracting me too much. Unfortunately, I ended up spending far too much time trying out "stations" that weren't quite what I was looking for. Some were too high-energy, some had lyrics (when I'd specified instrumental, so I could focus better). Some had songs that didn't even seem to go together.

It was then that I decided to log onto Spotify and try searching for some user-created playlists. I found what I was looking for in no time.

There's nothing like a playlist that's been curated by an actual person, someone with actual likes and dislikes, experiences, favorite genres of music. There's nothing like that sense of connection and coherence.

When an algorithm can successfully replicate that experience, I'll revisit this. But it hasn't happened yet, and I doubt it ever will. There are just some things that a fellow human will always be better at. I love that for us.

-D.