In the latest instalment of “data harvesting is okay as long as I get a playlist out of it,” Spotify Daylists have well and truly taken over. If you prefer to use Apple Music or, God forbid, some other backwards platform like YouTube Music or Deezer, you may not be aware of what a Spotify Daylist is, nor the joys that the feature brings. Fear not for I am s self-proclaimed expert on all things Spotify and I am here to bring clarity to your strange and empty lives.
The Daylist is a product of Spotify’s user algorithm, which cleverly tracks your listening habits at specific times of day and churns out four distinct playlists daily: one for the morning, afternoon, evening and night. These playlists each have a different, hyper-specific name based on the mood of the songs. “The titles mash together seemingly random adjectives” And with that, Spotify created the second most marketable trick in music streaming (after Spotify Wrapped, of course).
TechCrunch that searches for “daylist” on Spotify increased by nearly 20,000% after the addition was released. It is undeniable that the key “selling point” of the feature is the formula used to name the Daylists and the anticipation that comes with checking in as they change throughout the day. In an absurd Mad Libs-like fashion, the titles mash together seemingly random adjectives, ranging from the bizarre to the downright offensive.
At the time of writing, my Daylist is named “sad girl bubblegrunge wednesday afternoon.