Mainly aimed at those who use Spotify, Tidal, or any other streaming service like myself, but those who pirate music should still feel free to answer!
How do you organise your music library? Creating playlists is pure torture, in my opinion, because there are so many songs that overlap in genres. I’ve tried creating lists based on genres, but I’m the type of person to listen to multiple genres in one session so the switching between playlists kinda becomes inconvenient. Same with based on mood, I can still listen to discoesque or fast-paced songs when I’m feeling sad.
Genuinely considered hiring somebody to create the playlists for me, lol. I know having 800 songs in one list is clunky, but having everything in the same spot is a source of relief. Ugh.
Outside of sorting them by artist, album and maybe something else depending on what it is, I kind of don’t. If there is a song that I like, I’ll download it and add it to the folder where I keep all of my music. Yes, this does cause a playlist that is massive and kind of sporadic but I already listen to artists like A-one and Sound Holic which already have at least some level of variety to the style of music they make.
I’ve just got a general playlist, sad stuff, gym, and ERM. 95% of stuff gets dumped straight into the general one
Vibe, and purpose. I have a gym playlist full of metal, 90’s rap, and some bebop. I also have a playlist for rock, another for metal, a classical playlist, a medievalish playlist (think Danheim, Heilung, The HU, etc), and another for just jazz. I also have playlists for the decades spanning from the 50’s to the 90’s. Ended up doing playlists for whenever I’m feeling really good, and for whenever I’m down in the dumps, just in case.
The decades playlists really help with being handed the aux. Most people don’t do well going from Toto or Green Day to Messhuggah and Opeth, so, dividing a genre by decade is good. I know my grandma will not vibe with Polyphia, so I play her some latin music, classical, or jazz, and she’s fine with it.
This leads to many, many playlists, and there’s a lot of overlap, but I don’t really mind as long as I can make sure I have a playlist for any mood I might find myself in.
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Somewhat haphazardly. I typically listen to multiple genres in one session as well. What I usually do is if I hear a song I like that’s not already in a playlist (or if I like it enough that I want it in multiple playlists), I’ll chuck it in at the end of one. Then when I have downtime I play around with the song order so that I like how each song transitions to the next. I enjoy doing that as a way to unwind. This method isn’t great if you’re the type that needs everything organized all the time though since my playlists are usually in some level of a work in progress state! The names are very boring - P01, P02, etc. I also have some playlists that are more themed, for instance a road trip playlist with more upbeat songs. I’ll usually play around with that one based on who is road tripping with me and what type of music I think they’ll enjoy.
Playlists organized by a certain sound. But I have a liked songs playlist that I add lots of songs I like. Never big groups of song though only 1 or 2. When I want AAA variety of music I start the liked songs playlist from the most recent song down til the last. I never go to deep so it’s like a core sample of my music tastes over time
${MUSICDIR}/artist/song.ext
lolNo /album/ ?
Seriously, the person you’re replying to is committing a crime by leaving that out.
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I used to put so much time into playlists and general organizing/finetuning back when I used iTunes. Since the streaming age I just have a huge list of favorites and play that on shuffle sometimes.
I have some special playlists. One has songs I like singing along to and one has a few womens power ballads by Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion that I like to turn up on long car trips from time to time.
I also had the thought that I would like someone to curate playlists for me based on mood. I often listen to a song and think, damn I wish I had a playlist with songs like this. Then I create a playlist with one song in it, struggle with naming it, name it „Vibing“ or „Goose bumps“ or something stupid like that and then never touch it again.
Lmao that last paragraph hits hard. I never know what to name my stuff either. Usually “a bit of everything”, “energy”, “cringe fandom songs”…
Right now my setup is as follows:
- one playlist for old-school bangers (40s-80s)
- one playlist for exclusively Lana Del Rey
- one playlist for nostalgic songs
- and one last playlist which contains my other 800 random songs.
So I’ll have to see what I can do about this.
Name the playlist after a powerful lyric in one of the songs. Example: For a collage class once we could get extra credit for making an audio collage; I made a mix CD about collage with songs about rearranging, picking up pieces, sifting through garbage, that sort of thing, and I titled it “Canvas Full of Touch-Ups” after a line from the Atmosphere track “Saves the Day”.
That’s a cool idea!
Poorly.
I never felt the need of creating playlists. I just have one playlist with all my songs. My local music player allows to switch between platlists and albums so if i want to listen to a whole album, i don’t have the remember the last position in my big playlist
That actually might work out for me. Is there any way to download my Spotify songs as mp3s with accurate metadata/tags so I don’t have to do it manually?
I use zotify but i not an audiophile, i don’t know if the quality is good or bad for you
Spotify doesn’t have great quality to begin with (320kbps, whereas lossless starts at 1411kbps)
Only 3…
- Albums -> Full albums
- Recopilations -> Compilation albums
- Random -> Songs
I make all my playlists by hand. I have three types:
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Mixes that I’ve made, either as gifts or for myself; where the order is carefully chosen so one song leads into another pleadingly, where no one artist dominates the tracklist, usually with a specific mood or theme, like “cleaning” or “summer” or “breakup”. These kind of playlists are additive and creative; I start with an empty playlist then add and rearrange tracks until I’m happy.
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“Best of” playlists that are every song I like of a genre or artist or local scene or year or music label. These are usually in release order, grouped by album; or sometimes in descending order of how much I like them (but still grouped by album). These kind of playlists are subtractive and reactive; I dump large swathes of the library in and then remove whatever I don’t like enough until only the cream is left.
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Hemerographs, which is a word I made up to describe playlists where I’m picking songs one at a time and adding them to the queue, but I’m saving the whole queue to listen to again later to recreate the vibe of that day / party / activity. It’s additive like the mixes but more flow-of-consciousness and reactive; and also includes inputs from other people, since I’m usually making them on the fly in a social situation.
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Now that I think about it, using a website that could gain access to your playlist and move around the different songs to new playlists (based on genre/mood/etc) would be a godsend…
https://soundiiz.com/ does this. It’s a pay service, but inexpensive and allows import/export of open formats such as CSV.
It works with most streaming services.
(This is for native storage but I’m bored and want to contribute)
I do the genre thing. I’ll simplify them first. Like I have-
1 big one for Ska.
1 for first wave ska.
1 for second wave.
1 for 3rd.
No reggae, thats 1st wave. Same with rocksteady, dub, dance hall, etc.
Metal is all metal. No crossover or Nü.
I do separate Punk and Skate Punk though, the latter being the old Thrasher Mag Skate Rock tapes.
Rock is a mess but everything from AcDc to Pusa. Hip-hop is anything that even could be considered rap.
EDM is the same.Just super broad strokes. Then a playlist is either a genre or two or the entire catalog of a few bands. Occasionally, if I get super motivated, I’ll do a playlist with albums, but rarely any more specific than that unless I need something particular- Like one for running, or a game session.
VLC: by artist, by all (using shuffle), by misc music I download.
- I make a folder and save it there when I download it. No organization required.
- Everything I have in an album is a single track from yt so no need make a separate folder.