Have your Sunday terrors ever given way to a “Monday morning on a nervous ocean”? Does the weekend really start on Friday or on a “wild, free, chaotic Thursday afternoon”? How should you dress for a “dark and paranormal cabaret night”?
Those strange strings of words are titles for “daily charts,” a new offering from music streaming giant Spotify. The feature provides users with three new algorithmically generated playlists per day, each with an ultra-specific title that's practically begging to be captured and published.
The often baffling titles have recently captured the attention of social media, propelling the service to new popularity about four months after its debut in September. Post after post, users seem amused by the feature's ability to see right through them.
“Spotify caught my attention a little with this daily list,” an X user wrote from your own playlist. Its title: “Early Morning Midwest Emo Flannel Tuesday.”
Another described feeling “personally intimidated” by Spotify after being served a collection of songs titled “Tailspin Self-Sabotaging Monday Afternoon.”
So who is responsible for these peculiar titles? Spotify users who have been having fun with these three-times-a-day servings of word salad might be surprised (or, more likely, not) to learn that the playlist names are created by AI.
“Spotify uses machine learning to gather the thousands of descriptors that create the unique playlist names in the daily list,” Molly Holder, Spotify's senior director of product, said in a statement. She characterized the tone of the titles as “hyperpersonalized, dynamic and fun.”
Holder added that the team behind these extravagant playlists included data scientists and music experts who identify musical descriptors based on genre, mood and themes that are then associated with specific tracks “through methods such as notes from musical experts, sound similarities and trends”.
“In our view, titles offer users a fun way to express their unique sonic identity,” Holder wrote.
Generally speaking, users have taken the titles with caution.
“It seems like Spotify invented these music genres,” said Chelsy McInnis of St. Louis.
McInnis, who works in marketing and has been an avid Spotify user for the past 10 years, said she had started using the daily playlist feature in September. She checks it three times a day.
“My morning title is completely different to my afternoon title, which is completely different to my evening title,” Ms. McInnis said. “And it's super fun to see what he spits at me.”
Daylist builds on the popularity of Spotify Wrapped, a year-end look at a user's personalized listening history that debuted in 2016 and has since become a fixture on the social media calendar. Spotify Wrapped, which packages listening data like a user's top artist or most-streamed music genres and presents it in shareable formats tailored for Instagram, last year joined “sound town,” a feature that assigns users users a city in the world where other people listen to similar music or artists.
Daily charts seem to fit with Spotify's broader strategies around hyper-specificity. According to Holder, four in five Spotify users pointed to the platform's personalized offerings as what they like most about the brand.
But a playful brand voice can be a dangerous proposition for corporations, which risk clashing with consumer sensibilities with every cheeky ad or cheeky tweet. With great brand identity comes great responsibility.
“I got 'Fun Purim on Thursday morning,'” said Shayna Weiss, senior associate director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University. “I thought, 'What does this mean?' Purim is a fun Jewish holiday, but using it was the strangest way to describe the early morning musical atmosphere.”
Later, Dr. Weiss was given an afternoon playlist titled “Witchy Ethereal Tuesday,” to which she exclaimed, “What do you mean I hear forests?”
Of course, she shared it on social media.
Kyle Stanley, a doctoral candidate at Louisiana State University who studies popular digital and media culture, started using Spotify a year ago after seeing his friends share their Spotify Wrapped.
“Instagram marketing grabbed me,” said Stanley, who was previously an Apple Music user.
Mr. Stanley shares his daily list on his social media almost every day, sometimes using the more private Close Friends feature on Instagram, depending on how chaotic the caption is. He attributes the popularity of the daily list on social media to the way it allows for a deeper understanding of an individual through music.
“Getting a little deeper insight into your personality than just once a year, and having these curated playlists multiple times a day with a fun title, draws people in and makes them want to be a part of this,” he said. saying.
Mauricio Godoy, who lives in Brooklyn, started listening to his personalized list on Monday after seeing other friends sharing theirs on social media. His daily list at the beginning of the day was titled “Shoegaze Indie Tuesday Morning” and the afternoon title was “Post-Punk Far Out Tuesday Afternoon.” He said that he was eager to find out what would be his title on the night's daily list.
“I remember how mixtapes always had a quirky title,” Godoy said, “and there was always a fun title that would catch your attention when you pulled out your burned-in CD playlist. “I think that’s what these daily chart titles are doing now.”
Madison Malone Kircher contributed with reports.
