The best thing about Spotify's Daylist feature isn't the music, it's the unhinged titles
I’ve been using Spotify for a long time now, even through its constant price hikes and continuing lack of Spotify Hi-Fi, which has been ‘coming soon’ for a while now. The reason why is because I find its interface to be the most user-friendly and it has the most relevant music library to me (video game soundtracks mainly).
Having worked in A/V retail, I’m used to using the best music streaming services, including Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music to demo hi-fi systems, so I know that Spotify, which is capped at 320kbps as opposed to Tidal’s 1411kbps, is not the best in terms of actual streaming quality. But one thing I have always enjoyed is the very personal aspect of Spotify, which has so many personalized playlists I’ve now lost count.
Spotify, in my opinion, does an excellent job of curating playlists based on factors such as genre, mood, season and so on, and a large majority of these hit their mark. One I discovered recently, and I’m admittedly late to the party, is the Daylist playlist. This playlist bases its music choices on what it believes you generally listen to on a given day and time, say a Monday evening. While the actual music choices themselves are generally decent, often sticking to one genre, music isn’t the best part about the Daylist - it’s the titles Spotify gives each one.
Joy from the smallest things
Finding joy and often laughter from a playlist title was not on my 2024 bingo card, but here we are. The Daylist does sometimes come up with normal titles such as ‘Classy 50’s Tuesday afternoons’, which is perfectly fine and safe, but then follows up with something out of left-field.
So far, some of my favorite examples are ‘Hymn Battle Friday Afternoon’, which is based off my choice to listen to Final Fantasy music sometimes while I write. I can’t help but think here of dueling choirs in a church like some sort of religious version of the dueling banjos from Deliverance. Another was ‘Moody, sleazy indie on a Tuesday afternoon’, which in itself sounds like a niche indie track. I’m also pretty sure I’ve seen the word ‘zesty’ used to describe 80’s pop (accurate in some cases I suppose).
As I couldn’t remember many of the Daylist playlists I’ve had, I decided to go on a bit of a Reddit dive and found a thread discussing it. Some of my personal favorites are ‘Folklore soul crushing afternoon’, ’Paranormal dark cabaret afternoon’ and ‘Sample boom bap Thursday afternoon’. Those are three very different afternoons happening there.
When I started to discuss Daylist playlist titles with the team here at TechRadar, one person said, and I quote, ‘I feel personally victimized by the Daylist titles Spotify is giving me’. Based on some of the titles I’ve seen and had myself, it’s easy to see why. But, at the same time, I find the absurdity of these titles fantastic. It’s honestly nice to see Spotify having a little fun, whilst still catering to fans of its personalization algorithm, myself included.
If you’re a Spotify user, I encourage you to check out the Daylist and give yourself a laugh. The best part about the Daylist is it constantly changes, so who knows what titles you’ll get throughout the day. Oh yeah, and I guess you could check out the music as well while you’re at it.
