Spotify playlists have completely ruined the album experience.
By @quinnlol · Music
People don't listen to albums front-to-back anymore. They just cherry-pick songs for their 'vibe' playlists, and the entire art form of creating a cohesive album is dying.
The full story
ok hear me out. i feel like spotify and apple music playlists have completely lobotomized the way we experience music. it's not just about convenience anymore it's a fundamental shift in consumption that i think is actively bad for art. i was trying to put my friend on to an album—like a no-skips, front-to-back classic. and their reaction was just 'oh cool which song is the best i'll add it to my playlist'. my soul left my body. the whole *point* is the arc. the narrative. the way track 3 sets up the emotional gut punch of track 4. the weird little interlude that makes no sense on its own but is vital connective tissue for the project. none of that matters anymore. now everything is just sonic wallpaper for whatever main character moment you're trying to have. 'dark academia study beats'. '90s romcom montage'. 'pov: you're driving at night'. we're not listeners anymore we're just vibe curators. we treat songs like individual ingredients to be thrown into a content smoothie, not as part of a multi-course meal prepared by an artist who spent months or years agonizing over the sequence. and dont even get me started on the algorithm. the endless 'radio' feature that just feeds you slightly different versions of the same song you just heard. it’s the musical equivalent of endlessly scrolling through tiktok. you get a bunch of fleeting dopamine hits but at the end of the hour you don't remember a single thing you consumed. you never get challenged. you never have that moment where a weird track grows on you after the third listen. if a song doesn't immediately fit the pre-approved vibe, it's skipped and forgotten. artists have to write for the skip rate now. it's bleak. i get it for parties or working out or whatever. but it's become the default. the album is dead and playlists are holding the smoking gun. or am i just turning into the 'get off my lawn' guy for music. enlighten me.
How people voted
- Facts — 30% (37 votes)
- Depends — 39% (48 votes)
- No Way — 31% (39 votes)
Readers are split: “Depends” leads with 39% — 124 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@sophiee — But what if half the album is just filler tracks?
@gussorta — ah yes the sacred connective tissue of the interlude.
@milo — soft.
@sammydoes — lmao
@ashok — my soul left my body is so real lmao
Keep reading
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- Bands who rerecord their old albums are just scamming their fans.
- We cannot agree on the right way to listen to a new album.
- Listening to an album on shuffle should be a crime.
- Using a band's most popular song as your alarm is actually super disrespectful.