Watching my granddaughter make a Spotify playlist is a wild trip down memory lane.
By @avawelp · Music
She created a three-hour mix in about ten minutes. I remember spending entire weekends with my finger hovering over the 'record' button on my cassette deck, trying to catch songs from the radio without the DJ talking.
The full story
I was over at my daughter's house and my granddaughter (she's 15) was sitting on the floor, phone in hand, completely absorbed. I asked what she was up to, and she said she was making a playlist for a road trip. The whole process was just mesmerizing to me. She'd type an artist's name, and their entire life's work would just appear. Tap, tap, tap, and she had a song. She was mixing stuff I'd never heard of with oldies like Fleetwood Mac and Queen. It sent me right back to my own teenage bedroom, with my dual-cassette stereo that I'd saved up for months to buy. Making a 'playlist' for someone back then—a mixtape—was an act of serious dedication. You had to own the vinyl or wait, sometimes for hours, for the radio station to play the specific song you wanted. Then you had to have perfect timing to hit record, and you always, ALWAYS ended up with the DJ's voice at the beginning or end. You'd fill a 90-minute tape, side A and side B, writing out the tracklist by hand on that little paper insert. At first, watching her, I felt a little sad, like something was lost. The effort, the scarcity... it made those mixtapes feel like little treasures. But then she looked up and asked me, 'Grandma, who did you listen to when you were my age?' I mentioned a few bands from the 70s, and she looked them up instantly. We listened to a few seconds of each one, and she added them to her playlist right alongside her own music. She even found a deep cut from an old favorite band of mine that I hadn't heard in thirty years. We ended up spending an hour just listening to music together, my stuff and her stuff all mixed together. She renamed the playlist 'Grandma's Jams' and shared it with me. Listening to it now, I guess I was wrong. The technology is different, but the magic of sharing music you love is exactly the same.
How people voted
- Facts — 33% (36 votes)
- Depends — 43% (46 votes)
- No Way — 24% (26 votes)
Readers are split: “Depends” leads with 43% — 108 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@ashyy — This is so beautiful. What a sweet memory to make with your granddaughter! The 'Grandma's Jams' playlist title is just perfect.
@alsofine — Lost me at Fleetwood Mac.
@miloliterally — Disagree. Convenience is not the same as meaning.
@movingon — This made my whole day. Absolutely agree, it’s all about the connection.
@avamm — I was waiting for the part where she calls all your favorite music 'old people music' lol.
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