The highly popular music streaming service Spotify rose to further fame with the introduction of Spotify Wrapped. Now, there is a new phenomenon the platform has introduced that is sweeping over people’s lives: the Spotify daylist.
According to Spotify, the daylist is exactly how it sounds: “your day in a playlist.” It is a “one-of-a-kind playlist on Spotify [that] ebbs and flows with unique vibes, bringing together the niche music and microgenres you usually listen to during particular moments in the day or on specific days of the week. It updates frequently between sunup and sundown with a series of highly specific playlists made for every version of you.”
For those who adore Spotify Wrapped but find it difficult to wait a whole year to see their life in music, the daylist can be a helpful solution as it acts almost as a daily version of Spotify Wrapped. Along with giving the listener songs they’ve heard before, it also suggests new songs that still fit into the category. For example, someone who listens to Nico, Nick Drake and The Velvet Underground might get a David Bowie song put into their daylist.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Spotify daylist is the titles that are generated. Kelcie Schnitzler, a junior sociology and criminology major, said her current daylist was titled “happy indie hipster afternoon.”
The status of the daylist has quickly turned from just a playlist to a new personality test. The phrase “don’t tell me your astrology sign, I want you to go into Spotify and search for your daylist and post the title it gave you” has been trending on X and other social media platforms. Schnitzler feels her “happy indie hipster afternoon” daylist accurately represents her as a person.
“I dress like a hippie all the time,” she said.
Although she feels this particular daylist represents who she is as a person, she feels it less accurately represents the type of music she listens to.
“I’m more of an eighties rock kind of gal,” Schnitzler said, whereas her daylist featured music from X Ambassadors and Vance Joy. With Spotify getting the “vibes” right more than getting the music right, this further adds to the personality test aspect of the trend.
While Schnitzler said she rarely checks her daylist, first year vocal music education major Hannah Laubacker checks their daylist around every four to six hours, which is usually when Spotify updates the playlists.
“The times I don’t check it are typically on days I can predict the type of music will be similar to the playlist it just was, or I know I want to listen to a different genre and I already have a good playlist for it,” Laubacker said.
Their current daylist is titled “microcore hipster sunday afternoon.”
“I feel my daylists are pretty accurate to me as a person. On occasion, some suggestions are songs I typically skip or would never pick, but it does a great job otherwise of choosing music I could get into or already have in my ‘on repeat’ ,” Laubacker said. “I’ve noticed a lot of my ‘On Repeat’ is on my daylists. Specifically, I typically listen to hype music in early mornings and my daylist does that. When I listen to classical in the afternoon, the daylist adapts. It’s extremely accurate in terms of replicating the genres and times of day..”
The daylist continues to prove itself a new sensation as Spotify has reported searches for “daylist” have recently “spiked nearly 20,000%.”
