Practices with Their Own Playlists

Recently, on the podcast Sound Opinions, I heard a news report about recent research into music listening practices that was funded by (and used streaming data from) Spotify. (You can hear it here at the front end of the podcast.) The hosts, Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot, interview Ajay Kalia of Spotify. The interesting findings (less pop music listening as people age, yet choosing to listen to music from one’s adolescence all the way through later adult stages of life) lead Kalia to surmise that “music is really tied to people’s identity in way that is not true of other forms of media.”
But what happens when, at least in the USA, so much music is acccessible to so many so often? New practices involving music! Mr. Kalia mentions that Spotify is seeing the generation of playlists matched to everyday practices, such as playlists for “running, sipping coffee, or playing with kids.” What do people listen to as part of these practices? “Anything” that “is a good fit for that mood.”
When assigning music to an everyday practice, Spotify users tend not to respect album boundaries or genre rules. Some other logic is at work in crafting a playlist for a practice.
This is interesting food for thought about a way of finding out more about what practices “mean.” Do you make a playlist for certain practices? Do you think your playlists might help open up what the practice is “about” and might be of theological value?
Tom Beaudoin, Fordham University