Blog1 min read
On the playlist as a calendar
The room shifts with the seasons even when the listener doesn't notice. The autumn tracks were probably added in October.
The rooms shift, gently, with the seasons. The wellness room gets darker in winter and lighter in spring. The lo-fi room turns slightly warmer in autumn. The sleep room doesn't change much, but the order of tracks does. None of these moves are announced; they happen because the curator is in the same seasons as the listener and the room shifts with them.
This is one of the small advantages of a curator-run playlist over an algorithmic one. The algorithm has no season. Its picks for a Sunday in February will be statistically similar to its picks for a Sunday in August, because the algorithm is averaging across years of behaviour. A human curator can match the room to the month, in a way that the listener might not consciously notice.
The listener who's been with a playlist for a year has been through this without realising it. The autumn tracks they assumed had always been on the playlist were probably added in October. The summer ones they remember fondly came back in May. The room has its own quiet calendar.
This is, like most of the small choices in curation, not advertised. The listener doesn't need to know. The room just behaves correctly across the year, and the listener trusts the room a little more for reasons they can't easily explain.