How I Craft the Perfect Playlist - Making a "Feelings"Based Playlist

What is a “feelings” based playlist?

Most often, I make my playlists based on a feeling, which is different than a mood in the sense that mood is a broader term that describes less intensity than feelings. When I craft a playlist based on a feeling, or a combination of feelings, it has a much more specific and acute process. For example, a mood-based playlist called “Sad Songs” would include songs with a more emotional connotation- a slower tempo and/or heartfelt lyrics. On the other hand, a playlist based on feeling sad would have songs that remind me of certain sad events in my life that evoke a much deeper feeling of sadness. Often these songs would also hold strong emotional implications naturally, but individually they would not necessarily be considered “sad.” The combination of all the songs in a “feelings” playlist, however, are what give the playlist it’s sad feeling- it is listening to the playlist as a whole that is the experience. These are my favorite playlists to make because they give a whole new experience to listening rather than just hearing for the purpose of identifying or learning about an artist, style, genre, or mood.

Steps to Crafting the Perfect “Feelings” Based Playlist (although every playlist is perfect if it’s perfect to you! This is just how I do it 😊)

Step 1: Decide what the goal of the playlist is.

Do I want to showcase a certain artist, style, genre, mood? There are a lot of different types of playlists that I haven’t even mentioned here. That’s the greatest thing about music- universal purpose and unlimited opportunities. The reason why you might listen to music is different depending on what you want to get out of what you’re listening to. Most of the time, when I am listening to a playlist, it is because I want to feel a certain way. The other types of playlists, rather than a “feelings” playlist are useful for broad listening that isn’t depth based. It’s easier to make a playlist like that for universal listening because most of the time, everybody can agree that a playlist called “Classic Rock” should only contain classic rock songs, or a playlist called “Steely Dan Deep Tracks” should only contain deep tracks from Steely Dan’s discography. But a playlist called “Feeling Sad” can be very different from one person to another, because feelings are such abstract ideas that vary from person to person by experience. A feelings-based playlist is a great way to get to know somebody on a deeper level, and that is why I like exchanging playlists with my friends. As Paul Simon once said in his song “Proof of Love”, “And when at times my words desert me, Music is the tongue I speak.” Listen to the songs and playlists people share with you- they can tell you a lot about a person if you know where to look.

For the playlist I’m making, I want it to have a melancholy yet calm feeling that reminds me of how I feel on a cool, rainy fall day.

Step 2: Choose artists or albums to pick from.

After choosing the feeling, I usually pick an artist or album that evokes that feeling in me. I have been listening to a lot of Leonard Cohen recently, and his 1967 album, The Songs of Leonard Cohen, has the perfect autumn sound with his artistic lyricism and warm acoustic instrumentals.

Other artists that immediately came to mind include:

Crosby Stills and Nash

Bob Dylan

The Doors

Paul Simon / Simon & Garfunkel

Step 3: Look for songs that fit the aesthetic.

After choosing the artists, I look for a mixture of their songs that I feel will fit well with the aesthetic. The sounds that I’m looking for are a lot of acoustics, warm electric guitar tone, deep and heavy voices with a little bit of rasp, and poetic lyrics. It is good to practice verbalizing the sounds you want in your playlists so that you stay focused on picking songs that fit nicely together.

Extra Tips

- Taking inspiration from other playlists can help if you are unsure how to get started or are not familiar with many musicians enough to know their sound well. For this one, I found a Spotify playlist of only classic acoustic songs that I picked out one or two songs from.

-If you are on another level in the art of playlist crafting (I say with dramatics in mind), arranging the order of the songs can also be effective for maintaining the feeling. I don’t often do that, as I usually listen to them on shuffle, but by doing so, you have much more control of the feeling. It turns your playlist into a real experience- like those albums that are meant to be listened to in order, from beginning to end, like The Wall by Pink Floyd.

-Keep playlist length in mind! I usually shoot for an hour to two hours for most of my playlists so that I can hear all the songs without it being too long or too short.

The playlist I made to go along with this post is called Fall Rain and Melancholy Classics and can be found on Spotify by clicking on the photo if you are interested in seeing what I came up with. The tracklist is listed below too. Enjoy!

Fall Rain and Melancholy Classics, a Playlist by Ella Schnoor