How do you organise your music playlists?

I've just got a general playlist, sad stuff, gym, and ERM. 95% of stuff gets dumped straight into the general one

Vibe, and purpose. I have a gym playlist full of metal, 90's rap, and some bebop. I also have a playlist for rock, another for metal, a classical playlist, a medievalish playlist (think Danheim, Heilung, The HU, etc), and another for just jazz. I also have playlists for the decades spanning from the 50's to the 90's. Ended up doing playlists for whenever I'm feeling really good, and for whenever I'm down in the dumps, just in case.

The decades playlists really help with being handed the aux. Most people don't do well going from Toto or Green Day to Messhuggah and Opeth, so, dividing a genre by decade is good. I know my grandma will not vibe with Polyphia, so I play her some latin music, classical, or jazz, and she's fine with it.

This leads to many, many playlists, and there's a lot of overlap, but I don't really mind as long as I can make sure I have a playlist for any mood I might find myself in.

I make playlists by what songs i was feeling each year. This way I can go back and reminisce and reflect on what I was going through.

Some lists repeat the same songs but are generally uniquely. For example, Radiohead’s Creep is on many of my lists.

I make all my playlists by hand. I have three types:

• Mixes that I've made, either as gifts or for myself; where the order is carefully chosen so one song leads into another pleadingly, where no one artist dominates the tracklist, usually with a specific mood or theme, like "cleaning" or "summer" or "breakup". These kind of playlists are additive and creative; I start with an empty playlist then add and rearrange tracks until I'm happy.
• "Best of" playlists that are every song I like of a genre or artist or local scene or year or music label. These are usually in release order, grouped by album; or sometimes in descending order of how much I like them (but still grouped by album). These kind of playlists are subtractive and reactive; I dump large swathes of the library in and then remove whatever I don't like enough until only the cream is left.
• Hemerographs, which is a word I made up to describe playlists where I'm picking songs one at a time and adding them to the queue, but I'm saving the whole queue to listen to again later to recreate the vibe of that day / party / activity. It's additive like the mixes but more flow-of-consciousness and reactive; and also includes inputs from other people, since I'm usually making them on the fly in a social situation.

I download my music and order it by Artists>Album>Song, basically without exception. Occasionally annoying when a song has multiple authors, because people don't always write the metadata the same way and it fucks with my music player, but that's besides the point.

When I make playlist, I just take a whole album, filter out a few songs if need be and shove it into a given playlist, sometimes I can do that with an entire artist, but it's not always that easy.

Another issue with my approach is the odd single song from a random artist that's really good, but everything else they ever made makes me fall asleep, that's a really annoying one... Might start making my own fake albums.

I don't. I only have a Liked Songs on Spotify. I like the randomness of it all.

Only 3...

• Albums -> Full albums
• Recopilations -> Compilation albums
• Random -> Songs

(This is for native storage but I'm bored and want to contribute)

I do the genre thing. I'll simplify them first. Like I have-
1 big one for Ska.
1 for first wave ska.
1 for second wave.
1 for 3rd.
No reggae, thats 1st wave. Same with rocksteady, dub, dance hall, etc.
Metal is all metal. No crossover or Nü.
I do separate Punk and Skate Punk though, the latter being the old Thrasher Mag Skate Rock tapes.
Rock is a mess but everything from AcDc to Pusa. Hip-hop is anything that even could be considered rap.
EDM is the same.

Just super broad strokes. Then a playlist is either a genre or two or the entire catalog of a few bands. Occasionally, if I get super motivated, I'll do a playlist with albums, but rarely any more specific than that unless I need something particular- Like one for running, or a game session.

Outside of work I really only listen to one band. So I have one playlist that is their entire discography, one that is their singles (not released on albums), and one of their instrumentals. Those are all ordered chronologically.

At work I have a play list of a bunch of bands I like but have clean vocals (as opposed to growls). That one is grouped by when I heard the song and added the album to the play list.

I don't really do playlists for day to day. I pick an album and put it on. My music locally is organized into folders by group/album. I mostly use Bandcamp for streaming, where it's mostly album oriented.

If I want to make a mix, where it usually have some sort of theme or coherence instead of just being "these are songs I like", I stick it in Spotify if I want to share it.

I tend to be more depth first than some people. I find a band I like, and check out their stuff for a while. I don't do the like "grab 3000 songs at once" mode. That sounds kind of impersonal to me, but if it works for other people it's not my business.

Most of my playlists are actually by artist. Silly as it sounds I will put whole albums by the same artist in release order into new playlists by their name so I can just ask Siri to “play playlist

<artist name>

If I want a mix of stuff I like, I don’t turn to playlists anymore and instead I just ask Siri to “play some music” because the “just for you” radio is so good that I get tons of hits and top songs for my own taste as well as discover tons of new to me music that gets sprinkled in that the algorithm finds for me.

If the “play some music” stuff ends up not what I want to hear right then, I’ll just make the same request again or “play some different music” and it will switch to other music it knows I like. This is helpful when one request sends me down electronic path when I want more alt rock, etc.

I have a few playlists that are accompaniments to particular stories/pieces of media. Basically playlists with a narrative they follow. Those are somewhat easy to make, because then I just add any song that makes me think of the story and then I sort the songs into chronological order of which part of the narrative I feel they apply to. Then I have a playlist for political music, so I guess that'd be a playlist by topic.

Normally when I listen to music on Spotify I just shuffle my liked songs though.

Shuffle!

I just katamari all of my music into one big obnoxiously large playlist. If I want to hear music of a specific type, that's what albums are for.

Music I DJ with I mostly play the same genre of music so I have a few playlists for stuff that is outside of my normal genre.

Then within the stuff I usually play I'll have smart playlists for each key (using the Camelot system so 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B etc)

I have a playlist for each month that has everything I have imported for that month of the year.

Some smart playlists to filter out a specific BPM or BPM range.

Playlists containing all the releases I have from specific labels in case I want to do a label only mix.

A playlist containing all the acapellas I have (I don't use a massive amount) so they are all in the same place to throw over the top of some other stuff if the feeling takes me.

Then I also have some playlists that I will create off the cuff throwing in selected artists that I might want to play at a particular time to capture a certain feel or vibe, then usually they stick around and I come back to them occasionally.

A preparation playlist which is a temp playlist where I'll throw random stuff I want to play that day maybe. Like for example I might have like this months additions and marchs additions to my library so I'll just throw both those playlists in the one preparation playlist to play from so they are all in one list.

My music is organised in alphabetical folders within each folder I have a folder for each artist where all their releases go. If I start getting a lot of stuff from one label or end up buying a label discography I'll make a folder for that label and remove any releases that might be in the individual artists folder and place it in the label one instead.

Then I have one random folder that has a few genre specific folders inside where I collect music from artists that I might just have one or two tracks from so they don't deserve their own artists folder.

When I actually listen to music on Spotify I don't use playlists. I want to listen to albums in the way they were intended, front to back usually, so I'll usually just pick what ever album I want at the time. Occasionally if I want to delve into an unknown to me genre I might search out a playlist made by someone else to explore artists I don't know to give me an idea of what I might want to then pursue listening to further.

I have different folders for different genres, then subdivided in folders for year of release.

I spent way too much time organizing this way back so I stick with it. Problems with this are that genes can overlap (could be fixed with symlinks?) and the year is something you often have to look up (id3 often shows year of the album which is not always the year it came out).

On spotify you can create folders and i put my playlist in folders named after genres

Somewhat haphazardly. I typically listen to multiple genres in one session as well. What I usually do is if I hear a song I like that's not already in a playlist (or if I like it enough that I want it in multiple playlists), I'll chuck it in at the end of one. Then when I have downtime I play around with the song order so that I like how each song transitions to the next. I enjoy doing that as a way to unwind. This method isn't great if you're the type that needs everything organized all the time though since my playlists are usually in some level of a work in progress state! The names are very boring - P01, P02, etc. I also have some playlists that are more themed, for instance a road trip playlist with more upbeat songs. I'll usually play around with that one based on who is road tripping with me and what type of music I think they'll enjoy.

Genre --> Author --> Album --> Song.

I go by vibes or topics. Half the fun is coming up with a name.

For example, "Kodak Daydreams" is full of shoegaze and dreampop with like a bright but relaxing vibe

Playlists organized by a certain sound. But I have a liked songs playlist that I add lots of songs I like. Never big groups of song though only 1 or 2. When I want AAA variety of music I start the liked songs playlist from the most recent song down til the last. I never go to deep so it's like a core sample of my music tastes over time

Organization of them is highly dependent on what kind of player you're using, because they don't all have the same tools. Someone else would have to help you regarding services and software.

But I'm never shy about having a few dozen playlists. Nor about changing them on the fly. My digital collection is only about a terabyte currently, after a recent purge of duplicates and stuff I had saved for other people. But I've got something like thirty playlists on my pc, and about the same on my phone, dedicated phone music player, etc.

Since all my apps/programs default to alphabetical order for playlists, it's pretty easy to know where the list I want is. Just scroll and find it. The band specific lists, I'll always know where they are. Same with purpose lists like holidays. For vibes, I tend to go with the kind of mood I want to be in after listening for a bit.

Then again, I actually enjoy making playlists. I find it fun to make a list that flows, regardless of how many genres are on it.

Like I have a list called "rain" on my pc. Every song is about, or includes rain in the lyrics. The ones that use rain sound effects (like Garth Brooks, the Thunder Rolls) start the list. Garth's is the last song on that section, and Keith Whitley's I'm no stranger to the rain is after that. That transitions into I wish it would rain by the temptations, and so on. As the list gets played, there's a sense of progression like a rain storm can ebb and flow through rhythm and strength.

That's just fun for me. I get to listen to the music and really sink into it as I adjust the list for how the vibe shifts, the speed of it, etc. I've got lists that are similarly built that are themed on wolves & werewolves, good & evil, dreams, etc. It's almost a hobby sometimes, just not a super frequent one.

But, I also have a miscellaneous list on every device. No real organization of it, it's just a long list with stuff I know I'll enjoy listening to for extended times. If I want to change the order, I can switch the sorting via the player from artist, album, or whatever options are available, and it becomes a different playlist. The one on my main phone is something like 300 songs, and that's the smallest of them.

My "feel better" lists can range all across the board for genres, like you. They tend to start with sad songs as catharsis, stuff that I know will make me cry, or at least make me intensify the sadness so that I can't keep it locked down and controlled, which lets me feel the sorrow more fully. Then the songs gradually shift to things that help me contemplate and process. Then finishes with things that are uplifting for me, and/or make me laugh.

I don't know if any of that will be helpful at all, but there it is lol.

Fwiw, there's nothing wrong with getting help building a list. I do it for my wife fairly often, and for friends too.

The key to making that easy is naming things in the same way you'll be looking for the list

Outside of sorting them by artist, album and maybe something else depending on what it is, I kind of don't. If there is a song that I like, I'll download it and add it to the folder where I keep all of my music. Yes, this does cause a playlist that is massive and kind of sporadic but I already listen to artists like A-one and Sound Holic which already have at least some level of variety to the style of music they make.

Poorly.

Most of the music I listen to is OST, so I have a ton of those playlists where it's the full soundtrack, whether or not I like the specific song.

And then I have two other dedicated playlists. One is called "Eclectic series," which is composed of literally anything I find in the wild and like, and therefore is my largest playlist (besides one huge playlist surrounding a certain webcomic). The other is similar in inspiration, but is music that I liked and want to keep for reference but probably wouldn't want showing up in my shuffle queue. This tends to be any lyrical music that I find and like.

And then I just throw it all except the lyrical music into a third-party music shuffler.

The trade-offs with this model are that it takes a lot less effort to build up your playlist because everything goes into basically one place, and so your library and exposure grow fairly quickly, but at the cost of less control at playback, since everything is either grouped canonically or unsorted altogether.

Works for me since I don't listen to much lyrical music and can get into the dynamic flow and artistry of the music without the distraction of words, but it's probably not great for people who enjoy lyrics and poetry.

Edit: I should mention that I've been working on-and-off on a tool that automates and facilitates playback for god-lists and ant-lists alike for a while now. It's been a minute since I've touched it, but maybe I should get back to it.