Play List
It’s been a while since I’ve made a playlist. Maybe because (like so many things) I thought I had to do it all the time (for this newsletter) and so I took it really seriously.
Guess what? When I take something too seriously I feel like I have to do it right (perfect) and then it’s not fun and I don’t do it.
I am so good at making almost anything too serious. So here’s your reminder to play.
Last night we had an impromptu dance party to Gloria by Laura Branigan. That turned into a viewing of (and dance party to) the scene from Somebody Somewhere when Sam sings Gloria in the most joyful scene ever.
So! Put this on and play and bop. Maybe it will give you the zap you need to get through the day.
Go out there and have a day!
🎤vanessa
P.S I know Spotify is bad. We ended our paid subs, but I don’t know exactly what to do to replace music.
I tried out importing my playlists into Deezer and Tidal. Tidal uses a service that only lets you import 500 songs (not playlists, but songs within playlists) for free, and I used that up with just my Liked Songs playlist and didn't get to the real ones. Deezer lets you import everything for free, even other people's playlists, so I signed up for a plan with Deezer. Both only let you play the first 30 seconds of a track on their free plan, which sucks.
Deezer apparently started in France, and they're the number 2 independent platform globally, so I'm hoping that equates to long-term stability (and not funding the American political machine)
I've been listening to the Flow: Focus playlist on Deezer (a playlist featured in the list of Flow playlists on their main page) for about an hour. I am so far quite happy with it. The music quality sounds a little bit better, but I'm not a great judge of that. The thing I'm really liking is that I'm hearing artists and tracks I never heard on Spotify. I'm sure they existed on Spotify, but they lean so heavily on their algorithm that no matter what pre-generated playlist I chose, they always "customized" it for me, so I heard the same music all the time. It had me pick 10 artists when I logged in, and I ingested all my playlists, so I'm pretty sure it has a rough idea of what I like, but the variety is spectacular.
I'm also trying to defect from Spotify!! First I thought about Tidal because I read in a book that it was artist-owned, and then later I read in the book that the artist is billionaire Jay Z, lol. Now I think Qobuz because a real musician friend of mine (and some others) recommended it. But I have yet to make the leap!