Curated Playlist Are The New Mixed Tape

Individual curated playlists are everywhere. We make them for specific moods, working out, running, meditation, and the list goes on and on.

Some of them consist of ambiances which can remind us of certain nostalgia within our lives. Some of these examples are the 'Twilight' obsession phase, musicals, 2000s Rap, and the emo phase we all know we had. (2008 was a pivotal year).

These playlists can be discovered everywhere from Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, and our iPod. There seems to be a need to control what we hear. Something that was unheard-of about ten to fifteen years ago when the radio was our only input.

Apart from CDs and cassettes, radio was our avenue to find new music and artists. It has evolved the past couple of years from its talk shows, commercials, and it’s stations.

Radio has remained steady as a listening platform, yet it has become stagnate of late when compared to our personal playlists. Friends within groups will share their Spotify and suggest their favorites.

College students will debate who has the best party mix for their house parties. People share their playlists from Apple Music and their favorite artists. And then there's YouTube which has a plethora of compilations and playlists.

Music is easily accessible now beyond the airwaves of radio. We have control of what we listen to.

Our personal playlists can be catered to what we want specifically. Radio, although it has specific stations for music genres, will never be that specific. People have a wide berth of music tastes which can switch in a blink of an eye.

One moment we may want Mariah Carey and then the next we will want Carrie Underwood. We will be listening to pop punk and then switch to indie folk.

Music preferences vary upon the mood. And nothing kills a mood quicker than a loud advertisement. Commercials and advertisement will always get in the way of the mood..

Or worse, that song we hate will play next and be on every station we search through. Although we have a control of what station we may listen to, there's something off-putting about spending ten minutes searching through music stations waiting for that right track.

Or trying to escape from that one song. It's like skipping through every song on your shuffle until you get to that one. We are entering a phase to have what we want now.

A perfect example would be the expansion of video platforms. New video platform services have overwhelmed television and replaced it.

Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and more platforms make it easier for us to control what we take in. We create our own lists of our favorite movies, TV shows, and more to our want.

The accessibility is remarkable for those who grew up with Hitclips and CDs. We have become more eclectic and broad within our tastes.

Radio is catered toward the public as a whole, not to the individual. People will never be satisfied with what they hear because something will always be missed or overplayed.

The creation of our own soundtracks or albums isn't new. Spotify and Apple Music have replaced the old way of creating playlists.

Before them and AccuRadio, we had mixed CDs and mixed tapes. It was considered a special treat to make your own or to gift it to someone.

Curated playlists have become the new mixed tape. There has always been the interest to make our own soundtracks for our lives that would invoke particular emotions.

Will radio be replaced by this new era of mixed tapes? Only time will tell. We are particular, and we know what we want.

Curated playlists offer that for us. We can never have enough. As stated before there's playlists that adhere to our nostalgia with movies or books or music phases.

These 'personal albums' can help boost morale when going for a long run or lifting weights at the gym. Writers and artists will have a list of songs they use for inspiration.

Dancers have those five needed songs to limber up and prepare for practice. There's playlists we all have for taking long car rides on hot summer days at the edge of sunset.

The mood must be set, the same as the party must go on with hyped music for four hours straight without interruption. Even now, as I have written this article, I listened to my own curated playlists. There's just something about creating your own soundtrack.