Spotify Mix for Mac

I promise this isn’t just an excuse to repost yet another of my playlists (although it is a fairly good one). I was just wondering whether any other AWers have had a tinker with Spotify’s new Mix feature. If you don’t know it, or are sceptical, listen to what it’s done to my Songs That Sound a Bit Like Fleetwood Mac playlist (below).

Basically, if you press Mix on mobile in Premium, it effects rudimentary crossfades between all the songs. As well as occasionally taking out half of the song – and who wants that? – it also sometimes puts vile David Guetta-style phasing effects over the joins.

But those are just the downsides. You can go in and customise the crossfades so they land just where you want them, and you can remove the dodgy effects (or add new ones, like cutting tracks in). Now here’s the really clever bit; if you go to Edit, scroll down and press Sort, Spotify will re-order your playlist so that songs with a similar BPM and in the same key fall together.

On the plus side, all this clever tech can make your playlists seamless (great for dinner parties or falling asleep, preferably not at the same time). On the negative, your playlists can take on an “AI slop” dimension, sounding unerringly slick, computer-generated and less personal. Remember, though, you can still re-order the tracks to have a rousing start and whimsical end, if that’s your bag. Or remove all the mixes and revert to your original playlist.

The possibilities are endless. Obviously it makes dance music or running playlists flow better; but I’ve also used it to mix my bonkers dream festival playlist so it sounds like one 31 hour-long gig; you could conceivably fashion your own concept album.

I think I like it. Not all playlists need this treatment, but some definitely benefit. And as another way of keeping people engaged with Spotify it’s job done. I believe there’s a similar feature on Apple Music and I know that Spotify is a record company stitch-up that rips off smaller artists at the expense of keeping those who don’t need the money onboard, but I don’t want us to prosecute that argument here. I just want to hear what you think of the Mix facility – perhaps while listening and reflecting on the following…

1, Fleetwood Mac are unquestionably the biggest influence on indie pop at this time. Or at least the type of floaty, female-fronted indie pop that sits somewhere between 6Music and Radio 2.
2. Heroes are hard to find: with the possible exceptions of CMAT and Haim, none of these artists will ever sell a tenth as much as Fleetwood Mac, who are also still their competitors in the fields of streams and vinyl sales – which is a bit of shame, really.
3. While it’s relative easy to ape Bob Welch-era Mac (hello Midlake, Local Natives), and the smooth Rumours/Tango sound (Miley Cyrus, almost everyone else), hardly anyone tries to emulate Lindsey Buckingham’s insistent guitar, sparse productions, and impassioned yowl (well done Josh Rouse and Clean Cut Kid for having a go).
4. Beautiful but coolly reserved ballads (Songbird, Spare Me a Little of Your Love, Come a Little Bit Closer) are now well out of fashion. Or maybe no one can make them like Christine McVie did.
5. Among the young people, Mick Fleetwood’s laconic drum style seems to have been replaced wholesale by syndrums (that is what they’re called, isn’t it?).
6. The Ting Tings have been on quite the journey.

UPDATE: The fucking thing doesn’t seem to have carried over on to the embedded version on this post so that was a waste of time. Maybe just read the Fleetwood Mac bits. Or, if you save it, perhaps you’ll get the mixed version then.

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