Insight: As we all deal with escalating inflation on a lot of things (houses, petrol, cars...), this current generation is also blessed with getting a lot of things for free and with ease - music, news, knowledge... Just something for us to think about.
Anyway, I am now in the midst of building another playlist to accompany my often long and boring commuting schedule. Unlike you cool folks, I don't own an iPod (or its ilk), and by some strange fate my Jap-spec 2005 Nissan Murano has a MiniDisc (anyone still using that?) player but its CD player does not support MP3. So I'm left with the task of actually picking a select number of songs (20 maximum) to fill an actual Audio CD.
I think part of the appeal of building a playlist or mixtape, at its primitive level, is the selection process. I know for a fact that I really do enjoy the challenge. It IS quite a challenge, because just like my very diverse taste in girls, cars and everything else, my musical inclination has so far veered from mellow ballads to heart-thumping trance tracks.
Some folks just pick all the latest downloaded track and burn it, but not me. I actually have a set strategy for building a playlist.
No. 1 - Identify the objective. Night out in town, road trip with friends, date night, road trip with colleagues, family trip, alone trip...all carry very different meaning when it comes to choosing your tracks.
No. 2 - Identify your current mood. Are you depressed, angry, excited, all of the above? It's stupid to play All By Myself if you just broke up, or maybe not? Sometimes all you want is a big tear-jerker to get over someone. Know thyself.
No. 3 - Check the amount of time you'll spent on the road. Is it one continuous playlist? Or are your bar-hopping across town? You can be a bit loose in the arrangement with the latter, but for long distance, you've got to really think hard.
No. 4 - Identify the route. Nothing screams amateur playlist more than one hip-hop track after another when you're in a kampung setting. Get in the mood folks.
No. 5 - Current hits or random selection? Personally, my current hits is 50% Fly FM and 50% Billboard derived so there's a lot of songs you don't hear often and quite a few that brings familiarity to the proceeding.
No. 6 - Identify who's in the car. I thoroughly enjoy sharing a Led Zeppelin/Beatles mixtape with a fellow fan, but I also enjoy exposing something new to the less musically-inclined. So do play that Daughtry track, but immediately follow it up with a bit Kings Of Leon.
No. 7 - Finally, have fun choosing your songs. 80% of the joy comes from listening to a LOT of tunes before choosing your 20. Along the way you'll remember the song you used as your ringtone back in Semester 1, UiTM, or the song that you used to "pujuk" your future wife, or the song that 5 other guys in the car sang along after a boring lecture (it was a Sheila on 7 track...:).
The whole process may seem like a bit of a chore. But if choosing music is a chore, then ladies and gentleman, I am your slave for life.
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