Welcome to the Record Store
Maybe Substack is the ideal platform for sharing music.
I’ve always loved projects, with timelines and rules and form. I find that the guidelines encourage creativity and cohesive, thorough work. Keeping logs—daily planners, journals, Goodreads, Letterboxd, a recipe book—is intrinsic to my process of self-reflection. Sometimes, these records are worth sharing.
I started making playlists in 2015, when I was still in high school. My music taste has changed a bit, but the rules have not:
ten songs;
ordered (transitions matter);
no repeated artists (I make exceptions for producers and writers, but never features);
title from the lyrics of the first track, but not that song’s title;
once a song is used in a playlist, I can’t use it again in another (live performance and remixes count as new songs, but rereleases or remastered versions do not);
each playlist gets a unique cover image and a number, to keep track of the years and years of music.
If you know me personally, you’ve probably received one of my playlists as a Spotify link, and if you follow me on Instagram, you’re barraged with them daily via my stories. I only recently started sharing my playlists; more than just a collection of what I’m listening to, each one is a snapshot of a feeling, a specific moment in my life. They felt personal, oversharing even, like I was exposing pages of a diary.
But music has different meanings for everyone. There are some tracks that to me are horrifically sad, that evoke imagery of broken promises and resigned lovers, which appear on my friends’ rotation of hopeful, optimistic songs (or even playlists they make for their partners). While sharing my playlists allows them to shed my personal associations, the sentiments remain. I like to think that the form provides a perfect snapshot of an emotion or mood, encapsulated in a tight thirty or forty minutes. I make them to catalog new music, speak to a particular vibe, or as a sort of love letter to a specific song.
Although I can’t promise a definitive structure to my newsletter, each issue will contain at least one playlist and commentary to go with it. I’m not sure yet if I should dip into my archives of 532 playlists (and counting) to excavate the early years of my music taste, or simply move forward with new content. I could let my subscribers pick a number, any number, between one and my current playlist, and publish at random. I could swap numbers for songs, and pull out the playlist where the song someone requested appears. I could include only my best work from the archive, although that method feels disingenuous and is perhaps a slight to my younger self.
Music curation is my first and longest love. I’m excited to write more about music, whether or not this newsletter gains traction. I hope that my playlists help you to discover or rediscover songs you love.
Hi again Amaya: I'm continuing to explore your playlists, and respect especially the wide and deep taste in music. They're not just playlists, they are Conscious Playlists. I am planning to use some of your rules for a final assignment for for this semester's Writing About Music: Rock, Rap, Pop class at St. John's University, where my students have evolved/devolved into obtaining music from playlists and playlists only. They need a more rigorous sensibility than "Working Out" "Chilling" "Waking Up" as the motivators for the music. I hope to continue the discussions about this, Topsters, and the other stuff you and I have started.
Hey. I write fiction and usually have a soundtrack when I write novels like when I'm inspired by different books, and when I want to get into an action scene, I listen to "Back in Black" by ACDC and it unlocks that sense of fun. When I want to be solemn I listen to Phillip Glass. But I love all forms of music. So sometimes it just depends on mood. And I love that you do have playlists. I have always strangely catalogued music but never really talked about it. So, I love that you're doing that. Keep up the good work.