How to Create The Best Collaborative Playlist Experience

Make it flexible, minimize the burden and keep it fresh 🌲

For the last year my sister and I have had a collaborative playlist together. This wasn’t my first collab and it won’t be my last. I’ve tried different types of shared playlists with friends and family before. They’ve usually consisted of two methods:

1. Two or more people adding a bunch of songs to a playlist once, and maybe for a few more days and then leaving it behind.
2. A “Song of the Day” playlist, where each person contributes a song every day to the playlist. This type of playlist applies a lot of pressure to discover new music all-the-time.

We piloted a new kind of shared playlist. We call it “Rotating 30.”

This new playlist fixed the problems with other traditional collaborative playlists including:

1. There’s no more pressure to add songs on a time table. No need to change songs daily.
2. It caps the number of songs that you add so that you’re not tempted to add all that whole cachet of new songs you discovered all at once.
3. It keeps it fresh by cycling out songs that you’ve lost interest in.
4. It’s active enough and fresh enough to keep you coming back.

This is how it works…

1. Create the playlist.
2. Each person adds 15 songs to the playlist.
3. Then, whenever they want, either person can exchange any number of their fifteen songs whenever they want.

Let me know if you try it out!

Here’s the list of songs in our current “Rotating 30” playlist one year in…

• “Fool” by Fitz and the Tantrums
• “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship
• “Someday Never Comes” by CCR
• “Hit My Itch” from Eurovision: Song Contest
• “Riverside” by James Spaite, Savs
• “I Will Always Be Yours” by Ben Rector
• “Get Down On It” by Kool & The Gang
• “Uptight” by Stevie Wonder
• “(I Don’t Know Why) But I Do by” by Clarence Henry
• “The Rockafeller Skank” by Fatboy Slim
• “Glycerine” by Bush
• “Alright” by Supergrass
• “Little Games” by The Colourist
• “You Might Think” by The Cars
• “exile” by Taylor Swift, Bon Iver
• “A Friend Like You” by Andy Grammer
• “This Town” by O.A.R.
• “Here And Now” by Kenny Chesney
• “Days I Will Remember” by Tyrone Wells
• “Long Train Runnin’” by The Doobie Brothers
• “Good Example” by R3HAB, Andy Grammer
• “Our World” by My Morning Jacket
• “Desecration Smile” by RHCP
• “You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid” by The Offspring
• “Savage Love” by Jawsh 685, Jason Derulo
• “Breaking Me” by Topic, A7S
• “Come & Go” by Juice WRLD, Marshmello
• “Yellow Lines” by Brendan James
• “Class of 2017 Mash-Up” by Anthem Lights
• “Yoga” by Janelle Monae, Jidenna

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