Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash
Anyone who’s been to one of my parties knows I am a playlist fiend. I have lists for dancing, for working, for D&D sessions, and of course, for characters. As both an author and a fan, meticulously piecing together that perfect playlist for my favorite characters is an act of love, and one I can share with thousands thanks to Spotify and YouTube. But anyone can throw a couple songs together and call it a day. So let’s talk about what makes a good character playlist, and how you can hone the skill to become everyone’s go-to music dealer.
Two Types of Playlist
First things first, decide what kind of playlist you’re going for. Song Dumps are for collecting every and any song that fits the theme of your list. They’re the basis of all lists, but a permanent Song Dump will stay unorganized and ever growing. This chaotic arrangement is actually perfect if you’re going to be listening to the list several times in a small period of time, especially if it’ll be shuffled. Workout playlists are an excellent example – if you don’t shuffle your workout playlist, you’re going to get sick of it fast. So, having a concrete order is a waste of time and energy.
Curated Lists, on the contrary, often tell a story or direct energy and mood in a specific arc. They grow out of the Song Dump stage and become a specially organized list that is never meant to be shuffled. My party playlists are Curated Lists, because I structure them to build up to a peak energy, hold it, and then slowly settle down as the evening wears out. The highest energy and most requested songs come in the middle of the night, before any early leavers have grabbed their coats and before the dancing queens have burnt themselves out. Sing-alongs come later, when everyone has loosened up and is ready to belt out Bohemian Rhapsody without feeling self-conscious. And of course, I plot some lower tempo songs throughout the high energy stage to give us all time to grab a drink and rest our dancing shoes.
Both methods make for good character playlists. It all comes down to how you want to use your list. If you’re making something to play in the background while you write a character, draw them, or get into cosplay, you’ll want a Song Dump you can shuffle and replay as often as you like. But if you’re making a playlist to tell their story or explore a specific POV scenario, a Curated List will serve you best.
Regardless of which you choose, all playlists begin as Song Dumps, so I’ll start out with broad advice on putting a Song Dump together. Later on we’ll go into the nitty gritty of flow and organization specific to Curated Lists.
Mood and Genre
In order to add songs to your list, you need to know what the theme of the list is. Even if it’s a general character playlist, their personality and story will affect what should and shouldn’t be added. A Spongebob playlist is going to have very different songs than a Bruno Madrigal list, and neither will match an Iron Man playlist.
Let’s take an example from the two main characters of my upcoming series, The Sallow Witch Saga. Eglantine is a young witch coming to realize the people who raised her may not have had as pure intentions as she thought. She’s always been willful and a little mischievous, squirming through loopholes and finding ways to resist unfair authority. When I sat down to make a character playlist for her, I knew it had to be youthful and rebellious, with an undertone of her more vulnerable insecurities. That means a lot of rock, pop punk, and female-led alternative bands. But her story is also very rooted in the woods and nature, so punky folk music gets added to the mix, too. Anything that makes me feel like fighting the patriarchy with ancient curses or my teeth is a good fit for Eglantine’s playlist.
By contrast, my secondary protagonist, Wren, is an adult character learning how to step outside their comfort zone and work with or around childhood trauma, rather than hide from it. Where Eglantine is naive and feisty, Wren is anxious and wise. Therefore, Wren’s playlist needs to invoke the dark mystery and lurking danger of fairy-tale forests, with a running throughline of tragedy due to the experiences they’ve lived through. When I put together their list, I went heavy on the folk music, ballads, and blues, with a dose of early 2000’s emo where appropriate. I needed Wren’s playlist to make my heart ache, while also lulling me into a melancholic peace, and these were the genres to do it.
If you’re compiling a list to tell a specific story, such as a POV video or a playlist dedicated to a certain moment of a character’s story, hone in on the emotions of that specific scene. Let’s take an example from one of my favorite characters in Genshin Impact: Kaeya. (Spoiler Alert!)
At a certain point in Kaeya’s backstory, a life altering fight broke out between him and his adopted brother. Kaeya, in a moment of severe grief, chose to confess a damning secret he’d been keeping from his adopted brother/best friend their entire lives. This scene ruined their relationship and changed the course of both their lives. So, if I were to sit down and make a playlist centered around that fight, I would want it to hurt. Emo and punk songs about liars and broken trust, bitter alternative songs looking back on relationships lost, and self-loathing songs about terrible deeds done and the feeling of distance from society are all crucial to building the list and telling that story.
Finding Artists
Any playlist you make has to appeal to you, of course. No doubt you’ve noticed the theme of alternative, punk, folk, and emo music in all three of my examples. These are the genres I gravitate most to in my casual listening. When I need a song with a specific feel, I already know how to navigate that genre and how to find it. Whereas if I tried to make a country playlist, I would be at an utter loss, because I hate most country music. And even if I found what I needed, I wouldn’t enjoy the list once it was done.
When you work within the music you know, you’ll likely already know of a few artists who write a lot of songs that fit your theme. For Eglantine, I turned to Halsey, Paramore, and The Crane Wives to build my base, because I already knew their music and knew what songs were perfect fits for her story. For Wren, I went heavy on the Hozier and Lord Huron because I knew they had a lot of dark woods folk energy and plenty of melancholy to boot. For a playlist dedicated to Kaeya’s fight, I’d turn to Daughter and Taking Back Sunday for their ache and bitter honesty.
If you’re collecting songs on Spotify, starting a Song Dump with a few artists will teach the algorithm what energy you’re going for. Then you can skim the recommended songs under the playlist for more music that fits the tone of your playlist. This is how I discover new songs and bands that perfectly align with the list I’m making, without having to waste time researching bands and genres. I build a base and get the algorithm to work for me.
Popular Songs
Another way to flesh the base of your list is to look at what’s playing around you. If you’re making a character playlist to share with others, this is also a great way to ensure your list appeals to the crowd. If I didn’t put Take On Me on my party playlists, my friends might revolt. Meanwhile characters from established fandoms often have a song everyone associates with them, such as Rasputin for Childe from Genshin Impact, or Boss Bitch for Sylvain from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
There’s also a certain headspace one gets into when they’ve been thinking about a character for a while. Suddenly every song you hear on the radio suits that character, even if it’s only because of one line. By adding those songs to your list, you’re also creating a time capsule you can look back on one day as a snapshot of this time period. It’s up to you if you want your list to be timeless or very rooted in the present day, of course, but personally I’m pro-capsule.
You can twist this on its head if your character’s story takes place in an era of our real world’s history. A ‘POV: You’re Hanging Out with the Marauders' style playlist can be brought to life with 70’s classics. Meanwhile, anyone looking for a Pride and Prejudice comfort playlist is going to expect nothing less than classical music.
Covers & Covers
There are two kinds of covers to bear in mind when playlist making: the image(s) you’ll use when displaying the list, and when to use song covers instead of the originals.
For Spotify playlists, the only cover you’ll need is a square image to represent your character or the POV you’re portraying. Character avatars work perfectly for this if the character is from a video game. Otherwise, you may want to crop a screenshot or find a suitable stock image to represent the character/POV. I like to use Unsplash for royalty free images. Location shots and nature shots I find are best for capturing the energy and emotion of a character or a story you want the list to tell. Eglantine has an accident with ice magic early in her series, for example, so her playlist’s cover is a frosted over flower.
When it comes to YouTube playlists, using the actual playlist function doesn’t allow you to set an image cover. But if you’re compiling several songs into a single video, you’re free to edit the thumbnail and set any image or video you like to play throughout the video’s runtime. There are two popular routes for YouTube playlist covers; either a square image of the character in the center of a flat color background eye-dropped from their picture, or an atmospheric shot to represent the mood or POV of the list. Some like to take three or four shots and transition into them throughout the video, marking different chapters.
As for song covers, Spotify is more limited than YouTube. YouTube is full of covers that can be added to a playlist or downloaded via the singer’s links, but on Spotify you’ll only really see big name covers, such as Punk Goes Pop albums, or major YouTube cover artists like NateWantsToBattle. Smaller and lesser known covers are harder to find.
Working within your medium’s limits, the decision to add a cover rather than the original comes down to a few factors. Most importantly is the mood and tone of the cover. While some covers stay true to the original, many change the tone dramatically. Even acoustic covers done by the original band can completely alter your understanding of a song. Aha’s Take On Me is an upbeat bop when you hear the original, but the acoustic version is heart-wrenching enough to be used in The Last of Us 2 and Deadpool 2’s most emotional scene. Subverting the expectations of a song can make the emotional beats hit harder, or even highlight the personality of your character.
It can also be a question of variance. For Eglantine’s playlist, I chose to use Joan Jett’s cover of You Don’t Own Me rather than the original because the rougher voice felt more true to her fight. But I chose to use Avril Lavigne’s cover of Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation, because I’ve heard the original in so many movies and montage scenes that I knew I’d get sick of it. Avril Lavigne brings a young and fresh energy to the song and thus the playlist.
You may also realize that a song you know well has been a cover this whole time. I’d only ever heard The Foo Fighters’ Everlong and All Time Low’s Jasey Rae in their acoustic versions, and for a long time I didn’t realize they weren’t the originals. By the time I realized, the acoustic songs were so familiar to me that the originals still feel more like covers than the acoustic versions do. Similarly, Cascada’s Everytime We Touch isn’t a Cascada song at all. It’s a cover of a much gentler, less blood pumping ballad by Maggie Reilly.
Curating Order and Flow
By this point you should have everything you need to make a cohesive and enjoyable Song Dump. Now it’s time to take it to the next level.
Just as storytelling follows a form and structure, a good Curated List is made with intention. Every song has its place in the order for a reason, and each leads into the next. Think about an album you’ve listened to from cover to cover. Most likely it had a continuous theme carried out through the songs. Maybe notes in the first song came back in the third, or maybe a line was repeated in the opening and closing song. Or maybe there were short instrumental segments at the end of one song to link up with the intro of the next. You may not even notice these flow segments until you hear the song in isolation, such as on a streaming platform. But the blend between one song and the next is the magic that makes an album feel complete.
Obviously, as a playlist maker and not a composer, you can’t add music to a track. But you can use the tone and energy of your songs to help them flow into one another. Match like songs together and don’t dramatically shift directions without warning unless you have a good reason. Going from an emotional love ballad to high energy party bop makes the list feel jerky and random. But add a few transition songs in between that pick up the tempo, and suddenly it all feels purposeful and impactful.
Let’s take the Kaeya example. Say I’ve made a Song Dump of four songs: Slowdance on the Inside by Taking Back Sunday, Caves by Haux, Smother by Daughter, and The End by Silverstein. I’d start by listening to each one individually and getting a feel for the music itself – how the song opens and closes, what the tempo is, etc. I’d also look at the lyrics, both in what is written and in how they’re delivered. Slowdance on the Inside opens with a guitar build up to unhurried lyrics, which turn to shouting chants by the end of the song. Meanwhile Caves keeps its wispy echoing vocals consistent throughout, and starts and ends immediately before and after lyrics.
I then consider the story I’m telling. Kaeya experiences a moment of extreme grief and finally decides to tell his adopted brother the truth, which results in a massive fight to the near-death, the reason they can’t get along in the present day of the game. The lyrics of Caves discuss packing up and leaving home, while Smother is a song entirely about regret for horrible behavior. The End tells the story of a relationship that built up from adoration to attempted murder, and Slowdance is a song about broken people making things work even if they aren’t happy about it. From this, I know I want The End to, ironically, come first in the list, while Slowdance should come later. But how to order Smother and Caves?
To work that out, I turn to look at the flow of the list. The version of The End I’m using is an extended version, with a drawn out background chant/confessional that fades into the background. So, any song with a slow or wispy entrance will blend in perfectly. Caves doesn’t have much of lead-in, but it is a slower paced song, with soft vocals that begin to echo in the chorus. The haunted energy it brings flows perfectly off the faded chant of loss and dying violins that ends The End.
Now I have a clearer picture of my playlist’s story. Kaeya comes to live with his adopted family, all while harboring a deadly secret. He meets his adopted brother and rapidly grows close, but deep down he knows that secret would make everyone around him turn away. So he swallows it down until it festers into a bitterness at his situation, which he’s helpless to change. Ultimately, he projects it on the people around him instead, and in a moment of duress, that pain explodes out of him and he confesses, triggering the battle. He manages to escape with his life, but the life he lived before is left in ruins and he must leave, dragging regrets with him.
What naturally has to come next, then, is a song exploring that regret – ie, Smother. The slow, sad, and lonely song perfectly captures Kaeya in this moment of the story my playlist is telling. Slowdance on the Inside now feels out of place, or more suiting to Kaeya’s life in the game’s present day. But I can actually still use it. I’ll intentionally forgo flow and slot Slowdance after Smother, knowing that the quick strumming opening of Slowdance feels like a jump after Smother’s slow ending. I’ll treat it as an actual jump – we hop forward into the future to get a peak at the aftershocks of that fight, still going even years later. The boys are still fighting, and ending the entire playlist with Slowdance’s final chant, “Tonight won’t make a difference,” tells us they will be for quite some time to come.
There you have it! Every step I take when crafting a strong and effective playlist. If you’re interested, here are the Song Dump playlists for my series’ main characters, Eglantine and Wren.
I’m an avid believer that anything can be used as a storytelling device. Next blog, I’ll talk about how you can use mood boards to tell a story, too! See you then!
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