i don’t use spotify the way most people do. no discover weekly worship, no algorithmic surrender. i maintain a handful of playlists that each do a very specific thing, and together they probably say more about me than any bio ever could.

here’s the tour.

the iteration playlists

every song that ends up here felt unique to me at the time i added it. not just good, but something i hadn’t heard before. something that hit differently. if it sounded like everything else, it didn’t make the cut.

i started iteration #1 in 2019 when i was 17. closed it out in 2022 with 124 tracks. iteration #2 picks up from there, 62 tracks and counting.

iteration #1 (2019–2022) — 124 tracks

this is the archive. 17 to 20, frozen in amber.

the backbone is underground and SoundCloud-adjacent: líue, anbuu, Savage Ga$p, sophie meiers, underscores, Cemetery Drive. bedroom producers who built fanbases in discord servers, not on radio. mixed in with that is lo-fi electronics (Moe Shop, DROELOE, Ramzoid) and indie hip-hop that skews experimental: Injury Reserve, Rich Brian, Rav, grandson.

japanese tracks show up early: anbuu’s ダーリン, Reol’s ウテナ, Boltex’s 失望した. not anime openings, actual japanese underground. that thread never really goes away.

the vibe is late-night, headphones-on, slightly sad but not wallowing. internet kid music for people who grew up on forums and youtube rabbit holes. if that sounds like you, you’d probably recognize half of this.

iteration #2 (2022–present) — 62 tracks

same DNA, different person listening.

Savage Ga$p is practically a resident. four or five tracks, collabs with KAMAARA and Witchouse 40k. the emo-internet-rap thing didn’t go away, it just got more refined. Cemetery Drive carries over. WHOKILLEDXIX, teeawgo, and 100 gecs round out the chaotic end.

the big shift is how much game and anime music bleeds in. Cyberpunk 2077’s soundtrack shows up twice (I Really Want to Stay at Your House, plus P.T. Adamczyk’s Phantom Liberty and The Rebel Path). Oshi no Ko’s POP IN 2. Evanescence doing Afterlife for the Devil May Cry Netflix series. Twenty One Pilots doing The Line for Arcane. the line between “soundtrack” and “playlist” barely exists for me anymore.

then there’s Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams sitting casually in the middle of all this. and BADBADNOTGOOD’s Time Moves Slow. classics that just belong somehow.

taste changes between 17 and 24. these playlists are the record of that.

bangeritos españolos — 50 tracks

this one needs context. it’s not reggaeton or modern latin pop.

it’s golden age Latin American dance music. 1960s and 70s boogaloo, pachanga, guajira, cumbia. Billo’s Caracas Boys show up seven or eight times. Ray Barretto. La Playa Sextet. Joe Bataan. Guillermo Portabales. Rodolfo y su Típica RA7.

the kind of music you’d hear in a havana club in 1967 or on a venezuelan radio station your grandparents had on. Lazy Boogaloo by George Guzman. El Watusi by Ray Barretto. La Colegiala.

no algorithm surfaces this stuff. i found most of it through rabbit holes and film soundtracks.

dadrock — 119 tracks

this is what my dad listens to. and yeah, it rubbed off.

Enter Sandman. Sweet Child O’ Mine. Highway to Hell. Stairway to Heaven. Iron Man. Master of Puppets. Purple Haze. Hotel California. every song that’s ever been played at a barbecue by a guy in cargo shorts.

but it’s 119 tracks deep. that’s not casual exposure. you don’t put Foghat’s Slow Ride and Blue Öyster Cult’s (Don’t Fear) The Reaper and Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town on a playlist unless you’ve actually sat with the full catalog. Scorpions, Rush, Heart, Talking Heads, Neil Young.

when Fleetwood Mac shows up in iteration #2, now you know where it comes from.

choir — 40 tracks

this one goes the hardest.

almost entirely game soundtracks with choral arrangements. the Soulsborne catalog dominates: Bloodborne’s Cleric Beast opens it, followed by a run of Dark Souls 3 bosses (Slave Knight Gael, Pontiff Sulyvahn, Abyss Watchers, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, Sister Friede). Yuka Kitamura has six or seven credits. Alex Roe’s Elden Ring arrangements show up too, The Flame of Ambition and Extinguish Thy Flame.

then it gets wider. Jeremy Soule’s Dragonborn from Skyrim. NieR: Automata’s A Beautiful Song. Death Stranding’s score by Ludvig Forssell. Project Destati doing Kingdom Hearts orchestral. Sawano Hiroyuki from Attack on Titan. even Evangelion sneaks in with Return to Ash.

voices used as instruments, layered into orchestral arrangements that make boss fights feel like religious events. if you’ve ever fought the Moon Presence at 2am with headphones on, you know why this playlist exists.

the throughline

the dadrock gave me a foundation in loud, emotionally direct music. the iteration playlists are what happens when that meets the internet. you end up liking both Metallica and 100 gecs, because both are trying to hit you as hard as possible. the choir playlist is where that instinct goes orchestral. and bangeritos españolos is just me falling down a rabbit hole one day and never climbing out.

395 tracks. no playlist descriptions. just music.

— alex