Club Benefits
The music fan in me loves seeing AI tools integrate with streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify.
I’ve already tested ChatGPT’s ability to build playlists through Apple Music, and that experiment introduced me to new ’90s underground hip-hop tracks, jazz perfect for a moody evening walk and a stack of metal songs made for hardcore wrestling fans. Spotify is also part of the ChatGPT app ecosystem, and it recently arrived in Claude through its own app integrations, called Connectors.
I’m always in the mood to pit chatbots against each other to see which one creates the best images, handles complex questions more effectively or surprises me in some new way. For this Spotify showdown, I wanted to see whether ChatGPT or Claude could better handle my playlist requests and which one would deliver the stronger mix of songs.
Article continues belowBy the end of this musical AI face-off, one emerged as the clear winner and the digital road trip passenger I’d happily hand the aux cord to.
ChatGPT’s Spotify playlists
To get this music-themed competition underway, I went with three prompts to see how both chatbots would respond:
- Create a playlist of deep cuts from ‘90s hip-hop icons. No charting tracks.
- Make a playlist that would have played at a high school dance in 2006 with pure mid-2000s pop and R&B energy.
- Generate a playlist starting with Radiohead, then expand into their influences (Aphex Twin, Can) and artists they influenced (James Blake, Everything Everything), plus side projects (The Smile, Thom Yorke solo).
I used the first prompt to generate a playlist full of nostalgic ‘90s hip-hop songs that only diehard fans of the genre would recognize. The second prompt came in handy to bring me back to my 2006 high school prom (and yes, I do feel ancient whenever I see my next-door neighbor’s kids getting ready for their prom).
And finally, the third prompt was meant to get me in the mood to mellow out to Radiohead’s best tracks and listen to the artists that influenced them, along with the musicians they inspired.
ChatGPT fulfilled my requests by bringing up five pre-made playlists for each prompt. You can check out the three playlists I ended up choosing below:
ChatGPT’s playlist recommendations were strong—they were full of tracks I regularly listen to, plus songs that started as unfamiliar listens and morphed into go-to faves.
I liked that the hip-hop playlist expanded beyond the ‘90s by featuring obscure ‘00s hip-hop cuts from the likes of Special Ed, Black Star and Souls of Mischief. The high-school prom-themed playlist ended up being a nice flashback to the good ol’ days, thanks to popular song inclusions from Ashanti, Maroon 5 and Taking Back Sunday.
The third playlist featured a wide variety of highly recommended songs from Radiohead, The Smile and Thom Yorke.
Claude’s Spotify playlists
After presenting my three prompts to Claude, it delivered results in the same manner as ChatGPT, giving me five pre-made playlists to choose from for each category. The three playlists I picked out are as follows:
The first playlist Claude brought to my attention primarily focused on including obscure and popular ‘90s hip-hop songs, which featured artists such as Camp Lo, Jeru The Damaja and Black Sheep. The second playlist surprised me by including a massive selection of the most popular ‘00’s tracks from multiple genres—I enjoyed going from Nelly Furtado and Timbaland to Sisqo to Beyonce and Jay-Z and so on.
The third playlist was a bit of a letdown since it only featured the greatest songs from Radiohead and nothing from the likes of James Blake, Everything Everything, The Smile and Thom Yorke.
The takeaway
At the end of this chatbot Spotify playlist-builder showdown, I gave the edge to Claude.
Its hip-hop playlist stayed firmly in the ’90s lane and introduced me to some new favorite deep cuts, with “Nighttime Vultures” by Mobb Deep feat. Lex Diamonds standing out the most. Its second playlist also impressed me, capturing the broad, crowd-pleasing sound of 2000s pop in a way that felt like the soundtrack to my high school prom.
The third round went to ChatGPT, which better matched the exact vibe I requested and delivered the musical picks I was hoping for.
Still, with a 2-1 final score, Claude came out on top. While I pulled songs from both chatbots’ recommendations, Claude won two categories and ultimately gave me more tracks I’d genuinely keep in rotation going forward.
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