I’m sure that the number of listening hours I rack up on Spotify could be considered unhealthy. Between testing the best Bluetooth speakers, best headphones, and best wireless earbuds, music is a huge part of my working day, as well as my R&R in the evening.
But something that always stumps me is what to listen to. And as someone who will listen to almost anything, I can spend hours skipping through playlists and liked songs until I settle on what I’m in the mood for.
That’s where Spotify’s pre-made playlist features can come in handy, and I think the Daylist may just be my favorite one. You can find this feature by searching ‘Daylist’ in the Spotify search bar.
How the Daylist works
The Daylist is updated multiple times a day, and you get a handy time stamp in the description of the playlist to let you know when to expect the next update. These updates also come along in the morning, afternoon, evening, and night with a fun title change (which I’ll get to later).
The playlists are created by a learning algorithm that pays attention to and analyzes your listening habits. This means that if you usually listen to hard-core rock on a Monday evening after a long first day of the working week, your Daylist is going to reflect that.
It pays attention to your skips and liked songs too, and I’ve never had a song in my Daylist that I don’t like. After weeks of paying close attention to my daylists, I’ve come to notice that on Sunday mornings, I get mellow folk music, but on a Wednesday evening, I get emo and post-punk. Like I said, my listening habits change with my mood, so seeing Spotify’s algorithm keep up with this is pretty impressive.
The most unhinged titles
The talk of the town after the 2024 Spotify Wrapped was the insane genre names. I was personally labeled with genres such as ‘Pink Pilates Princes Strut Pop’, and ‘Coastal Grandmother Slow Dance Oldies’, but the Daylist names may be even weirder.
They use very specific microgenres and mash them all together to make an even more niche playlist name. That’s great, because this playlist is truly tailored to you.
My day started with Dark Academia Sweater Weather Thursday Morning, and you’d be forgiven for thinking, ‘what in earth is that?’. It features songs like Tear in My Heart by Twenty One Pilots, Come A Little Closer by Cage The Elephant, and Cough Syrup by Young the Giant. It’s a playlist that took me right back to my school days, and while it’s not what I would have reached for immediately, I enjoyed listening, and it’s like Spotify knew what I needed because it set me up for a great day.
In the afternoon, the playlist was entitled Old School Rock American Ballad Thursday Afternoon, which is, again, quite the mouthful. However, with this title, I knew what I was getting into — purely beltable classics. This had tracks like Take on Me by a-ha, Africa by Toto, and What’s Up? By 4 Non Blondes. Each is a classic in its own right.
I asked the Tom’s Guide team to share some of their daylist names, and there was quite a range. One of my favorites was Athleisure Mcbling Thursday Morning from our Reviews Editor, Pete. His Daylist featured tracks including Superstar by Jamelia, Round Round by the Sugababes, and Don’t Phunk With My Heart by the Black Eyed Peas.
Another from Senior Writer, Nikita, is Wake Cyberpunk Thursday Afternoon. This one featured gaming soundtracks. But in the morning, Nikita was recommended Edgy Dirty Rock Thursday morning, with tracks from Ghost, Thirty Seconds To Mars, and The Pretty Reckless.
How accurate is it?
Whenever I listen to the Daylist, it always suits my mood. As I mentioned, I’m using Spotify pretty much 24/7, so there is a lot of information the streaming platform can use to get my listening habits right. But if you use other streaming services more, it’s not as likely to get to know you so well.
Our Audio Editor, Tammy, listens using a whole host of different services, including Qobuz, and noted that her Death Metal Extreme Thursday Morning Spotify Daylist wasn’t far off. But this could have been far more accurate if Spotify were Tammy’s go-to platform.
However, the Athleisure Mcbling Thursday Morning Daylist created for Pete was nowhere near what he wanted to listen to. He was actually listening to BLACKOUT by Turnstile at the time, which is pretty much the furthest thing away from Atheisure Mcbling you can get.
So in short, it totally depends on how much you use the service and how much you interact by skipping and saving songs, as well as creating your own playlists. But it’s one of my favorite ways to listen, especially when I’m feeling indecisive.
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