Spotify has a somewhat new feature with which they release multiple “day lists” across the course of a day. Something like, sweet morning folk, driving afternoon hard rock, tragic romance for the evening. It’s an AI generated playlist designed around your preferences and set to a somewhat arbitrary mood. Most of the time I quite like this playlists, it’s actually quite cool. I learn about some new music, I get to listen to a few old favorites, sometimes I even save the playlist so it isn’t lost in the digital aether as it’s replaced by something else. 

A few times now Spotify has made a playlist for me, generally in the afternoon, and it has been entirely Tom Waits songs. Not a single song by any other artist, all Tom Waits. I find this hilarious.

It knows that I love Tom Waits, but it appears incapable of placing Tom Waits in the context of other musicians or moods, he’s just his own thing.