I thought Spotify Niche Mixes were silly, and then I used one

Are you familiar with the term “Goblin Core”? I wasn’t, but Spotify decided this was the perfect phrase to introduce me to the Niche Mix feature. I laughed.I showed my colleague here Android permissionsI laughed. I then looked up the term goblin core and found it to be an aesthetic based on parts of nature traditionally not considered beautiful, such as snails, moss, and mushrooms. I laughed some more and wondered why Spotify chose this example to take me into a super-special world of playlists. After all this laughter and research, I finally listened to the playlist and honestly decided that maybe Spotify’s niche mixes fit the bill.

Oh yeah, you’re probably as confused by Spotify niche mixes as I am. Well, as Spotify explains, the Niche Mix combines all of Spotify’s other personalized mixes in a playful way. So it’s a mixture of moods, decades, and genre mixes, yet somehow more specific than individual categories. It also means that you can search almost anything on Spotify and you will always find a playlist. You don’t have to pay for Spotify Premium to create Niche Mixes. Just use the English version of the app.

Spotify Niche Mixes are meant to be as specific as possible. You can search by Activity, Atmosphere or Aesthetics to suit your current needs and finally enter the term ‘Mix’. If you’re not sure where to start, Spotify also offers 5-10 ready-made niche mixes to get you started. Like other personalized mixes, niche mixes are based on a user’s existing listening habits, so you’ll see familiar songs even when searching for entirely new terms.

As Steffon noted in his Weekend Update, Spotify Niche Mixes include everything from goblins, bubblegrunge, hiking music, Sidney Applebaum, and more, with no hard limits.

Even knowing what a niche mix is, many of the keywords Spotify responds to are still pretty funny. I didn’t coin the term bubblegrunge, and I can’t explain why it’s mixed with my own particular murder ballad (think Marty Robbins’ Big Iron, not Charles Manson’s music). But I keep coming back to the idea that, oh, Spotify already knows everything about how I listen to music. Spotify Wrapped is a reminder that I spend countless hours on this platform each year. Of course, I can create very specialized playlists that know what I want to listen to.

Now that we know there’s almost no limit to what a niche mix is ​​and what you can search for, let’s bring it back to Goblincore. Ultimately, there are no mushrooms or moss on this playlist, but the songs are a solid mix of Hosier, Noah Khan, Lizzie McAlpine and Hailey Hindricks, exactly what I’m working on at work. Soft and moody music. that day. Did we call it “Goblin Core”? No, by no means, but the resulting playlist is a near-perfect mix of genres and artists that keeps me satiated.

I started using Spotify Niche Mix even outside of work hours. I went hiking a few weeks ago and wanted some music for warmer weather, so I opened up Spotify and typed “hiking” into the search bar. I used to get a list of playlists created by other Spotify users. Some of them were to my liking and some were not. I immediately got her two of her Niche Mixes, Mountain Mix and Hike Mix. There’s quite a bit of overlap between the two, but Mountain Mix seems to lean more towards the country genre, while Hike Mix is ​​closer to his goblin core. I chose the mountain mix because it was a bright and sunny day, but I wouldn’t rule out the hiking mix either for future use.

There’s an almost endless list of niche mixes to search and choose from, but some topics still break the mold a bit. Could not generate a suitable playlist based on Roadhouse from Twin Peaks. David Lynch’s haunting and mystical Bang Bang Bar is all too particular in its atmosphere and aesthetics. However, even in that case, there are still plenty of user-created playlists that I enjoy. As for the rest, I’ve come to embrace the weirdest and most wonderful niches I can find.

What do you think? Are Spotify’s niche mixes a clever way to bend playlists away from the basic norm?Have you started using his Niche Mixes yourself?Let us know in the poll below. Also, I’d appreciate it if you could suggest some search terms I haven’t seen before.