Musicians and Playlists You Should Follow on Spotify

If you’re anything like me, you’re eternally looking for innovative songs and artists to add to your good Spotify playlists playlists.  Personally, I can’t even leave my house without my headphones; no light breeze, movie scene, birds chirping on a sunny Sunday could ever be good enough. And I’ve met folks who love to take a stroll and just “listen to the city”.

Although I respect the concept, I politely disagree. Again, if you’re anything like myself, finding the right tunes for the atmosphere or setting you’re in is a real struggle sometimes. 

“Nah, it’s too rainy for this” or “I’ve listened to this album 1000 times, I need something JUST LIKE IT, but not actually that”…Yeah, and it goes in circles forevermore. 

And God forbid you to find a song you treasure because you’ll get bored of it in a week and the vibe will just be off afterwards. Until you forget about it and re-discover it in a couple of months’ time.  So in the name of privileged problems, and excessive love for music, I’ve created diverse playlists and found wondrous artists and some of the best Spotify playlists made by users you should start listening to.

A Sensual and Lux RnB/Trap Playlist

If you like The Weeknd or older Travis Scott tunes, you’ll probably like this a lot.  Have you ever seen a beautiful loft or penthouse, in the middle of a large and bright city? With a vibe so specific, only The Weeknd’s House of Balloons mixtape can do it justice?

With artists such as Jorja Smith, Kid Cudi, Brend Faiyaz, and more – we’re bringing you the best moody RnB has to offer. 

And, if you’re a fan of these homes in luxurious clouds, or just love that type of aesthetics, give our Loft Music playlist a run for its money. It’s great to play when hanging out with your friends for a late-night in. 

“Physically I’m here, but mentally I’m in a cabin in the woods”

This forest/fairy vibe, or as the internet likes to call it “Cottagecore” is truly a musical representation of autumn. Usually filled with indie or folk songs with ethereal vocals and production, reading a book on a rainy day, or walking down a path surrounded by greenery are your best scenes to listen to this type of music. 

And if you’re a stranger to this kind of artistry, just ask Taylor Swift to introduce you to it with her Grammy-winning and critically acclaimed indie records “folklore” and “evermore”. To get you started, here’s a Spotify public playlist we like the most, called Cottagecore Vibes.  With autumn being alive and breathing, there’s no better time to dive into this forest of music than right now!

And if you’re still lost as to what the hell this movement is, our girl Kristen will set you right up with her video:

The best of gloomy rap: Starz by Yung Lean

One day back in early 2014, I accidentally stumbled upon this ghastly-sounding “cloud rapper” on YouTube called Yung Lean.  I was greeted with this very odd, yet mesmerizing tune by the name of “Solarflare”. 

“Molecules expand, molecules exist. I’m a molecule but I stand in the mist”, sang Yung Lean in the chorus, with little to no explanation as to what the meaning behind the lyrics and music video meant. 

And don’t get me wrong, I love when a musician catches me off guard like that, making me research their music, even more, just to get some sort of poetic context.  Fast forward to 2021, Yung Lean became one of my favorite artists of all time. The gloomy production on most of his records really has a way of sticking around in your head.

From “Poison Ivy”, released back in 2017 to “Starz”, the album I’m recommending to you today, it’s hard to overlook Lean’s creative mind while being completely invested in what he has planned next.  If you ever wanted to glance at the more abstract side of rap music, Yung Lean’s Starz is a great place to start.

You have to start listening to Mac Miller

No seriously, you have to start listening to Mac Miller. I can’t even begin to explain the sheer originality Mac Miller began his career with. You could always recognize his vocals, production, and even the way he would write his lyrics. 

The atmosphere he would bring up in his songs was truly unmatched; you could tell this man was in love with making songs and spending time in the studio.  His cartoon-like, “American suburban white boy” aesthetic really resonated with his fans and helped outline his music visually. 

But nothing good lasts forever, right?  His talent was sadly cut short when the rapper overdosed back in September of 2018, leaving his music as his legacy. So, if you were ever looking for a jazz or RnB-infused rap track, Mac Miller has left you with a pile of albums with such sounds and tunes.  And if you’re interested but don’t know where to start, we’ve got you covered. Watching Movies With The Sound Off is one hell of a start, so you can thank me later.

Make Your Life a Living Film

Around 10 years ago, Hans Zimmer taught me the importance of “film music”.  It gives scenes flavor and life, something we often lack in real life oddly enough. It gives sound to emotions and makes us feel whatever we’re feeling more intensely.

So my question is, why don’t we bring that into our everyday lives? While we cook, study or make love…There’s a soundtrack for everything and it absolutely makes life sometimes feel like a movie.   There are so many amazing soundtracks out there, from Detroit: Become Human to the movie Drive, you can discover just about any vibe you seek for. So, here’s a playlist we found to get you started off right.  

A chill Spotify mood playlists, for All-nighters and Lonely Hours

Sometimes we all like to pull lonely all-nighters to either work or study, and having a playlist to encourage such an atmosphere is quite valuable. A touch of atmospheric RnB, ambient pop, and the occasional Lo-Fi track; even if you’re not familiar with such moody tunes with drops of blues, there’s no harm in trying it out. 

Playlists are all about visualizing a moment or a feeling; like when you see a very emotionally and visually pleasing scene in a movie and want to encounter it in real life. 

This Late Night Chill playlist will undoubtedly make your late nights feel a lot more blissful and less lonely. 

Grimes and HANA, a.k.a an Ethereal Dream

If the only way you’ve heard of Grimes is through her ex, soon-to-be trillionaire husband Elon Musk, boy have you been missing out. The first time I’ve heard of Grimes was back in high school when she released the song, Genesis. And despite not reaching the surface-level mainstream, she managed to create a somewhat loyal fanbase with her ethereal sound. 

After releasing the album “Miss Anthropocene”, the album I am recommending to you today, the genre “ethereal” made its debut after Grimes pioneered for it. The genre in question was linked to the darkwave subgenre, a class deriving from heavy usage of synths and cloudy melodies.

This brings us to HANA’s wondrous album “HANADRIEL”, which can roughly be described as a dystopian mixture of futuristic techno with that ethereal emphasis on synths.  The songs Black Orchid and Moonwell are possibly my personal favorites on this thing. It’s as if she put a whole new twist on techno and house music as we know it.  The two of them together created a song called “We Appreciate Power”, which genuinely doesn’t feel like it originates from this century. 

And as the song tackles themes such as Artificial Intelligence and “uploading your mind to a drive”, it brings some interesting food for thought.  If these topics somewhat pique your interest, I’d highly advise checking out the ever-so-interesting Theory of Transhumanism. And the two musicians, of course.

Ya Like Jazz?

Jazz is a nest of music like no other; and as popular as it is, it’s still not pushed into people’s lives enough.  The smooth instrumentals jazz has given us throughout the decades have a very gentle way of relaxing both the mind and body.  Additionally, many subgenres of jazz keep a steady and formed tempo or beat throughout the whole track or even record; not many genres can relate. It makes us feel the music steadily from front to back. 

And no matter the tempo, the passion musicians and instrumentalists put into these tracks is insane, whether it is vocals or piano solos for example.  

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Declan ✿ (@music_exploratory)

Here are a couple of records to get you started if you have no idea where to begin:

• Patricia Barber – Café Blue
• João Gilberto and Stan Getz – Getz/Gilberto
• Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come

There are many genres and musicians you can stumble upon out there. This list, although all over the place, mentioning both the people in the mainstream and in the underground, will perhaps expand your musical interest a bit further. 

Through musicians like Yung Lean, for example, you can discover much more, as Spotify has one of the best interest-based algorithms I have ever seen. After that, you’ll know exactly who to follow on Spotify. And remember, a good playlist or album can truly make your mood, even on the rainiest of days, trust me. So that $6 Spotify monthly subscription is very much so worth it.