Listening to the Oldies

My favorite way to listen to music is with the online service called Spotify. You can use it for free, but I pay a small amount every month to get extra features. I’m not sure what the difference is, but I love Spotify and I don’t mind spending $5 a month to support this service.

Tonight I will be listening to the Oldies while I clean house and do the laundry. The weird thing is that my definition of the Oldies might be different from what you call the Oldies. There are actual Oldies radio stations, but they play really old songs, like from the 1950’s and 1960’s. That’s before most of us were even born. In my world, Oldies means the songs of the 1980’s.

The 1980’s songs were so fun for dancing and the best days of heavy metal bands. All the great Metal bands were forming their sound in the 80’s – like Metallica, Guns and Roses, Kiss, AC/DC, Alice in Chains, etc., although the genre got it’s start in the late ’60’s and 70’s. I think the 80’s were the hay day and I love the loud, upbeat music while I am busy scrubbing floors and washing dishes.

Gaining Followers on Spotify

About a year ago I signed up for one of the very first American Spotify accounts. It was available in Europe for a couple of years, but for some reason – I’m sure it had to do with money and royalties – they did not bring it to America until 2012. I found a tekkie friend who shared one of his 5 allotted invitations to join up the first day and I’ve been hooked ever since.

I don’t know what the average user does about playlists, but I made up a BUNCH of playlists. I started out with a modern country playlist because it was easy to recognize the current stars and their current hit songs. Then I went to rock and roll from when I was in high school Those songs will always have tons of memories for me – they are what I grew up listening to. The third playlist was harder and took longer, but it is my favorite: adult contemporary. I like this music because it is fresh and easy on the ears. It is the kind of music that you hear on all the different genres of radio stations, but they appeal to everyone.

I had no idea that anyone cared about my personal playlists, but a few months ago I started getting email notifications from Spotify that people were subscribing to my adult contemporary playlist. I don’t know these people and don’t know how they found my playlist, but it is kinda flattering to find out that a lot of people share the same interest in music with you. I keep adding subscribers somehow – about 1 or 2 a week. Last time I checked, I had 64 subscribers to my playlist from all over the world – and I don’t personally know a single one of them!