A feature that I feel like does not get enough credit when it comes to music streaming services is the ability to search random playlists. If you make a playlist of yours public, then anyone can start listening to it. Since your music taste is such a uniquely personalized piece of you, people who don’t even know you can get an idea of what your vibe is just from a public playlist. At the same time, who would be interested in trying to figure out your vibe if they don’t even know you?
Me, that’s who. That is exactly what I’m doing. I searched “womp womp” on the playlists tab of Apple Music and I’m going to shuffle three of them. Based on the first five songs to play, I will decide where they rank on my understanding of the “womp womp” scale.
My “womp womp” scale is based on three key elements: lyrics, instrumentals, and aura. A song’s lyrics have the ability to communicate emotions that would otherwise be difficult to explain. Lyrics are so powerful that it could hold a certain meaning to the artist while also being received by listeners in ways that the artist hadn’t even intended. Instrumentals are another piece of a song that demands the attention of the listener. The combination of contrasting sounds coming together to create one track is important to consider. Finally, the aura of a track. How does this song make me feel? What is the energy that I am receiving from the song or the artist? These three elements are used to determine where these tracks land on my “womp womp” scale.
The first user-generated playlist to appear was “womp womp” by @d1eti. I clicked shuffle and listened to the first five songs: “Cayendo (Side A – Acoustic)” by Frank Ocean, “She Likes Another Boy” by Oscar Lang, “Adam” by Alex G, “Special K” by Mac DeMarco, and “Always Forever” by Cults. Upon looking at the playlist, the majority of the songs were from the same albums. For example, almost every song from the album Blond by Frank Ocean was on the playlist. I was unsure if the playlist would meet my standards of a gloomy aura because I was under the impression that the user had just added their favorite albums in their entirety. This collection of songs all had similar assets in the ways that the lyrics were sung so softly. The hint of upbeatness in the music caused my final rating to be 3 out of 5 on my “womp womp” scale, with 5 being the saddest thing I have ever heard.
The second playlist was “Womp womp” by @EttMisi. I listened to these five songs after hitting shuffle: “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam, “Warning” by Incubus, “Echo” by Incubus, “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park, and “The Chemicals Between Us” by Bush. Although the former playlist was ranked lower based on how much the music picked up, I found that this element may be unfair, considering all of these are rock songs with multiple instruments contributing to the final version of the track. My general consensus of heart wrenching lyrics and haunting instrumentals made it difficult to give this playlist the rating it probably deserved. Overall, I decided on a 2 out of 5.
The third and final playlist I chose was “womp womp” by @RaynaWolhuter. After clicking shuffle, these were the first five songs to play: “Sometimes (Backwood)” by Gigi Perez, “Every Night” by Montell Fish, “Weather” by Novo Amor, “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron, and “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” by Train. It was interesting to analyze the way that all of these songs had beautifully articulated lyrics. Each of the tracks presented themselves with an accompanying sorrowful melody. Personally, this rating could have been a 5 based on “The Night We Met” alone, but the grouping of songs helped me to backtrack and give it a 4 out of 5.
The public playlists feature on Apple Music is a fascinating asset to the world of streaming music. There are an abundance of “womp womp” playlists waiting to be listened to across multiple streaming platforms, so don’t be afraid to utilize your understanding of the “womp womp” scale next.
