I’ve been pondering recently as to what makes a good playlist length. My personal view previously was ‘at least CD length’ and whilst that sounds on the surface reasonable , i.e 10-15 songs minimum, 74 minutes of playing time, I thought i’d look at this in a bit more detail to see where the evidence really was.
1. Minimum length - Covering Shuffle & Freemium
Both Spotify and Deezer have free tier users which shuffle both albums and playlists and won’t let you play in order on mobile. To shuffle a minimum number of tracks are needed.
Spotify will add tracks onto a playlist if there are less than 15 songs.
On Deezer this is increased to 30.
So we have our starting point. On this basis playlists on Spotify should be at least 15 songs long and Deezer should be 30 in order to stop non-curated songs being added to the playlist.
2. Ideal Length- Spotify’s Approach
On Spotify each user can access a ‘Discover’ playlist, refreshed weekly, which contains a 30 song list of unheard or similar music to what you've previously listened to, tailored via algorithms to a users tastes. This is a major driver of plays. The more popular a song, the more algorithms it will populate and so on.
Spotifys research has shown that plays on the Discover playlist peak on the refresh day of Monday and tend to tail off more each day after then.
My discover list lands at 2hours (30 tracks), which is enough for my phone to take offline for most users. Part of the thinking is that Spotify have kept the length like this so that it’s just enough songs to listen to in a week before refresh but also not too much data for syncing offline to a 16GB phone.
Their other playlists seem to range from 50-70 songs (New Music Friday, All new All Now), to increased numbers on some, but not all, mood playlists. I.e Your Morning Coffee (85), Yoga & Meditation (83), #The Office Stereo (60), Afternoon Acoustic (121)
Some initially seem curiously shorter but contain longer tracks like Natural Concentration (16 songs but 2.5 hrs playing time), Chill Chapter (24, 2hr) and so on.
Mood playlists could be played in shops/bars or home more often, where wifi may be more readily available, so we could surmise there’s not as much demand to sync to offline on these.
3. The Expert View
In discussions with industry friends at various music companies, and colleagues, i asked them what they felt the ideal length of playlist was.
"The top 10 playlists on Spotify (discounting top 100/40 lists) have an average of 58.3 tracks and are updated at least weekly. 50 tracks at 3.5m is about 3hrs of music which is feels (no data for this) like a number that would sensible be how someone might break up their day. The longer playlists are the acoustic/sunday/coffee ones. If we're looking at this like it's radio, then it would make sense to have the music for times when we people would be more likely to not 'change the station' be longer." - Brittney Bean, Songdrop
“As for how long should be a playlist... I don't like playlists with hundreds of songs... If it's a thematic playlist maybe it's ok to have a great number of songs, but if we're talking about mood playlists, I think it's better an small selection. My favourite playlists don't have more than 50 songs! I think 50 it's the perfect number to transmit the essence, but if you are someone like me, that I'm constantly looking for new music and updating my playlists, it's difficult to control the tracks you have in the playlists hahah I usually start with 50, but I'm adding new songs frequently... “
Carlos - Indie Mono (Spotify Channel)
One told me theirs were variable depending on what each playlist needed to do and achieve but that it was mostly about good fit in terms of song choice and sensible lengths.
A curator from one channel informed me that their users liked 'slightly longer playlists' , which when i asked how long he said "over 20 , around 30-40 ideally"
4. Coffee Pit Stop..
A look at some Spotify’s own playlists listing the word ‘Coffee’ show a consistent play towards a 4 hour playlist, covering half the day, or enough time to rotate the playlist without customers noticing, which backs up the notion that mood playlists have a requirement to be longer when compared to new music or commute playlists.
Coffee Table Jazz: 4hrs, Soul Coffee (4hrs), Coffee Pop 4hrs, Your Favourite Coffeehouse (4hrs 20minutes)
Conclusions
Length is variable but mood playlists are longer, in general compared to new music playlists. So you could decide the length of time your playlist might get played for (eg. Wedding party/ dinner for 2 hours) , the context (i.e bar, coffee shop, on the move?), and whether your playlist fits into one of these three categories
- New Music (short - medium length, 30-50) *up to 2hrs
- Catalogue Music, Best Ofs (medium, 30-75) *2-4hrs
- Mood (longer, 75+) *4hrs+
I’ve listed catalogue as medium because you could argue for and against longer playlists. I tend to keep mine at about an hour to 70 minutes length for these for the main apart from playlists like 90’s Pop Records which by it’s title alludes to a more encompassing list (this is 232 songs long and going!) so could argue for more flexibility there.
Index. A selected list of Playlist track counts..
Spotify playlist track numbers (UK) *accurate as of publish date
New Music
Discover: 30
New Music Friday UK/US/CA/SE: 50-70
One Week One Playlist: 16
All New All Now: 50
The Indie List: 56
New Music Commute: 59
Mood
Sleep Into the Ocean: 20 (2hrs in length)
Coffee Table Jazz: 47
Your Coffee Break: 81
Folk & Indie Coffee Break: 55
Jazz & Coffee: 50
Coffee Pop: 61
Wake Up & Smell The Coffee: 35
Country Coffeehouse: 50
Caffeine Rush: 93
Singer Songwriter Coffee Break: 56
Folk & Indie Coffee Break: 46
Black Coffee & Gritty Blues: 24
Filtr (Sony) *selected
New Music Playlists: New Music (58) | Hot Right Now (68) | A List Hits (62)
Catalogue: 90s Indie (62) | Ultimate 00’s playlist (47) |
Mood: Running Tracks (90) | New Chillout (86) | Poolside Beats (85) |Relaxing Classical (102) | Coffee Table Jazz (26) | Soul (114)
Digster (Universal) *selected
New Music Playlists: Hits! (77) | Music You Should Know (66) |New Christian Music (59)
Catalogue: Welcome To The 90s (50) | Reggae (102)
Mood: Indie Chill (113) | Road Trip: Singalong Songs (94) | Coffee Shop Sounds (101)
Topsify (Warner) *selected
New Music Playlists: Tomorrows Hits (50) | Future Dance Anthems (56) | Buzz 2016 (23) | New Music Fridays UK (64) | UK Top Tracks (100)
Catalogue: Soulful Christmas (105) |
Mood: Ultimate Workout (61) | Ultimate Love Songs (300)| Songs To Fall Asleep To (51)
