Creativity is unleashed by limitations (Playlists and My Best-Tapes)

Playlist & My Best-Tape

Man, subscription services are convenient, aren't they?

I use a subscription-based music service, and there are so many songs that I find myself having fun just searching through them.

Not only do I discover new music, but I can also listen to albums I used to listen to on vinyl, which makes me really happy.

And one of the joys of using these services is creating "playlists".
Even on "note", there are people who share the "playlists" they've made, and I feel like those "playlists" composed around a specific theme really show off that person's personality.

I also decide on a theme and select songs, but since there are so many songs to choose from, I end up wanting to include everything, and it often happens that the total playlist time ends up being two or three hours long.

But I just set it up for now, and I leave it as is, thinking I'll just listen to whichever song I feel like hearing at that moment.

It's so easy!

But while I feel it's truly convenient, at the same time, it makes me remember how quite difficult it used to be back in the day.

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[Making "My Best" Tapes"]

The fun of making these "playlists" is common to the "My Best" tapes I used to make in the cassette tape era.

In the era of vinyl records, if you wanted to bring music into your car, the only option was cassette tapes.
Later, CDs became standard, but since you could only listen to the CDs you purchased and couldn't collect just your favorite songs, there was a period where they were used alongside cassettes.
After that, cassette tapes survived for a while until the arrival of MDs and the establishment of computer-based editing.

Cassette tapes have several limitations.

First, the recording time.
The standard was the 46-minute type, combining both 'sides' of the tape.

There were also 60, 90, and 120-minute types, but it was said that the longer tapes were thinner and prone to 'stretching' in the high heat of a car (the truth of which is uncertain), so in my case, I used 46 or 60-minute tapes for driving.

Also, because cassette tapes are analog, you couldn't just press a button to skip to the start of the next song like you can with digital.
There was the hassle of 'fast-forwarding' or 'rewinding' the tape.

Furthermore, since one side of a 46-minute tape is 23 minutes, if you only had 20 minutes of recording time, the remaining 3 minutes would be silent.
Therefore, if you were making a 'my best' tape for driving, you had to plan the composition based on the length of the songs so that the remaining time within those 23 minutes was as short as possible.”My Best” tape, you had to plan the composition based on the length of the songs so that the remaining time within those 23 minutes was as short as possible.

With such limitations, the process of selecting songs and planning the composition while considering time and song order is quite a chore.
However, once it was finished, there was a sense of accomplishment, like it was my own creation.

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I think the fact that it takes effort means that it requires the creativity you put into it.

Since a 46-minute cassette tape only holds about 10 to 12 songs, choosing the songs is difficult to begin with. With a subscription service, if you're unsure, you can just add both, but a cassette requires a decision.
When making that decision, you have to consider not just your own preferences, but also the recording time and the overall composition, so you have to use multiple sensibilities at the same time.

In this world, if things become too convenient, I suppose there's no need to think much anymore.
That means, conversely, it might be better to be somewhat restricted in order to exercise your creativity.it might be better to be somewhat restricted in order to exercise your creativity perhaps.

It's not that subscription services or 'playlists' are to blame; I feel that people who enjoy making 'playlists' are still enjoying them by imposing some kind of limitation.

So, with that in mind,
I also tried thinking about it with the theme of '80s UK music,' imposing the limitation of 'within 46 minutes.' I was able to include 10 songs.“80s UK music” theme, and imposing the limitation of “within 46 minutes” I tried thinking about it. I was able to include 10 songs.

First, I struggled with choosing my favorite artists.
Since David Bowie and Queen are from the 70s, and Primal Scream and New Order could also cover the 90s, I decided to choose artists that felt like 'the 80s' to me, but as a result of careful consideration, artists like Wham!, Paul Young, and Culture Club were left out.

Furthermore, it was also difficult to decide which songs by those artists to include.
In the end, the fact that the selection ended up being like a list of representative hits showed my lack of creativity.

For the structure, I wanted it to start a bit quietly rather than kicking off with a bright, explosive song, so I chose The Style Council's "My Ever Changing Moods" as the first track, with its memorable piano.
Then, for the second and third tracks, I tried to follow up with upbeat numbers: Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" and Aztec Camera's "Walk Out to Winter." Don't you think that's a pretty 80s-style start?

The middle section connects with connoisseur favorites like The Police, The Smiths, Spandau Ballet, and Tears for Fears, and for the finale, I brought in the masterpieces XTC's "Mayor of Simpleton" and U2's "With or Without You."
It feels like that's enough, but then to wrap it all up with Echo & the Bunnymen at the very end...

Truly, a "UK '80s" "UK '80s" playlist that feels just right for the 80s has been completed!

I immediately played it in the car, and it was so much fun that I even took the long way around just to listen to every song.

That kind of experience felt nostalgic, too.

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