aroceu (playlist)

playlist ♪ aroceu

About

I've tried to make personal playlists before - playlists that feel like an encompassment of me - but they end up being a gallery of my favorite songs without any sonic cohesion, which is something I pay a lot of attention to in the compilation of songs. I feel like if you have a sequential collection of creative things, creativity in its order tends to enhance that experience.

My music tastes are pretty varied, the only unifying thing between all of them being poppy in nature, in some way. I'm a sucker for a good, simplistic, easy to bob your head along to beat, as long as it's nice to listen to. But after identifying this pattern in my taste and leaning into it more, then came the matter of deciphering the order of all of my favorite songs.

Here's the thing: I'm a Gemini. I don't think this means anything intrinsic to me as a person, but I used to be interested in astrology, so by virtue of that experience I've inherited some Gemini traits because I liked the idea of it. I like thinking of myself in dualities: pink and blue, bird and cat, black and white. The side of me that fundamentally values on principle being kind to people - and the side of me that loves to have fun at the expense of other people's convenience. I say a lot that I don't take myself seriously because I don't - and yet there are things that I take so seriously that I won't shut up about it.

All of these complex parts of me exist (as well as my ADHD and OCD, to be fair.) So I've found that instead of viewing myself through a single lens, I can view myself through two: one who is relentlessly and obnoxiously authentic, and one who believes in the humanity and goodness and meaning in the universe. I can view myself through as many as I want, really - binaries aren't real unless I choose them to be. And when it comes to my perception of myself, it gets varied into these two parts. I love logic as much as I love emotion, science as much as art. Myself when I'm at my worst, and myself when I'm at my best.

So here we are with two playlists: (manic pixie) nightmare and (giant mellow) dreamer as the b-side, to represent these two sides of me. They are all in some way poppy, but have a slightly different sonic palette. The sounds are also somewhat dynamic through the playlist, because I like song compilations like that. They are also in a closed loop - the sound of the beginning is similar to the end. This wasn't really intentional and more as a result of my song choices - all of which are my favorites and meaningful to me in some way - but I like it a lot, because now it has this element of completion, that when you get to the end you're right at the beginning and can listen through again.

The artists (and sometimes albums) have some significance to me in how they've impacted my music-listening life; and with a lot of songs in particular, I've gone through periods of my life hyperfixating on them. I just love girl groups, boy groups, solo female artists, rap breaks, beats, synthy hyperpop production with a little bit of an old school/live instrumental/alt-rocky or classical touch, toxic/sexual lyrics, major/minor mixed keys, varied octaves for singing, dynamic buildup throughout the song, and covers/acapella/creative stylistic transformation. And yaoi and women.

Tl;dr there is an order to these songs for that sonic cohesion, but each song individually is as significant to me the song order. While I like a lot of songs just as much to call them my favorites, the ones here are selected both based on how much I like them, and how well they fit together. This isn't just a collection of songs - it's a playlist. Well, two of them.

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