I confess that I have far too many playlists occupying my iTunes/Apple Music account, the most robust of which I have entitled Strictly Korean. At 2413 songs (139 hours of listening time), and growing, it would be impossible for me to listen to every song on that playlist over the course of probably several lifetimes. But I think I found a way of giving it more listening love, and that is through tying it into a weekly blog series called Playlist Roulette.

Thinking back on the recent On My Playlist post featuring TRCNG, it occurred to me that allowing a steady algorithmic shuffle of my Strictly Korean playlist would be a great way to nudge me into more varied K-music waters. I mean, I did after all download and put the songs on a playlist in the first place. But I completely forgot about downloading TRCNG’s music let alone putting it on a list for future listening. Had I not hit the shuffle button that day I might not have ever returned to any of their tracks, at least any time soon. Musing on this music shuffle thought gave me an idea into turning the whole thing into a weekly blog series. I recall my friend Nelly over at MyMyooz doing a weekly music drop called Wednesday Eu-Mak on her blog. I thought it was a fantastic way to discover new music, even if it wasn’t necessarily new.

Often times specific groups and artists become habit-forming for me to the point where I get listener lock. Now, there is nothing wrong with listening to a favorite album or song repeatedly. If something sounds and feels good, a repeat, and repeat of that repeat is definitely warranted. 😜 After being very one group/artist-focused for many years, I want to continue pushing myself towards more variety. Exploring the list that I created is a good start because sprinkled amid a lot of what is new to me on that list are many that are still very familiar and worthy of a revisit.

Once a week then, I will play playlist roulette and let the system choose a song. To keep me diligent, I will share these posts every Monday. Now mind you, that Strictly Korean playlist houses old and new, and I never know what it will give me when I tap that shuffle button. You have my word though that I will not skip. So if the algorithm throws me an instrumental track from an OST or obscure B-side, so be it. With roulette, you just have to roll with it.

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