Playlist

In its most general form, a playlist is simply a list of songs. The term has several specialized meanings in the realms of radio broadcasting and personal computers.

The term originally came about in the early days of top 40 radio formats when stations would devise (and, eventually, publish) a limited list of songs to be played. The term would go on to refer to the entire catalog of songs that a given radio station (of any format) would draw from. Additionally, the term was used to refer to an ordered list of songs played during a given time period. Playlists are often adjusted based on time of day, known as dayparting.

As music storage and playback using personal computers became common, the term playlist was adopted by various media player software programs intended to organize and control music on a PC. Such playlists may be defined, stored, and selected to either run in sequence, or if a random playlist function is selected, in a random order. Playlists' uses include allowing a particular desired musical atmosphere to be created and maintained without constant user interaction, or to allow a variety of different styles of music be played, again without maintenance.

Some websites allow categorization, editing, and listening of playlists online, such as Webjay and Plurn. Others such as FIQL, Musicmobs and Soundflavor focus on playlist creation aided by personalized song recommendations, ratings and reviews.

Playlists are lists of songs (or other audio files) that you can create to organize your library or burn to a compact disc. For example, you might want to create a list of songs to listen to at a dinner party. Or, if you want to make your own CD, you add the songs you want on the CD to a playlist, then burn the playlist onto the CD.

Celebrity playlist
A list of songs prepared by a celebrity and is represented on the Apple iTunes Music Store as such, is referred to as a celebrity playlist. This has become popular because a fan of a particular celebrity may have an affinity towards the celebrity's choice of music. This arms-length connection between the fan and the favored celebrity has become so popular (2004-2005) that "celebrity playlist" has become a part of recent vocabulary.

Types of Playlist Files

There are several types of playlists. Some of the most common are:

.m3u, a simple text-based list of the locations of the items, with each item on a new line.
.pls, a text playlist similar to .ini (program settings) files. It normally contains only the location of the items in the playlist.
.asx, an xml style playlist containing more information about the items on the playlist.

MixTapes

A mix tape (commonly the two words are stuck together as mixtape) is a home-made compilation of songs (typically copyrighted music taken from other sources) recorded in a specific order, traditionally onto a compact audio cassette. The songs can be sequential, but a true, seamless mix from start to finish can be made by beatmatching the songs and creating overlaps and fades between the end of one song and the beginning of another.

With the advent of affordable, consumer-level digital audio, creating and distributing mixes in the form of a compact disc or MP3 playlist has become the contemporary method of choice, but the term mix tape is still commonly used, and will be used throughout this article to refer to mixes in different media (CD, MP3, MiniDisc, audio cassette, etc.).

A mix tape, which usually reflects the musical tastes of its compiler, can range from a casually selected list of favorite songs, to a conceptual mix of songs linked by a theme or mood, to a highly personal statement tailored to the tape's intended recipient. Essayist Geoffrey O'Brien has called the personal mix tape "the most widely practiced American art form," and many mix tape enthusiasts believe that by carefully selecting and ordering the tracks in a mix, an artistic statement can be created that is greater than the sum of its individual songs, much as an album of pop music in the post-Beatles era can be considered as something more than a collection of singles.