Playlist Wars Podcast Provides Unique Way to Think About Music
Playlist Wars is a cool podcast for music nerds.
Welcome to a bonus issue of the Michael’s Record Collection newsletter. This is a short one, but if you wondered why MRC was showing up in your mailbox earlier in the week than usual, it’s simply a little extra something from me to you.
A while back I told you about a podcast called Records Revisited, which presents a new way to look at your favorite albums. Today I’m going to tell you about another cool podcast, but this one makes you think about an artist’s entire catalog a little differently. I am always on the lookout for interesting music podcasts, so I was happy to have found Playlist Wars. Now I’m going to tell you a little about it.
Alex Gomez and Brian Colburn launched a unique music-related podcast called Playlist Wars with an episode about Metallica earlier this year on March 3. The show has a simple premise: the two hosts and a rotating guest select that week’s artist or theme and each creates a 10-song playlist. They discuss their playlists, revealing each song one at a time, and talk about the reasons for including each song. Then they physically create the three playlists for listeners to go listen to and provide a poll to vote on which of the three “got it right.”
While the premise is simple, the act of selecting 10 songs from an expansive artist catalog or a topic such as ‘movie soundtracks of the 1980s’ is not quite as easy. For example, the first episode of Playlist Wars that I listened to was about Tom Petty, who left behind 16 studio albums, various rarities and alternate versions, and multiple live albums. Narrowing that down to 10 songs might seem simple in theory, but in practice it’s much more difficult. And the more love you have for the artist’s music, the harder it is to pick just 10 songs.
“It's difficult when you're talking, like a well-known artist like Billy Joel,” Gomez said. “He's got so many albums, so many great songs, and how do you (just) pick 10?”
There are multiple ways to create a playlist. Some playlists are constructed out of songs to which the creator has some special emotional attachment. Sometimes Gomez, Colburn, and/or their guest will simply select their 10 favorite songs from the artist. And other times the playlists will be constructed strategically — taking into account a complete roadmap of a musician’s career, paying attention to structuring the list like an album or a concert setlist, or paying particular attention to either hits or deeper tracks. After all, creating the playlist is only part of it. The other part is winning the listener vote.
While it’s always nice to win, the real fun for Gomez and Colburn is creating the lists, talking about the artists/topics, and the surprises along the way (the three playlist creators do not share their picks in advance of recording the podcast). And that’s also the most entertaining part for the listener.
“If we win, great. If the special guest wins, even better,” Gomez said. “The whole fun of it is we want to hear from the ‘playlisters,’ as we’re calling everybody.”
Gomez and Colburn have known each other since high school — having met more than 25 years ago — and the two are close friends. Their banter is genuine and often quite funny, and it’s part of the show’s charm. Each of them brings a unique perspective to the show, with Colburn showing off his encyclopedic knowledge of cover songs, while Gomez can tell you what movies and/or video games songs appeared in. And those specialties sometimes help shape their playlists.
The show itself came together very quickly over the early part of 2021.
“I think in the month of February, we were throwing the idea around, and in March, we started recording to see how we would do and see how I would like the show,” Gomez said. “We recorded the first five episodes before we launched. And I just said, ‘Brian, I'm hooked. I really am enjoying this, we're having a great time.’ And it just evolved.”
Their guests know the artist or topic well. They’re often podcast hosts themselves or musicians. They even recently had Rob Felicetti from Bowling for Soup on an episode to create playlists from that band’s catalog.
I highly recommend this podcast to any music fan. It’s entertaining and it’ll make you think about just how you might construct a playlist from the artist or topic from that week’s show.
I recently spoke with Gomez to discuss Playlist Wars and you can see the entire interview below. After we talked about his podcast, we also had a track-by-track discussion of his favorite album, which is well outside my usual comfort zone — Linkin Park’s 2003 release, Meteora. While it’s still not a favorite, after my deep dive, I did come to appreciate why people like it and I found plenty to like about it.
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