If you’re headed on a long road trip and need the perfect playlist to jam to, Spotify‘s new Soundtrack your Ride may be the perfect tool for you. It’s somewhat a computer and somewhat human and will curate the perfect playlist for your road trip based on where you’re going and who you’re traveling with.
This new tool is as easy as answering a few questions for Spotify, such as where you’re going, who you’re traveling with (yes, there’s an option for pet), and what genres you want to hear.
The first option in the portal after you login is to choose your starting point and destination. I chose Orlando, Florida to Los Angeles, California since this was a trip I took back in July. You can be as specific as you’d like, such as the address to your home or even a hotel, restaurant, or shopping mall. This will fine-tune your trip’s duration. I just chose the cities, and it calculated the trip to be 35 hours and 40 minutes. The map information is supplied by Google Maps.
Once you’ve entered your route, you’ll click “Start Quiz” and it will begin to ask you a few questions to help curate your playlist. I was traveling with my dad, so I just selected “Friends.” I’m not sure why there isn’t a “Family” option.
The next screen asks, “What is your favorite genre for the road?” Your options are: Pop, Hip-Hop/Rap, Country, Rock, Mood, Indie, and EDM. I like a plethora of genres but primarily electronic music, so I selected EDM since it doesn’t allow multiple genres.
After you’ve selected your favorite genre for the road, it will ask you what your drive vibe is. Is it mellow, sing-alongs, high-energy, classic, love sick, pedal to the medal, or slow ride? Since I wouldn’t want the music to thwart my dad and I’s conversation, I selected mellow.
The following question is, “What is your ultimate driving song?” I was happy to see that “Eye of the Tiger,” “Footloose,” and “Don’t Stop Believin'” weren’t options. You have five options: Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” (such a classic!), Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles,” Jason Derulo’s “Ridin’ Solo,” Rascal Flatts’ “Life is a Highway,” Sam Hunt’s “Body Like A Backroad,” and Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker.” I chose Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Once you’ve selected your ultimate driving song, the last question is, “Which best describes your wheels?” As much as I would love to select electric with the picture of the Tesla Model 3, I selected Sedan. Your options are: SUV, Convertible, Electric, Sedan, and Pickup Truck.
Alas, we’ve finished! Now that we’ve answered all of the simple questions we’re ready to get the playlist. You have the option to include tracks with explicit lyrics. My dad and I are big boys, so we can handle the naughty words so I chose to include them.
This was simple, fun, and a great way to discover some new music while jamming out on a long road trip. The playlist Spotify curated for me (embedded below) contains 283 tracks for 19 hours of listening. There are tracks I’ve definitely listened to on Spotify before. (You are allowing Spotify to grab your listening history by allowing Spotify to curate this playlist for you.) Nonetheless, there’s a good batch of oldies, electronic, pop, and everything in between in there.
Happy road tripping!