My favourite way of really getting to know someone is through the music they listen to. Give me your phone, let me scroll through your Spotify for five minutes, and I could probably tell you more about you than any personality test ever could. Not because listening to a certain genre automatically makes you a certain type of person, but because our music taste is such a personal thing. The songs we choose, the artists we obsess over, the playlists we make, and even the songs we secretly skip when someone else is around all reveal little pieces of who we really are.
Think about your own playlist for example. There’s probably a strange combination of songs that would make absolutely no sense to anyone else. A sad song you listen to when you’re completely happy, a song you would never admit you like but somehow know every single word to, an old Bollywood song you haven’t heard in years, and a random song you discovered last Tuesday that you have already played 47 times. There’s probably also a playlist that was created during a very specific phase of your life and has somehow survived long after that phase ended. Your playlist is basically a collection of different versions of you, all sitting next to each other.
Even the way people organise their music can be revealing. Some people have perfectly curated playlists for every possible situation: getting ready, studying, travelling, late-night drives, showering, looking at the sky, and, of course, having an emotional breakdown. Others have one playlist with 800 completely unrelated songs and just hit shuffle and hope for the best. Some people listen to the same five artists for months, while others are constantly searching for something new. None of these things can actually define someone’s personality, but they can give you little clues about how they experience the world. Music is one of those rare things where people can express themselves without actually having to say anything.
And then there are the lyrics. Sometimes we don’t even love a song because of how it sounds. We love it because it says something we cannot exactly put into words. There are songs that feel like they were written specifically for you. They capture exactly what you feel in a particular moment in your life; a breakup, a summer, your first day of college, a night you never want to forget, or even a version of yourself that doesn’t exist anymore. You can stop listening to a song for years and then hear it randomly somewhere, and suddenly you’re back in the exact place you were when you first heard it. Music has this weird ability to preserve memories. A three-minute song can hold an entire era of your life.
Then come the guilty pleasures. Everyone has them. The aggressively cheesy pop song, the old-school Bollywood track, the artist you would never put on when someone asks what you listen to, but somehow know every lyric to. And honestly, I think those songs say more about us than the music we proudly recommend to other people. When you stop caring about whether something is considered cool and simply listen to whatever makes you happy, you are probably being more yourself than ever. Maybe your personality isn’t the carefully curated playlist you send to someone you’re trying to impress. Maybe it’s the embarrassing song you blast when you’re alone in your room.
The most interesting part is that your playlist changes as you change too. The music you loved three years ago might suddenly feel completely wrong (or something along the lines of resonating with a different version of yourself, one you outgrew.) An artist you once ignored might become your favourite. You might spend a month listening exclusively to heartbreak songs despite having absolutely no reason to be heartbroken, and then suddenly switch to upbeat music because life feels good again. Your playlist becomes a timeline without you even realising it. There’s the song you played during exam season, the song that reminds you of your best friend, the song you discovered on a trip, and the song you associate with someone you don’t even talk to anymore. You may not remember when you added every song, but you remember how they made you feel.
So, a playlist can probably not tell you who someone is the way an actual personality test would. But it can tell you what makes them feel something. It can show you what they listen to when they’re happy, what they turn to when they’re sad, what they play when they want to escape, and what songs they keep returning to even after years. And maybe that’s a much more interesting way of getting to know someone. So next time you’re trying to understand someone, forget asking them their personality type or countless questions. Just ask them to send you their playlist. Their answer might tell you more than they realise.