A playlist is a sequence of tracks meant to be played one after another. The word comes from radio, where it described the records a station planned to play, and the idea lived on in home-made mixtapes and CD compilations before becoming the main way many people listen on streaming services.
On platforms such as Spotify, playlists come in three broad kinds: those made by listeners, editorial playlists curated by the service’s staff and algorithmic playlists generated for each user from their listening habits. For artists and labels, a place on a popular list can bring many new listeners, which is why mood-based playlists for studying, sleeping or focusing matter so much to a genre like lo-fi.
A good playlist has a shape: a consistent mood, smooth changes of tempo and key, and enough variety to avoid fatigue. Mondolofi’s mood playlists follow that logic, grouping jazz lo-fi by moment and mood rather than by artist.