It was a rare sunny London morning as I walked to college. My earphones blaring my daily Spotify Blend with my best friend of a lifetime. Lost in the urban tide of The Square Mile, a jarring notification snapped me back: my phone’s location had (finally) switched from India to the United Kingdom, triggering an app reboot. In seconds, my Spotify wiped clean—and with it, the five-year-old, ever-evolving Blend playlist I had shared with my best friend.
We grew up together in Calcutta. I’d witnessed her fall in love with Joni Mitchell for the first time, and dimmed the lights when Vikram Singh Khangura’s renditions of Tagore’s love ballads moved us to tears. Over the years, our clashing yet occasionally overlapping tastes scored countless shared memories. But it was our decision of going our individual ways for college—me to Delhi and she to Bengaluru—that put us to the ultimate test.
Heading off to college, in the cities of your dreams, is the first stepping-stone towards navigating long-distance friendships in the nearly-adult world we now inhabit. From seeing each other all day in the corridors of our familiar middle-school building, to adjusting to alien metropolises alone with just text messages serving as daily or weekly updates: it’s the sort of navigation that no amount of Sally Rooney novels or Greta Gerwig films can prepare you enough for. So like most people around us, we too found ourselves bogged with similar questions: Could our friendship survive the turbulence of multi-city, long-distance college experiences?
Spotify Blend thought so, with a 98% match. Blend today is what the mixtape was to the ’90s kids and the CD-swaps to the noughties teens—the ultimate declaration of love. So before we knew it, Blend became our lifeline. When calls failed (and there were plenty) and chats felt tedious (an everyday affair), our shared playlist spoke volumes. Chai Met Toast’s sonic rendering of yellow paper daisies? New crush alert. Coke Studio covers by Abida Parveen? I was knee-deep in my ‘dil aur delhi’ life. A sudden influx of bangers from the Pushpa album, and sonorous ballads by Ilaiyaraaja? My girl was making the most of her life in the heart of Bengaluru, discovering the joys of Southern Indian music. A not-so-sudden throwback to Chadrabindoo’s Amar Raat Jaga Taara? Oh boy, we both missed home.
On that fateful morning in London, minutes before my weekly seminar, losing access to our Blend felt like an apocalyptic end of its own. Without our shared music by our side—classics by Pancham from the 80s for my best friend and Anusheh Anadil’s covers of folk tunes for me—how were we going to navigate the physical distance between us anymore? But like us, navigating peripatetic relationships in the modern world is something that other Gen Z folks are also learning to juggle, with a little help from digital platforms. Predictably like most symptoms of our generation, our melodic choice of platform was not exceptional. There’s a growing tribe of 20-somethings connecting with remote loved ones on Blend.
Himanshu Dutta, a recent graduate from the University of Delhi and a culture writer shares a similar playlist with the first friend he ever made in college. Today as the friends find themselves at two ends of the country (her in Jaipur, him in Darjeeling), and the blues of staying apart get overwhelming, Dutta finds himself seeking solace in their shared Blend. He first heard “Atop a Cake” by Alvvays on his friend’s Instagram story, and it has been a recurring musical refrain in their three-year-long friendship. “Even though it wasn't a song she introduced to me directly, in my head, it will always be her song. It has consistently featured on our Blend, and I play it when I’m on my own. It evokes emotions and memories that go back to college, where our friendship ultimately took off and established itself,” he says.
While the year-end trend-fest of Spotify Wrapped might remind us of the song we listened to a million times this past year, Blend is a reminder of a real connection with someone we know IRL. Suyog Raghuvanshi, a Delhi-based student of History, agrees. “With her (his long-distance best friend) in Toronto now, there is the issue of different time zones. Blend allows me virtually to experience the same space as her,” he explains. “Although we are not experiencing time in the same linear fashion, there is solace in knowing that she could be listening to the same songs as I am, from the same Blend, in the same order, perhaps not at the same time,” he explains. But does such a transmitted, musical connection across oceans help one understand their loved one any better? “As sad as it is, I think no digital platform can make me understand her (and by extension myself) better,” he says with a wistful shake of his head.
If remote friends are connecting, lovers obviously follow suit. For Anwesha Dutta, a 23 year-old psychology graduate, the Blend feature she shares with her long-distance boyfriend of five years has been a pivotal tool in navigating their distance-romance. “He listens to Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd a lot, but when he misses me, I see it reflected in our Blend. Some of my favourite indie tracks magically appear on our playlist, with his name icon next to it,” she adds with a chuckle. Srijani Datta, a climate advocate and scholar based out of Oxford agrees. “Navigating a cross-continental relationship is hard, and sometimes you are tired and don’t have the energy for a video call. Listening to each other’s music choices makes me feel closer to him,” she reflects.
However, for some these blended playlists are as much about navigating the contours of joy as they are about dealing with loss. Delhi-based Deepa M. Varghese made a Blend with her former boyfriend, out of their shared love for blues. A courtship heavily marked with musical memories, she recalls tracks like “Our House” by Crosby, Stills and Nash that were a recurring presence on their playlist. Today, despite having parted ways, their Blend is something Varghese finds herself occasionally returning to. “I don't speak to my ex anymore, but I know what they're going through by just looking at the Blend,” she muses.
“Each generation finds its voice through different means, and today, we have social media tools. It helps capture feelings for those who are not so articulate,” says intimacy expert Aili Seghetti, and founder of The Intimacy Curator. Ruchi Ruuh, a Delhi-based relationship counsellor adds, “You not only share music, but also co-create an evolving playlist. That provides a sense of togetherness, and co-ordination where you are actively building something for each other, without compromising your individual taste.” Although these daily shape-shifting Blends barely hold light to the tactile constancy of mixtapes, Seghetti finds herself hopeful. “Technology can alienate or connect people and features like Spotify Blend do foster connection. It may not replicate the nostalgia of mixtapes, but it offers a new way to connect through lyrics and sharing options.”
Modern-day relationships are complex in their need to exist across time-zones and geographies. But in that moment of virtual connection, through a playlist that changes in real time, one feels a moment of peace with the inevitability of navigating physical distances that threaten to choke hold our closeness to those farthest from us. In that moment, the distance notwithstanding, you are there with each other, listening to your favourite song and the lonely cost of growing up loses—at least for a brief spare moment.
