Spotify AI Playlists

Playlists That Actually Know What You Want to Hear

We've all been there: Spotify suggests a playlist that makes you wonder if an algorithm is secretly plotting against you. "Why would I want to listen to polka covers of 80s hits at 7am on a Tuesday?"

That's why I built this little weekend project—a playlist generator that combines Next.js, Hono.js, and ChatGPT-4o to create playlists that actually understand your musical soul.

Check it out here: Spotify AI Playlists

How This Thing Works

The tech stack is pretty straightforward:

• Next.js for the frontend (because I like things pretty and fast)
• Hono.js for API handling (because speed matters when you need your sad songs ASAP)
• ChatGPT-4o for the smart playlist recommendations (the real MVP here)
• Spotify API integration (for digging into your listening history)
• Python (for generating the playlist cover art, because why not?)

You log in with Spotify, and the app does some digital snooping through your listening history—don't worry, it's not judging your 3am ABBA marathons. It just wants to know what makes your ears happy.

Then you prompt the AI what you want to listen to, click generate and wait a bit.

After it's done, you can save the playlist to your Spotify account, and it even generates a cover art that matches the vibe of your playlist.

The Secret Sauce: Prompts

The real magic happens with prompts. Want a playlist for "pretending I'm the main character in a movie while walking in the rain"? Just type it in! Some of my personal favorites:

• "Music for cooking that makes me feel like a Michelin chef instead of someone burning pasta"
• "Songs that will make my workout feel shorter than it actually is"
• "Tunes for when my code won't compile and I'm questioning my career choices"

The AI takes your prompt, combines it with your listening history, and voilà—a playlist that feels like it was made by a friend who actually knows your taste.

From "Hmm, I Wonder If..." to Working Project

This started when I was procrastinating on actual work and thought, "Could I make something better than Spotify's recommendations without a team of 50 engineers?"

After wrestling with Spotify's API (we had some disagreements), convincing ChatGPT-4o to understand that "sad cowboy hours" is a legitimate musical mood, and putting together a UI that doesn't offend the eyes, it actually worked!

// The heart of the operation
const generatePersonalizedPlaylist = async (userData, userPrompt) => {
  const userTopArtists = await spotify.getUserTopArtists(userData.id);
  const userGenres = extractGenres(userTopArtists);
 
  const playlistSeed = {
    artists: userTopArtists.slice(0, 3).map((artist) => artist.id),
    genres: userGenres.slice(0, 2),
    promptDescription: userPrompt, // The magic ingredient
  };
 
  const aiSuggestions = await gpt4o.generateMusicSuggestions(playlistSeed);
  // Where dreams become playlists
};

But because I like stuff to have personalized, especially playlist cover art, i created a Python script that is running on Flask server that generates the cover art for the playlist based on the prompt you entered.

It will get the image of the random artist from the playlist and then generated a title text over it, that of course ChatGPT-4o generated.

How to Get Your Hands On It

Using it is super simple:

1. Log in with Spotify
2. Type in your playlist prompt (be as specific or weird as you want)
3. Watch as it creates a playlist that somehow knows exactly what you meant
4. Save it to your Spotify and pretend you spent hours curating it

Is it good?

Well, depends. As with every AI prompting, you have to be specific. The more specific you are, the better the results. I mean, if you ask for "music for a party," you might end up with a mix of polka and whale sounds. But if you say "upbeat indie tracks for a summer road trip," you're golden.

I like the fact that for the same prompt, different users will get different results because it takes into account what you actually listen to and not just 4o random songs from the same genre.

Future Plans (If I Find Another Free Weekend)

Since this is just a hobby project, I'm keeping ambitions realistic:

• Playlist generation that can handle even more specific vibes
• Better handling of those obscure genres you think only you listen to
• A feature that explains why it chose each song (for the music nerds)
• Better error handling (because let's be real, we all need that)

My little confession

I use it every day. Literally. Every day. I have already 10 office trap playlists... it's becoming a problem.

It does sometime give me some weird results, that's why i added a delete playlist functionality and regenerate the songs you don't like, or the ones that don't fit in the playlist.

I went on a little road trip with friends, and I used it to generate a playlist for the trip. It was a trap playlist, but it was so good that my friend that doesn't generally listen to trap was like "this is actually good for road trip, i can listen to this".

That's a win for me!

Give It a Spin

If you're tired of playlists that seem to have only a passing familiarity with your music taste, give this little project a try. It might not change your life, but it'll definitely improve your commute.

I implemented a PRO plan that can't be purchased, because I don't want to deal with payments, but I wanted to test the functionality.

If you really want to try it and use it, send me an email, i'll add you to the PRO plan for FREE.

A weekend project that understands both your music taste and that sometimes you just need a playlist for "cleaning the apartment like you're in a montage scene."