Is your playlist built on seasons or on night walks? An eight-question taste test

When you make a playlist, what do you look at first? Pick the answer that feels closest for each question, and when you've finished all eight, count which letter, A, B, C or D, came up most often. There are no right or wrong answers. The same song can go into one person's playlist by season, another's by the hour, and someone else's by the pace of their steps.

Each type comes with three songs. They're from four lists the NONOL editorial team put together in October by counting words in the lyrics of songs on the Bugs weekly chart and measuring their tempo and length.

Eight questions

1. When you start a new playlist, what do you decide first?

• A Whether it suits the season right now
• B What time of day you'll listen to it
• C Whether it's for walking or for running
• D Whether any song is too long

2. If you named your playlist, it would be…

• A 'The day the first snow falls'
• B '3 a.m.'
• C 'A 20-minute walk to work'
• D '3-minute cut'

3. In a song you're hearing for the first time, which words catch your ear first?

• A Spring, summer, autumn, winter
• B Night, dawn, tonight
• C Moving words like 'run' and 'jump'
• D Not the words, but how many seconds until the chorus

4. When do you listen to music most?

• A The first week of a new season
• B Before falling asleep
• C While walking or running
• D In every short gap while getting around

5. When the song you're playing goes past four minutes…

• A If it feels like the season, I listen to the end
• B At night, the longer the better
• C If the beat fits, I keep walking to the end
• D I skip to the next song

6. Walking down the street with earphones in, you…

• A Check the season by the color of the leaves
• B Take the long way, down the street with the lamps on
• C Find your feet already matching the beat
• D Finish a whole song while waiting for one traffic light

7. When a friend asks for song recommendations, you start with…

• A Songs for this season
• B Songs that sound good at night
• C Songs your feet can keep up with on a walk
• D A set of songs in the two-minute range

8. What kind of song fills most of your playlist?

• A Songs with a season in the title or lyrics
• B Songs set at night
• C Songs with a clear beat
• D Songs under three minutes

Results

Find the letter that came up most and scroll down. If two letters tied, read both results.

Mostly A · The Season Collector

You collect the seasons inside songs. Hear spring or winter in a lyric and the song goes straight into that season's folder. When we counted the lyrics of the 100 songs on the late-September chart, summer came up most, 16 times, and autumn only twice.

• LEECHANGSUB 'Four seasons, and you' — From the scent of flowers on a spring day to a summer day's love, the colors of autumn and then winter, all four seasons are in one song. It was the only song among those 100 to sing all four. Seasons list · Music video · Apple Music
• HANRORO 'Let Me Love My Youth' — The Korean title, '입춘', is the name of the day on the old calendar when spring begins. The song sings spring six times, waiting for it, greeting it and staying until the spring days wither. Seasons list · Music video · Apple Music
• Red Velvet 'Surfin' Boy' — Lines like '그 여름날의 우리들' ("us, on that summer day") and '이 여름날의 설렘들' ("the flutters of this summer day") sing summer five times, more than any other song on the same chart. The photo at the top of this page is from 1:40 in this music video. Seasons list · Music video · Apple Music

Mostly B · The Night Walker

You press play only after the sun goes down. Of the same 100 songs, 37 sang about the night, and the word for evening never came up once. The songs on the chart seem to love the night too.

• DAY6 'Love me or Leave me' — The word tonight comes up six times. 'Baby love me or leave me tonight' asks for an answer before the night is over. Night list · Official audio · Apple Music
• JANNABI 'For Lovers Who Hesitate' — '추억할 그 밤 위에 갈피를 꽂고 선' ("standing there, slipping a bookmark into the night to remember"). It's a line that marks a night gone by, like a page in a book. Night list · Music video · Apple Music
• ALLDAY PROJECT 'ONE MORE TIME' — Night gets chopped into little pieces, as in 'ni-ni-night'. Counting tonight, it comes up four times. Night list · Official audio · Apple Music

Mostly C · The Step Matcher

Your feet find the beat before you do. A song's tempo is measured in BPM, beats per minute: how many beats arrive in one minute. Take one step per beat, and the number of steps you take in a minute matches the BPM. Walking studies count more than 100 steps a minute as 'moderate intensity' exercise.

• NewJeans 'Hype Boy' — We measured it at 99.99, which rounds to exactly 100. The moment your steps lock onto the beat, a moderate-intensity walk begins. Tempo list · Music video · Apple Music
• HUNTR/X 'Golden' — 123. Walk to the beat for its 3 minutes 15 seconds and you'll take about 400 steps. Tempo list · Lyric video · Apple Music
• BLACKPINK 'JUMP' — 145. One step per beat with a 70cm stride is a brisk walk that covers 6.1km in an hour. Tempo list · Music video · Apple Music

Mostly D · The Three-Minute Cut

You like songs that are short and punchy. When we measured the 100 songs on the chart from the second half of September, 30 were under three minutes. One traffic light, one bus stop, and the song is over.

• JENNIE 'like JENNIE' — 2 minutes 3 seconds. The shortest of those 100 songs. Under-3-minutes list · Music video · Apple Music
• ILLIT 'NOT CUTE ANYMORE' — 2 minutes 12 seconds. Its tempo is 99, so even walking to the beat all the way through is only about 220 steps. Under-3-minutes list · Music video · Apple Music
• ROSÉ 'toxic till the end' — 2 minutes 36 seconds. It's on 'rosie', the full-length album from December 2024. Under-3-minutes list · Music video · Apple Music

If all four types made one playlist together, they'd probably start by looking for a two-minute song to walk to on an autumn night. On your next walk, try slipping in a song from a result that isn't yours.