Why I built makelist
The story behind makelist.co and the frustration that inspired it
Why I built makelist
I love community radio.
There's something special about tuning into a show on NTS and hearing a DJ play something you've never encountered before. No algorithm chose it. No playlist curator optimised it for engagement. Just someone who loves music, sharing what they're into.
Community radio is one of the best ways to discover new music. The DJs are genuine enthusiasts. They dig deep. They play things you won't hear anywhere else. And when you find a DJ whose taste clicks with yours, every show becomes a treasure hunt.
I also love mixing.
When I hear an amazing DJ set on the radio, I want to understand it. What tracks did they use? How did they build the journey? How did they transition between those two songs that shouldn't work together but somehow do?
So I started recreating sets. I'd find the tracklist, build a Spotify playlist with the same tracks, and then try mixing them myself. It's a brilliant way to learn. You get inside the DJ's head. You understand their choices. You develop your own taste and technique by studying people who are better than you.
The frustration
Here's where the problem started.
NTS publishes tracklists for every show. Brilliant. But turning a 25-track tracklist into a Spotify playlist meant:
For a typical 2-hour show, this took 20-30 minutes. Twenty to thirty minutes of copying, pasting, switching tabs, and clicking. Not listening to music. Not mixing. Not discovering. Just tedious data entry.
I started doing it less. I'd hear a show I loved, think "I should turn that into a playlist", remember how annoying the process was, and tell myself I'd do it later. Later never came.
The solution
There had to be a better way.
What if I could just give something the URL and get a playlist back?
That's what makelist.co does. Paste a URL. Get a playlist. That's it.
I built it initially just for NTS, because that's what I use most. But it quickly became clear that the same frustration exists everywhere. Mixcloud descriptions. SoundCloud uploads. Music blogs. Festival lineups. YouTube video descriptions. Any time there's a list of tracks on a webpage, someone wants to turn it into a playlist.
So I made it work with any website. The AI reads the page, finds the track information, matches it on Spotify, and builds your playlist. Whatever format the tracklist is in - timestamped, numbered, "Artist - Track", "Track by Artist" - it handles it.
What it means for discovery
The thing I didn't expect: removing the friction changed how I discover music.
When playlist creation was tedious, I only bothered for shows I already knew I loved. High commitment, low experimentation.
Now I convert tracklists on a whim. A show looks interesting? Convert it, listen while doing something else, see if it clicks. A DJ I've never heard of? Convert their latest set and give it a chance. A festival lineup? Convert the whole thing and explore.
I discover more because exploring costs nothing.
What I hope it does for you
I built makelist.co because I wanted it to exist. I hope it's useful to you too.
If you're a DJ learning your craft by studying sets, this should save you hours.
If you're a music lover who wants to dig deeper into what you hear on the radio, this makes it effortless.
If you've ever had that thought - "I should turn this into a playlist" - and then didn't because it was too much work, this removes the barrier.
The global track ID community knows how deep the rabbit hole goes. Every mix contains discoveries. Every tracklist is a map. makelist.co just makes it easier to follow.
Paste a URL. Get a playlist. Keep discovering.
Cal