Spotify Creates a Custom Podcast Experience Aligned With the Stars

Whether you set your day according to your chart or just indulge in the occasional horoscope, it's fun to learn how what's written in the stars aligns to your life. And from hilarious memes and social videos to daily podcast episodes, there's no shortage of mediums to get the latest on your astrological sign.

Spotify listeners have plenty of ways to consume the cosmos.

They can check out our Cosmic Playlists or pick from a selection from the playlist shelf on Bumble's profile curated by Aliza Kelly, host of the podcasts Astrology Dating and Stars Like Us. They can also visit Astrology Club, a podcast hub for both the devoted and beginners. Now Spotify is bringing a new astrological listening experience made just for you with the Astrology Club microsite-created by global interactive production studio makemepulse with illustration by Lebassis, represented by Jelly London.

Visiting the microsite unlocks a variety of astrological goodies, including romance advice and relationship insights from Bumble's Compatibility Corner and personalized podcast playlists based on your sign that are curated by Spotify and reviewed by astrologist Aliza Kelly.

For the Record sat down with Aliza to talk about love, podcasts, and everything under the stars.

How did you first get into astrology? I have always been into astrology. I have an amazing Sagittarius mom who collected books and was generally very curious and open minded about the world. In my apartment growing up, we had books on Christianity and Catholicism next to a book on astrology, next to a book on the Quran, next to a book on Kabbalah. There were no sorts of boundaries as to what I could explore. And from a young age, I was always really interested in astrology, mysticism, and alternative practices that had more magical roots. So while I've always been interested in it, I guess my learning began to crystallize when I was in my early 20s and I was living in Los Angeles. I was living out what I thought I was going to be very happy pursuing and decided it wasn't fulfilling. At that time, as so many people do, when I was in the process of looking for answers and trying to figure out how to really get to know myself better, I took my astrology interests further. And I actually started an astrology dating app with a friend of mine from college-this was 10 years ago.

How should people use astrology readings and how shouldn't they? I think that astrology is an incredible tool for self-awareness and self-actualization. What makes astrology so successful is that it is an incredibly complex and rich vocabulary for understanding who we are, how we move through the world, our likes, our dislikes, our passions or proclivities. Astrology provides us with a ton of beautiful, informative insights that help us get to know ourselves and how we relate to our environments better. We can really help guide our person by having this outside perspective on different dimensions of who we are. But where I think people use astrology in less than ideal ways is when we stereotype, judge, typecast, or set boundaries on our relationships based on it. And we become sort of like dogmatic in jest, regurgitating information that we receive about it without actually exploring it and taking the time to see if that aligns with someone, if that checks out, or if that resonates.

I love to be surprised by the way that somebody manifests and metabolizes an energy that I have already an interpretation of. And if their experience with it differs from my interpretation, that's beautiful and exciting and really thought provoking because that allows me to refine my understanding of these different archetypes.

Do you approach writing horoscopes differently than how you approach astrology in an auditory format like podcasts? So with my written work, there's definitely a lot of pressure on wanting to make sure that you are inspiring people. You know, being very clear and specific in the directives, in making sure that people know that there's a lot of interpretation and to approach it with an open mind. That type of language needs to punctuate a lot of the writing. Whereas with a podcast or an auditory form, I can sort of deliver messages a little faster because I don't need to have to constantly be like, Who is this for? Am I being too intense? Is somebody going to misinterpret it if they read this wrong? [For a podcast] just being able to communicate something with my voice and being able to, you know, intimate differently based on my inflection is really helpful. And people can know if I'm joking or being sarcastic. I don't want people to think that, you know, if I'm saying something is doomed, that I actually mean that it is like, truly, definitively doomed. I usually would use something like that more playfully or in jest. So it's easier to have sort of different tones through the podcast than when you're just working with writing.

How do you see podcast genres and podcasts overlapping? Are there particular types of podcasts that might interest a particular sign? Well, I think that it would be hard to say that one sign would be more inclined to listen to a certain podcast genre than the other. But like with this project, with the Astrology Club, we created different podcast playlists based on the zodiac signs, and we curated them to touch on some of the qualities of the signs. For instance, with the Aries podcast playlist, we made sure that we emphasize things around like ambition, winning, passion, and excitement. And with Capricorn, which is very much associated with working hard and entrepreneurship, we incorporated podcasts that had those sorts of themes along with how to manage burnout and take a step back to create a healthier dynamic with whatever is on your plate. I think that it's really fun and exci

LINK:	https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-09-12/spotify-creates-a-custom-podca...
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