I'm delighted to announce a new HuffPost partnership with Spotify, the popular music streaming service. You'll now see a new feature, the Spotify Play Button, on various pages across HuffPost, enabling you to enjoy music curated by HuffPost editors to complement whatever it is you're reading or viewing. Spotify and HuffPost share several key strands of DNA: we're both deeply social, community-fueled platforms that aim to help our users discover, experience and share the best of what you can find online. (And even though HuffPost was born in 2005 and Spotify in 2006, that still counts as the same Internet generation, so I don't anticipate any "turn that crazy music down" shouting matches.)
For me -- and I suspect this is true for almost everyone -- music is an essential ingredient of life. Over the years, I have formed deeply personal attachments to certain pieces of music. I have enjoyed the music I love in solitude and also shared it with friends. And I first met Bernard Levin, the London Times columnist I dated in my 20s, on a "Face the Music" panel. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of music, and for our second date, he took me to Convent Garden to see Wagner's The Mastersingers. As the curtain went up, he whispered to me, "That's the opera I want to hear just before I die."
The opera I want to hear just before I die is not Wagner's The Mastersingers but Mozart's The Magic Flute. And, as you'll see from my playlist, my own tastes range from country and classical to French pop and world music, and whatever new songs I discover on my daughters' iPods.
So I'm delighted that music will now play a larger role on HuffPost. Today, our editors at several HuffPost verticals are sharing their favorite playlists. Among them are the best Bay Area bands from HuffPost San Francisco, songs for the road from HuffPost Travel, and the best environmentally-themed songs that will inspire you to save the planet from HuffPost Green.
Finally, I'd like to kick things off by sharing my own personal playlist. My iPod is my constant travel companion, and last week Kathy and Tom Freston (my go-to world music guru) gifted me with a new iPod pre-loaded with 11,000 songs from Tom's collection. I put it on shuffle and discover whole new worlds. Here are a few of my current favorites:
So, enjoy the music, and join us in welcoming Spotify to HuffPost. As always, please use the comments section to let us know what you think.