Music Monday: Am I Just a Depressed Person??

Having joined a community of writers, there's always lots of talk about "playlists". Some of my writer friends take  a lot of time putting together groups of songs for writing certain scenes, inspiring voice in characters, and representing the novel in it's entirety. I even posted about a song inspiring a whole scene/idea and I have a playlist of sorts.

But, I found that I didn't really plan the songs that went into the list. It turned out that I tended to listen to specific songs while writing and skipped over the others. After a little while, I moved those songs to a list and have added others over time after hearing them.

So what does my playlist sound like? In a word: Depressing. I could make an excuse and say it's that way because my book is so full of sad emotion, confusion, and anger. But, no. Really, I just flat out like the music. When I look at my big playlist (not just for writing), I notice how incredibly depressing most of the songs are! Sure, there's the occasional happy, upbeat song.

Thinking on it now, I think this is genetic. No, really. My dad loves a particular song about some guy drowning (either physically or metaphorically, I don't know). I like the same song! We both know how utterly depressing the words are, but it doesn't make us dislike the song. In fact, I think it makes me like it more. My mom thinks we're both a little nuts. I'll agree.

So, what about you? What do your playlists look like? Do they tend to have a lot of the same songs from novel to novel or are they completely dependent on what you're writing? What about your overall listening preferences? Is there a wide mix of music, or do you find a lot of the songs following a similar theme?