AI Made Me a Marketer Mixtape
Earlier this year, my best friend and I created a shared playlist that we add to on a weekly basis. It’s brought me such joy, logging in to see what new songs await me. It’s fun to hear a song and know she’ll like it.
So far we have over 24 hours of music that spans decades, genres, and emotions. It’s one of my favorite things of 2026.
We’re both in the same industry (she communications, me marketing) so it made me think about what songs we’d add to a work playlist.
I took the task to Claude to see what songs it would recommend based on the industry.
I actually like what it suggested.
I did have to prompt it several times to make it more punk (I can’t, in good conscience, not have a playlist without the Clash).
The link to “Marketer’s Mixtape” is above, if you want to have a listen.
The Full Playlist, Track by Track
Here’s every song, in order, and what Claude tells me each song represents about the work we do.
| # | Song | Artist | What It Represents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Don’t Stop Believin’ | Journey | Perseverance through the grind, the long build before any campaign or career pays off |
| 2 | Eye of the Tiger | Survivor | Competitive drive, the mentality you need going into a pitch or a launch |
| 3 | Word Up | Cameo | Word-of-mouth marketing, the oldest and still most powerful channel |
| 4 | Ka-Ching! | Shania Twain | A wink at consumer culture and the cash-register mentality some brands lean on |
| 5 | Right On the Money | Alan Jackson | Hitting your numbers, the quiet pride of a forecast that actually lands |
| 6 | Respect | Aretha Franklin | Demanding your worth, whether that’s a negotiation or a brand asserting its market position |
| 7 | I Will Survive | Gloria Gaynor | Resilience after a rough quarter, a failed launch, or a layoff |
| 8 | Say My Name | Destiny’s Child | Brand recognition and recall, insisting on being remembered |
| 9 | No Scrubs | TLC | Setting standards, an analogy for lead qualification and audience targeting |
| 10 | Can’t Get You Out of My Head | Kylie Minogue | The literal goal of every earworm campaign, stickiness and brand recall |
| 11 | The Model | Kraftwerk | The advertising industry from the inside, told through the story of the model selling the product |
| 12 | Know Your Product | The Saints | A literal marketing commandment, wrapped in punk skepticism |
| 13 | Price Tag | Jessie J | A reminder that value shouldn’t be reduced to a number, even in a numbers-driven job |
| 14 | Royals | Lorde | Rejecting manufactured luxury and the aspirational lifestyle brands try to sell |
| 15 | Money (That’s What I Want) | Barrett Strong | The founding anthem of “give the people what they want,” for better or worse |
| 16 | Natural’s Not In It | Gang of Four | A direct critique of manufactured desire and how marketing shapes consumer behavior |
| 17 | Lost in the Supermarket | The Clash | Feeling swallowed by consumer culture, the non-negotiable inclusion |
| 18 | Merchandise | Fugazi | Punk’s sharpest anti-commercialization anthem, a gut check on selling out |
| 19 | 21st Century (Digital Boy) | Bad Religion | Skepticism toward media and technology-driven consumer culture |
| 20 | This Is the End (For You My Friend) | Anti-Flag | A warning about corporate culture eating everything it touches |
| 21 | Macy’s Day Parade | Green Day | A quieter reflection on consumerism and materialism around the holidays |
| 22 | Busted | Ray Charles | The honest, unglamorous flip side of chasing money, being broke and drowning in bills |
| 23 | The Sound of Silence | Simon & Garfunkel | Media saturation and the noise of too many messages competing for attention |
| 24 | Everybody Hurts | R.E.M. | The case for empathy-driven, human-centered messaging over purely transactional pitches |
| 25 | Dreams | Fleetwood Mac | Steady, hypnotic focus, the mental state needed for deep strategy work |
| 26 | Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) | Stevie Wonder | Actually delivering on a promise, closing the loop between pitch and results |
| 27 | Man in the Mirror | Michael Jackson | Starting change with yourself before asking anything of your audience |
| 28 | Lean on Me | Bill Withers | Trust as the real currency of any brand relationship |
| 29 | Unforgettable | Nat King Cole | The actual goal: being remembered, not for tricking anyone, but for being genuinely worth remembering |
The Verdict
Here’s how Claude tells me it ordered the playlist:
Twenty-nine tracks, four acts:
- The hustle — motivation and momentum
- The brand machine — messaging, stickiness, and standing out
- The critique — money, greed, and consumerism, unfiltered
- The resolution — trust, empathy, and legacy
It closes on “Unforgettable” on purpose.
Nice touch.
Tell Me Your Thoughts
If you’re in marketing, I want to know what’s missing. If you’re not, I’m even more curious what you’d add, or what track on here you’d fight me on.
This started as background noise for a Tuesday morning. It turned into a fun reflection on marketing’s reputation. Not bad for a Spotify playlist.
This blog is a place for me to share my latest career insights, meanderings, and plot twists about the world of marketing.
Message me on LinkedIn and tell me what you think.