The best souvenir you can bring back from your vacation is actually free – but only if you keep your ears open.
I make two playlists for almost every vacation.
The first one is finalized before I even step out the door – a mix of songs I currently have on repeat and old favorites that remind me of wherever I’m headed. For my trip to London, that meant a lot of the Beatles and McFly. For my trip to Sorrento, it was songs from the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack.
I can download all these songs in one swoop and easily stream them while I’m running through the airport or while I’m half-asleep on the plane.
I’ve nicknamed it my “planelist,” as opposed to “playlist.” The jury’s still out on whether that’s corny or cute.
The second vacation playlist is made from songs I’ve Shazamed throughout my trip. If my ears perk up at dinner or while lounging by the pool, I quickly scribble the name/artist down and add it to my collection once I get home. The finished product is an audio scrapbook, almost, that I can refer back to whenever I’m feeling sentimental.
Even for destinations across the country or across oceans, I noticed similarities between my Shazams – unsurprisingly lots of Khruangbin wafting through overpriced coffee shops.
But there are, of course, huge differences in the music that hotels choose.
When I traveled to Salt Lake City for Kilby Block Party, the pool area played “Breathless” by The Corrs and “Don’t Wanna” by Haim. I somehow caught both songs while 30-something-year-olds with festival wristbands debated whether Lollapalooza or Outside Lands is better.
At the trendy Ryder Hotel in Charleston, with its pink cushy sofas sprinkled with leftover glitter from bachelorette parties, I heard “Good Luck, Babe” by Chappell Roan and “Beg For You” by Charli xcx and Rina Sawayama.
For my most recent trip to Los Angeles, I decided to pay extra close attention to the music at the Kimpton Everly in Hollywood, where Atwood Magazine was invited to stay for two nights.
Admittedly, I’ve stayed at other Kimpton Hotels before (shoutout to West Hollywood’s La Peer), but the Everly has an especially bright, clean, fresh feel to it. The lobby’s high ceilings and cozy-yet-industrial-chic furniture feel so uniquely LA in the best way.
The music in the lobby, I noticed, matches that carefully curated aesthetic.
When checking in around 2 PM, there was a mix of easily recognizable songs, like “Often” by The Weeknd and more background music-y tracks like “Stay, Pt. 2” by Extremely Bad Man and “Geek Out” by Gareth Donkin.
When grabbing my morning coffee the next day, I heard (you guessed it) a Khruangbin song playing quietly in the lobby. They also played a fun cover of “New Person, Same Old Mistakes” by Tame Impala.
Kimpton Everly takes its connection to music one step further, recently introducing their live performance series “Everly Unplugged” on Thursdays, where artists are invited to play a set in the lobby.
It gives local musicians a chance to get some exposure, while giving guests a closer, more intimate connection to the community.
Additionally, Jane Q now sells pizza in boxes donning a vinyl record across the top. The concept, called White Label Pizza, was born in Hollywood’s Vinyl District and is marketed more as a “neighborhood soundtrack” than just a late night bite.
Each box comes with a unique QR code that unlocks a curated Spotify playlist, giving customers their own special dinner soundtrack.
“Press play, open the box, and let the music set the mood,” Kimpton Everly said. “Whether you’re dining in, ordering to your hotel room, or enjoying pizza at home, every pie comes with its own soundtrack.”
The fact that the hotel is just steps away from the Capitol Records building was not lost on me, either.
The area around Hollywood and Vine was once known as “Radio City,” thanks to the radio studios and music businesses that filled Vine Street in the 1930s and ’40s. NBC had a studio here, with Capitol Records joining the scene in the 1950s with its now-famous circular building.
The Walk of Fame also runs along Vine near the tower, with stars belonging to musicians who recorded at Capitol. The iconic record store, Amoeba Music, is just a few blocks south on Hollywood Boulevard.
Kimpton Everly’s Director of Food and Beverage, Andrew Priest, told Atwood Magazine that the White Label pizza inclusion, in particular, gives “homage” to the neighborhood’s history, “paying tribute” to the performances that make Hollywood what it is.
These references to music throughout the hotel were more noticeable than my other stays, I think. It felt less like something in the background and more of an element incorporated into the story.
But Kimpton Everly isn’t the only hotel that carefully curates their playlists – according to experts, there’s data that helps inform a business’ song choices.
Music platform trackstudios.io reports that 70–100 BPM is the standard range for hotel lobby music. Having songs with slower tempos encourages guests to slow down and relax, which is especially important during the check-in process.
Some hotels even play different music depending on the time of day. Morning check-outs typically have more energetic hits, which are swapped out for relaxed sounds for afternoon arrivals. In the evenings, some hotels opt for softer music to welcome guests coming back from dinner or a night out.
But what works in one hotel can feel “flat or rushed” in another, Nathan Green told Atwood Magazine. Green’s company, New Level Radio, builds music programs for well-known hotels and casinos including Palms Casino Resort, MGM Grand, and Foxwoods.
“The key is curating music for the individual location based on its demographics and time of day when different music and BPM’s are needed,” Green said, adding that Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas has 50 separate music “zones,” so the pool, the steakhouse, and the lobby each have their own programming that shifts through the day.
“Palms has a loyal over-50 daytime crowd that wants to hear classics,” Green said. “By evening, the crowd gets younger, and the music moves into the 2000s and more current stuff. Guests don’t notice the switch. They just feel like the place gets them.”
Bruce Flohr of California’s Hotel SLO told Atwood Magazine that because the hotel is located in a college town, on graduation weekend they created a playlist with songs about moving on to the next chapter – anything from Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” to “I Miss You” by Blink-182.
“What was fun about that curated playlist is that, on more than one occasion, we found that the lobby bar or rooftop bar had quite a few sing-alongs with both graduates and their parents, which created some really great moments for everyone involved, both guests and staff,” Flohr said.
At Kimpton Everly, guests range from vinyl-obsessed tourists making the pilgrimage to Amoeba Music to Hollywood Bowl attendees looking for a convenient place to crash after a concert.
I wouldn’t say any shifts in the music were particularly noticeable, but maybe that’s the beauty of it.
Nothing felt so contrived that I found myself getting distracted. Instead, the music shaped the experience, just like the dewy lighting, the intoxicating smell in the hallways, or the view of Capitol Records from the pool.
It was a detail that made the hotel feel connected to its surroundings and, ultimately, gave me exactly what I wanted from my vacation – a handful of new songs to take home with me.
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© courtesy of The Kimpton Everly
© courtesy of The Kimpton Everly
