On the occasion of the 2019 elections to the European Parliament (23–26 May), Spotify published a playlist called Get Vocal, Europe! and alerted users in EU member countries of its existence. But this is not a first: Election-themed playlists have been published before by Spotify. The earliest example I was able to find are the November 2018 midterm elections in the US on the occasion of which playlists were published with songs that were “uniquely popular” in individual states around that time.

The Get Vocal, Europe! playlist takes a different approach: There are no separate playlists for individual countries. Rather, there is one playlist that features one song by an artist from each of the 28 countries that are currently members of the European Union. Transnational elections seem particularly apt for such an approach. Despite services like Spotify, music tends to have a hard time crossing borders – even within the European Union. And whenever there is a language barrier, the likelihood of a song becoming popular in another country is close to zero. The Get Vocal, Europe! playlist won’t change that, but it is a welcome opportunity to eavesdrop on the music taste of the neighbours for once.

But what is on the Get Vocal, Europe! playlist? Outside Spotify, I have not been able to find a full list of the featured artists and songs. Even within Spotify, there is no information with respect to the countries the artists are supposed to represent. The table below gives this information and adds the duration of the songs as well as the language they use (in the ISO 639-1 format). Links in the artist column point to Wikipedia articles in English (wherever available) or local languages. Links in the title column point to lyrics websites (mostly Genius). Additions and corrections are welcome. Enjoy – and get vocal!

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