Some of our playlist themes are obvious, like “Alaska Indie” or “Alaska Soul and R&B.” Our geographic playlists are pretty straightforward, too, with songs that have roots in that community or region.

Others invite questions, so here’s what we’re looking for as we expand these playlists and build more:

• Alaska Native Voices: music in all genres by Indigenous Alaskans, the culture bearers and traditional custodians of this place for thousands of years.

• Alaska’s Acoustic Roots: bluegrass, folk, and trad vibes. Yeah, we know occasionally an electric guitar drops in, but it can join the party.

• Alaska Trail Mix: an energizing playlist to keep the heart rate up

• Ambient Alaska: no lyrics, just long-play music that allows listeners some space and time to exist

• Alaska Chill: super-mellow music, with and without lyrics

• Alaska Coffeehouse: a medium-chill mix that’s not exclusively acoustic.

• Alaska Rocks: straight-up rock ‘n’ roll.

• Arctic Cocktail Hour: music for hitting the town, but in Xtra Tuffs, because that’s how we do things.

• Black Voices of Alaska**: all-genre playlists by Black Alaskan artists, with a radio-friendly spinoff version

• Jazz Up North: original Alaskan jazz compositions, featuring many composers from the Alaska Real Book. No covers on this list!

• Hardcore Alaska**: a mix of punk, hardcore, and metal, along with some adjacent genres if they can keep up.

• Home in Alaska for the Holidays: songs for the end of the year, including Solstice, Christmas, Hannukah, and the New Year.

• Love Alaska**: a mix of love songs, originally created for Valentine’s Day with the help of curating songwriter Karrie Pavish Anderson.

• North Country: contemporary country music

• Out the Road: the small town mix, an all-genre playlist from Alaskan communities with fewer than 10,000 souls

• Sounds of Southeast Alaska: music from the Inside Passage, focusing on communities besides Juneau

(Why do we use “Alaska” so much in the titles? To make them easy to search for!)

Some playlists don’t appear on the dropdown list on our submission form. We occasionally create playlists for special events or promotions, or invite a guest DJ to curate a mix for us. These won’t appear as options when submitting songs, and some of them won’t expand like the playlists above will.

If you’re wondering what the deal is with those playlists that don’t appear, here’s the deal:

• Alaska Music Channel**: a long-play mix of all genres. All submitted artists are considered for this, so there’s no need to choose it while submitting.

• Alaska All Day: an 8-hour playlist without repeats, intended for businesses that want to lift up local voices. All submitted artists are considered for this, too. (Still under construction — help us by submitting! Want to play this music in your business? See our FAQ’s for more about licensing.)

• Alaska Classics: the best of Alaska’s legacy artists, many of whom are still in the scene today — this playlist features recordings twenty years old or more. When we encounter tracks and artists that fit the bill, we add them directly.

• Rasmuson Artists of Alaska: Includes all recipients of the Rasmuson Individual Artist Award who have music available on Spotify.

• Center for Music Ecosystems Study - Music from Alaska: A playlist requested by the Center for Music Ecosystems as part of a three-city study of resilience in the music scenes in Juneau, AK, Nuuk in Greenland, and Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands. Hear the mixtape of music from all three places here!

• The Alaskans Have Landed, Vol. I: A 2019 mixtape that’s also a CD! Hear the entire playlist or buy a hard copy on Bandcamp. Many featured artists performed at AKIMI events in Austin, Montréal, Kansas City, Nashville, or Boise, showcasing Alaskans on the global stage. Proceeds of album purchases support the Northern Culture Exchange and this work right here.

• Women of Alaska by Guest DJ Katie B: We sometimes invite guest DJ’s to curate playlists for us, and KRNN’s Katie B, who has hosted a show for years featuring women’s voices, created this playlist for us.

Other guidelines:

• We try to playlist every Alaskan artist we can find. (Who counts as Alaskan? See our FAQ’s.)

• We try not to repeat artists or bands more than once in two hours on a playlist.

• We mix older and newer content on purpose on most playlists. All of it deserves to be heard!

• Across all of our themed playlists, we’re making a conscious effort to escape silos and cliques and include Alaska’s natural geographic and demographic diversity.

• Certain playlists allow songs with explicit lyrics, and those have asterisks** above, as well as a note in the playlist description on Spotify. The majority of our playlists don’t have explicit songs, since that allows streaming in public spaces like storefronts and community events.

• We encourage creative, religious, and political expression of all kinds, but will not playlist lyrics with direct and unambiguous hate speech.

We encourage community submissions to help us include more and more voices from around the state and across time. So if you don’t see what you’re looking for yet, let us know — we want to add it!

Playlist guidelines are developed in consultation with an advisory board of music makers and community DJ’s. The most recent advisors are listed and thanked right here.