The ethical play list

The Ethical Playlist

Mara didn't make playlists for moods. She made them for morals.

It started after her brother died. She found his Spotify open on his laptop — a playlist titled "Songs I Don't Deserve To Listen To."

Inside: A song by an artist who'd hurt someone. A song produced by a man who stole royalties. A song she and her ex had called theirs. A track sampled without permission from a 70s soul singer who never got credit.

She pressed play.

Every song had a note in the description box:

"Love the beat. Hate that I love it." "Does listening make me complicit?" "Can you separate the art from the artist if you're still paying him?"

So Mara made her own. She called it "The Ethical Playlist."

Rule 1: No artist who had done harm. Rule 2: No company that didn't pay its artists. Rule 3: Only songs she would stand by in front of the person they were about.

The playlist had three songs.

For weeks it had three songs. She would walk to work in silence because skipping felt more honest than listening.

Then one night at a laundromat, a little girl was humming off-key. A song Mara had deleted months ago because the singer had been accused of something awful. The girl didn't know. She just liked the chorus.

Mara realized: the girl wasn't unethical. She was just humming.

She went home and renamed the playlist.

" Songs I Will Try To Love Honestly."

She added back the songs — but underneath each one, she donated the $0.003 stream to a fund for the people those artists had hurt. She wrote an email to the soul singer's family. She texted her ex: "Hope you're okay."

The playlist grew to 47 songs. None of them were pure. All of them were true.

The last track she added was a voice memo. Just her brother laughing, recorded accidentally.

She listed the artist as: Human, Flawed.

And she finally pressed shuffle.