I've been building these playlists on Spotify for the last few weeks and using them with great success in my games. They each fit different situations and I feel perfectly represent the spirit of the game. I've opened one up to be collaborative, so you should feel free to include music you think fits in with the game there, and I'll go through it and add them to the other playlists to keep them tidy. If enough people express interest in helping me keep the lists curated, I'd be glad to open them all up to collaboration and to include lists you've created yourselves in the list too.

The Lists

Collaborative: Shadowrun - Candidates

And here are the playlists, in no particular order.

• Shadowrun - All (almost) This one is missing some of the other lists, the reasons should be kind of obvious.
• Shadowrun - Battle
• Shadowrun - Sprawl Anything you'd hear on the street, anywhere.
• Shadowrun - Wasteland Drone, industrial, sparse.
• Shadowrun - Astral Middle-eastern, with a modern electro twist.
• Shadowrun - Matrix - Trance
• Shadowrun - Matrix - Chiptunes
• Shadowrun - Jazz Think Bladerunner...
• Shadowrun - Upbeat Club
• Shadowrun - Downbeat Club
• Shadowrun - Dubstep Club
• Shadowrun - Dark A mix of dark brooding black metal and such.
• Shadowrun - Troll A playlist of covers or songs with the same name as "Never Gonna Give You Up".
• Shadowrun - Middle East Not one of mine, but a great list for runs in that region of the world.
• Adarael's An-Teng Underground
• Adarael's Project CORONA - Eurozone For when the players were touring London and Paris, dealing with the scum of the former EU.
• Adarael's Project CORONA - Delta Clinics and Black Laboratories For secret locations, scientific research, and other "underground" investigations.
• Adarael's Project CORONA - Dark Skies For those late nights on stakeouts, waiting for the right moment to sight your target and take him out.

Let me know what you all think. Especially if you feel certain songs don't fit the mood in your opinion and why, or have an idea for a new playlist I should make and include. Or just that I should expand on one of these next because you feel it is too light. I want these playlists to be helpful to everyone.

Usage Tips

The best way to use these playlists is to subscribe to them from Spotify, pick one that fits the overall mood of your game - or that session - and then right-click and select "set as current playlist" to switch when needed. This won't interrupt the song you are currently listening to, but will swap playlists when it is over. With good timing, you can shift the tone of your narrative at the same moment that the playlists switch, and the effect is not unlike music in movies. I've personally used this while GMing a game featuring a character that occasionally slips into a trance at random moments only to be astrally projected to locations to consult with her Talismonger religious leader. I use the Astral playlist for this, and the trance/mid-east/indian vibes of the songs in it set the mood instantly; to the point where the music is now the signal ahead of the narrative and everyone knows what's about to happen before I've said anything.

Oh good heavens, don't tempt me. I'm already a compulsive soundtracker.

@Adarael I sure could use the help, even if it is just critique. I bet you know hundreds of songs that should fit into each of these playlists!

Quick question: how are you sharing these via that weblink? I'm new to spotify, so I'm not sure how to export the playlists for web.

The Spotify player has a list of playlists to the left, if you right click on one, you'll be able to Copy HTTP Link. That URL is like the ones I posted above. Don't forget you can just add music to the collaborative playlist as well, I'll be able to figure out which playlists they were meant for, I'd wager. I'd open them all up to be Collaborative but I can't control who submits to them, so I worry that someone might come along and delete all the music or add a bunch of garbage. I haven't worked with them before and don't know the limitations or ability to control them tightly, once I do, I may open them all up.

Hmm, this is interesting, because Spotify has a bunch of music I don't own, but also lacks a butt-ton which I do. So I've had to make some selective replacements.

New playlist - An-Teng Underground - A prospective playlist for my upcoming Exalted Modern game, which shares a lot of DNA with Shadowrun. I actually replaced some of the tracks with things in your Dubstep playlist.

Old playlists from my previous game, Project CORONA, which I've re-created from my Zune:
Project CORONA -Eurozone: For when the players were touring London and Paris, dealing with the scum of the former EU.
Project CORONA - Delta Clinics and Black Laboratories: The playlist I created for secret locations, scientific research, and other "underground" investigations.
Project CORONA - Dark Skies: For those late nights on stakeouts, waiting for the right moment to sight your target and take him out.

There are 3 other Project CORONA playlists, but I'll need to do a bunch of work to rebuild them, because spotify is missing like half the tracks.

@Adarael I took a few tracks from your lists and added them to mine. Also, I added your lists to the main post. More playlists the merrier.

Is there any way to join spotify without using Facebook?

Unfortunately no, not in the USA at least. This may not be true for other countries. However, being connected to friends and seeing what they are listening to is part of what Spotify is trying to do, so it makes sense. If you are part of the few people left without a FB account, just create a BS one...

While I understand the answer, I do not like it. It should be my decision to share my Spotify playlists on Facebook, not theirs. Even creating a BS FB account just to listen to music is stupid, IMO.

You don't need to share it on FB, just log in with it. Posting to your wall of any kind can be easily turned off. In general I agree with you, but I chose Spotify for this because of the easy sharability of the playlists, and the broad usefulness of the app. You can create radio stations like Pandora has off the playlists to make variety within a theme a snap, and customize from there. There are tons of options with this format. It even scrobbles to last.fm

I've updated all the playlists with new music and removed a few songs that don't really fit well in their sections. Anyone have any ideas for new playlists?

My group has been playing the soundtrack from the new Judge Dredd movie during our sessions, fits perfectly! Dredd: Original Film Soundtrack

*groan* Spotify is currently not available in your country