While her love for music is clear from her Taylor Swift cardigan, Betti Pang ‘23’s passion  goes beyond merchandise or concert tickets. The first episode of her podcast Record Recs, a relaxing collection of music recommendations, lyrical analysis, and stories, debuted in June 2022. In this interview, I talked to Pang about her podcast process and relationship with music. 

What inspired you to start Record Recs?

I had all these thoughts about music but nobody to share them with, so I was like, “You know what, let me be annoying but not force people to listen to me.” I was also trying to get over not liking the sound of my own voice because if I’m going to be a human I probably need to not be annoyed with myself. 

How do you find new songs to recommend? 

They come to me. Spotify has these curated playlists with weird names, like one of them is called “Milk Mix,” but I can find new tracks in those. Other times my favorite artists will repost music so I usually check that out. I kind of grab onto people that my favorite artists work with. I keep songs I find in a big Spotify playlist and tell myself, “I’ll get to that.”

What got you into some of your current favorite artists?

In 2020 I got obsessed with “Motion Sickness” [by Phoebe Bridgers] and I wondered, “Who is this skeleton woman?” Then, of course, I listened to her entire discography and I was like “Oh my god!” I gradually got into boygenius, and started listening to Julian Baker and Lucy Dacus, so from there, I’m not even kidding, I just exploded. 

How do you plan and make your episodes?

It’s spontaneous but if there’s one song that I’m totally obsessed with for a certain time I’m like, “I’ve got to do a Record Recs on this!” So I write the script, and it’s not even like writing an essay. I just sit down and it flows out of me so it’s not even hard, just fun. After I write the script, if there’s someone I know who also really likes the song I’ll ask them to be a guest. I have to go through the Garage Band thing too but that’s the hard part. 

I upload through Anchor which is affiliated with Spotify, so I add the little transition music that’s built into Anchor, then there’s a nice option to add the song from Spotify. 

I know you’re all about recommending music, but do you have podcast recommendations? 

Oh, yes. MUNA has a podcast called Gayotic but they haven’t uploaded much recently. Then there’s one I think is called Keeping Records and the theme is what you would put on the Golden Record, that thing they send to aliens or whatever. 

What does music mean to you?

Without music I would probably sink and die. I listen in the morning, driving to school, doing homework, cooking, sleeping. Actually, not while sleeping; I don’t do that. I used to play the piano and I was a band kid, I played the flute. Now I’m trying to learn a bit of guitar. 

Do you have any dreams for the future of Record Recs?

If I could ever host an artist that would be really cool. I feel like that’s possible since I know a fair number of smaller artists. In college I definitely want to do radio so I think that would be fun to do Record Recs but on air, then I would invite my college friends or even a professor.