Hi, I'm Mike Stier
I wouldn’t call myself a Playlist Designer if I weren’t first—and always—a deeply passionate Music Curator.
It’s been my lifelong obsession.
My story begins...
...in the early ’80s—back when music discovery meant CD clubs, practically living in Tower Records' Yonkers, NY location, and flipping through new releases at HMV, Virgin MegaStore, or Newbury Comics (during my college years outside of Boston, MA).
I lived inside that ritual—hours joyfully lost, CDs found.
By 1999, the digital wave pulled me under. I fell for MP3s, the iPod, and iTunes—copying tens of thousands of CDs into a private digital archive that became my personal universe of sound. A few years later, I was resident DJing in a wine bar when a studio producer let me in on a hidden corner of the industry: curating playlists for hospitality brands.
In 2014 I joined RoundHouse Multimedia and evolved into the "Lead Music Architect" role—another way of calling me the Lead Playlist Designer—crafting emotion-driven soundscapes for palatial, multi-zoned luxury resorts across the Caribbean and Mexico. Every playlist I built was equal parts design and devotion, turning spaces into stories guests felt.
Only human emotion knows what’s worth keeping.
Each project pulls from a private, offline vault of more than one million MP3s, built one track at a time over 40 years of curiosity and care through obsessive collecting and curation. Every track is tagged by genre and sub‑genre (checked against Beatport), tempo, time‑of‑day, vocals, edits, and era—so playlists can be sculpted with precision for any brand, environment, or atmosphere, and still run flawlessly on shuffle.
My offline library also goes deep into explicit and boundary‑pushing territory, making it possible to design playlists for spaces that want more edge, attitude, or after‑hours energy—without dialing anything back.
Hospitality Playlist Projects for RHM: 2014-2025
Atelier De Hoteles + Azul Beach + Baha Mar + Banyan Tree
Blue Diamond + Chic + Excellence + Finest + Goldwynn
Grand Hyatt Hilton + Iberostar + INNside NY + Jewel Palm Beach
Karisma + Le Chique + Majestic + Melia + Mix, Creative Kitchen
Nickelodeon + Palladium + Paradisus + Planet Hollywood
Princess + Regatta Buffet + Royalton + Rosewood + Sirenis
Straw Hat + Tafer (Palmar Beach) + The Island House
The Reef, by CuisinArt + Valentin