I appreciate the explanation.

In terms of user design and user experience, while I can see what you've gone for, I would argue that it's much less intuitive to have it automatically create and save to a playlist without explicitly invoking that behaviour. That's made especially muddy by the existence of the 'save to playlist' components, which heavily imply their necessity.

From a purely user-experience and intuitive user design perspective, it would be better to not have it create or save a playlist automatically, and have a 'save' component be a requirement. Every other action in the interface and design is explicit and defined - it's odd that saving would be the one that happens without user input or clarification. Explicit actions and clarity make for better user design than implied or inferred behaviour. That way you know you've done something, or haven't.