Do you love the 90’s? If you were born in the late 80’s, probably the answer is “HELL YES.” If you were born in the 70’s and you love the 80’s, the same thing applies. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. What if I told you that you could be instantly transported to the best jamz of your youth, curated FOR YOU, with a click of a button? You’d totally be down, right? I thought so. Well that is exactly what Spotify Time Capsule is. It has changed my life and made my week. This feature has been available since September 28th, and I don’t know how I have survived a month (or 30 years) without it.
During my Monday night Spin class, I casually mentioned that I had done an all throwback 90’s playlist last Thursday (listen to it here!) so a newbie to my class came up to me afterward and informed me of this magical feature on Spotify. Somehow, through a mix of creepy stalkage, magic, and voodoo (and by asking the year you were born), Spotify creates a playlist of every song you listened to from 5th grade through twelfth. AND BEYOND. Ok maybe not EVERY one, but 55 of them! This is a creepily accurate list.
According to Spotify’s press release, this feature can be designed for any user over the age of 16, in 60 Spotify markets, and “gathers the 30 most nostalgic tracks from your teens and early twenties, creating the soundtrack for a trip down memory lane.” My capsule had 55 songs, so I guess it ranges per person. Maybe it’s because I obsessively use Spotify every day, and also because I pay for premium. But this feature is not reserved for only premium users! Most tech blogs presume that this idea comes from the “battle for subscribers” between Apple Music and Spotify, with both of them trying to add more personalized features. I have always been Team Droid, but in my completely biased opinion, I have to say, Spotify NAILED this one.
It would be one thing if it only picked songs from my already-downloaded library, but no. This list includes songs I totally forgot about but TOTALLY listened to. It starts with “This is My Party” from Fabolous and goes to “Case of the Ex” by Mya, two of my favs. At first, I was skeptical. Didn’t everyone love those songs? Also, are they only picking hip hop because I play a lot of hip hop for my spin classes? But then I scrolled down and realized a large majority of southern rappers, Trick Daddy appears more than once. Did they know I grew up in south Florida? HOW!? I didn’t even have Spotify back then!
Then I thought to myself, I liked more than Southern Rap. These Spotify biatches don’t KNOW me!! So I scrolled some more and found Backstreet Boys… then Fiona Apple… then Whitney Houston… a song from Pocahontas… OK THEY KNOW ME! THEY KNOW ME BETTER THAN I KNOW MYSELF! I have been listening to this playlist for two days straight. You guys absolutely must try it out and tell me if my playlist is different than yours! Click here to make your own, and then check out mine in all its glory. If you’re using the Spotify program and not the browser version, just type “time capsule” into the search bar. I guarantee you it will make your day.
https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/37i9dQZF1E516gnkWfVieT