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Spotify figured out what you’d listen to in different decades

The connection between Scratch Acid and Edward Elgar is strong.

 

Audra Schroeder

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Posted on Jun 15, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 2:14 pm CDT

A new Spotify feature aims to walk you down memory lane. 

Taste Rewind asks you to pick three of your favorite artists, then it rewinds through the decades and presents you with a curated playlist of what you might have been listening to “back in the day.” According to Venture Beat, a Spotify employee based in Sweden posted about Taste Rewind on Sunday, encouraging users to try out the new feature, which has only been soft-launched at this point. 

First I chose Rihanna, Kanye West, and the Weeknd, and Taste Rewind walked backwards through the aughts to the ’60s. My ’90s playlist was especially on point. 

Spotify

Then I got a little more obscure and chose Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, and Lil’ Keke. This time it rolled all the way back to the ’20s. Apparently the musical connection between Edward Elgar and Scratch Acid frontman David Yow goes deeper than I thought. 

Spotify

Since this is a very new feature, the pool of artists to choose from was rather small. The feature asks you to choose three, but the same ones showed up several times. I’ve been listening to Scritti Politti’s Early collection for the past month, but it was nowhere in my artist options. 

It’s an interesting avenue into offering users some musical history—and an interesting feature to debut after last week’s Apple Music announcement—but so far it’s only scratching the surface of Spotify’s massive catalog. 

H/T Venture Beat | Illustration by Max Fleishman

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*First Published: Jun 15, 2015, 2:14 pm CDT