7 Uncomfortable Things I Learned About My Secondary School Self Thanks To Spotify's New "Time Capsule" Playlist
For some reason, Spotify thinks you want to go back to 2006 — or whenever it was that you first walked through the doors of your secondary school while listening to the music that would end up defining your next four years. Spotify's new Time Capsule playlist knows that you can't hear those songs without getting a wave of sickening nostalgia, and it's giving its best guess as to what exactly those tracks are for each of us. Using our age, location, and the kind of music we listen to now, Spotify has guessed what was on each and every one of our mix CDs approximately ten years ago (this is why people under the age of 16 don't have access to the feature), and it's...something.
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I'd say my playlist was about 50% accurate, but that's enough for my mouth to start feeling sore from the memory of the retainer that I have since lost. In general, perusing through the 50-plus songs the app conjured for me didn't bring any surprises, but it did reveal some uncomfortable truths I hadn't realised about myself in secondary school, as well as some questionable details about Spotify and my music taste in general.
1. I could have been a lot cooler. Like I said, half of these songs were accurate. The other half are songs that I wish I had been cool enough to listen to in high school, like "POWER" by Kanye and "None Of Your Business" by Salt N Peppa.
2. My music taste was not consistent. For every "Tipsy" by J-Kwon there was an original broadway recording — or, even worse, "Mambo No. 5."
3. I didn't understand what any of these songs meant when I sang along to them. Speaking of "Tipsy," I didn't drink a drop of alcohol in high school, had no idea what it meant to be a "Gold Digger," and thought Britney Spear's "3" was about a number.
4."Dear Maria, Count Me In" still bangs. It's the first song on my Time Capsule playlist, and I'll be honest — it holds up!
5. Spotify somehow knows where I grew up. I had a brief stint in England as a kid, and sure enough, one or two songs by English girl groups, like "Scandalous" by Mis-Teeq and "The Tide Is High" by Atomic Kitten, have made their way onto the list.
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6. There's no money in the world that could convince me to go back to a high school dance. Nelly and Kelly Rowland's "Dilemma" immediately made me start sweating, and even now, somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm scared no one would ask me to dance.
7. I haven't grown up at all. I'll come clean: I'm pretty sure half the reason most of these songs made it onto this playlist is because I've listened to all of them in the past year. I don't need a playlist to know that there are some things from 2006 that are worth reliving.
Check out your time capsule here!
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