Spotify 'Rewind' plays time-travel with your musical tastes
The new Taste Rewind feature from the streaming-music service suggests playlists of songs from the past based on your current tastes.
Spotify is trying to expand your tastes in music by suggesting older songs it thinks you might like.
With a new feature dubbed Spotify Taste Rewind, the company is acknowledging that many users get stuck listening to music from a certain decade, especially the one in which they grew up and developed their musical palate. But there's a whole world of music out there from decades past, so why not broaden your musical horizons?
Spotify needs to cook up more ways to enhance its service as it faces a new kid on the block called Apple Music . Due to debut June 30, Apple's new music-streaming service will try to outrival Spotify for your listening pleasure. At first glance, both services seem pretty evenly matched with free and paid options, around 30 million songs and access to mobile apps. However, Apple claims it will offer you access to more exclusive tracks and music from unsigned artists.
In May, meanwhile, Spotify unveiled a new feature for joggers who like to run to music, and also began offering videos and podcasts.
To get a taste of Spotify Taste Rewind, open the feature's dedicated website and log in with your Spotify account. The service then displays a list of artists based on your current tastes and asks you to select three of them. You can keep refreshing the list until your find three that you wish to choose.
After you've made your three selections, Click the See my Rewind button, and Spotify will travel back in time to reveal a first playlist of music from the 2000s. Click on that playlist to add it to your regular Spotify software. You can bounce back to Spotify Taste Rewind and click on playlists from the '90s, '80s, '70s and '60s. Find a playlist that appeals to you, and you can add it to Spotify permanently. You can always rerun Spotify Taste Rewind to find even more music from the past and share your playlists with other people.
Your favorite playlist could be based on the decade of your teenage years, or it could be one from a past decade you've never delved into before. Either way, Spotify Taste Rewind could help you discover different tunes if you're getting tired of listening to the same old playlists.
"To help users take the journey across music from the past five decades, Spotify has created Taste Rewind, a special experience that reveals the music users would have been listening to if they lived in another decade, based on their current listening habits," a spokesman for Spotify said. "The site then delivers a custom playlist from the chosen decade that users can share with their friends."
Update, 8:46 a.m. PT: Adds comment from Spotify.