Spotify soft-launches ‘Taste Rewind’ feature

When Spotify scrapped third party apps, it killed off ways that music fans could hunt down the inspirations and heroes of their favourite current acts.

But now Spotify’s new offering Taste Rewind is a dedicated site which takes the music customers are listening to, and links them to tracks from decades. It’s a way for fans to discover, and be excited by, music they never knew existed.

“Ever wondered which artists you would be listening to if you were born in another time? Spotify can help you turn your music back in time, try it out!”

Users of the soft-launched stand site are asked to choose their three favourite acts, and build customised playlists for each of the last five decades starting from the 1960s. Users can then launch Spotify to listen to the tracks permanently or share with friends.

It’s an interesting history lesson for younger (and not so younger) fans. Going back to the roots of Foo Fighters, for instance, would take listeners to, among others, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

The music of these heroes itself time-travels to 1930s blues and jazz, 1940s reggae, and 1950s soul and rock and roll.

The Spotify site provides an alternate service for fans who have to choose from 30 million tracks on streaming services or, like Apple, where human curators draw on their own encyclopaedic knowledge and tastes to make suggestions.