My Own Time Capsule (Steph’s Spotify Account)

I’ve had my Spotify Account since 2019. I celebrated its 5th birthday this past April, while I also celebrated my 10-year anniversary of living in America. It’s so strange to look through my Spotify app because I haven’t deleted anything. There’s 5 years worth of data just sitting there, completely untouched. That’s probably why I don’t have any storage on my phone, but I’m a very sentimental person so I have to keep those awful playlists.

My “Liked Songs” playlist is a literal time capsule. I can scroll through all 1,337 songs and remember the exact time when I added each to the playlist. In a few months from now, I’ll scroll through and remember all the Fiona Apple songs I’ve added recently. Or I’ll find all of the Chappell Roan and flowerovlove that I added over the summer. 2020-2022 is definitely a dark period so I just close my eyes while I scroll through that section. Those songs don’t get mentioned. Ever.

Recently, I’ve gotten to a point where I organize my playlists extremely specifically. I’ve already touched on that (and my Pinterest boards!) in a past blog so I won’t dwell. I make playlists for almost every scenario imaginable. When I was moving into MSA, I made 3 separate playlists for packing, driving, and unpacking. I haven’t bothered to listen to those since then, but I know when I do, I’ll feel like I’m moving in all over again. 

“Steph’s Current Tunes” is my number one playlist and also the oldest playlist that I still listen to. The only reason that’s possible is because it’s constantly changing. It’s always alternating to whatever my favorite songs are at the time. The songs don’t even have to fit in together at all, I just need a place where I can find whatever song I want to listen to as fast as possible. Right now, it’s about 3 hours long because I haven’t taken out any songs since summer, but usually it’s around 1 hour.

My most recent playlist is titled “Up In Steph’s Room” just like my RISE article. It’s just supposed to capture my experience of being a teenage girl, just like many of my other playlists. This one is a little more refined than the others and it’s still a work in progress. My top 3 songs from this playlist are “Don’t Let the Good Life Pass You By” by Cass Elliot, “Teenage Girl” by Cherry Glazerr (of course), and “Real Love Baby” by Father John Misty.

The playlist that sits closest to my heart is titled “your new life will cost you your old one.” That’s also one of my favorite quotes and it’s by Brianna Weist. I found it towards the beginning of the year and it still resonates with me so deeply. I made that playlist near the end of my sophomore year at my old school when I knew I would be leaving for MSA. My number one song from that playlist is “Don’t Delete the Kisses” by Wolf Alice.

As I’m making my 216th playlist, I feel proud that I have so much on my Spotify account. Even if all of my downloaded songs are taking up most of my storage, I’m glad that I haven’t deleted the account or anything. I think I’ll try to keep it up for years to come.

Author: Steph Hartmann

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4 thoughts on “My Own Time Capsule (Steph’s Spotify Account)”

  1. my spotify is the exact same. i’ve gotten into the habit of making a playlist for every year where i add all the songs i’ve been listening to the most that year. i’ve been doing it since 2021 and it’s so cool to look back and recognize what was going on when i added certain songs. music is such an interesting mirror into someones life and spotify unintentionally has become a journal of sorts for preserving those memories.

  2. Can’t wait to see what my Spotify account will look like by the time I’ve graduated. I don’t have as many as you, but I absolutely love organizing songs for different occasions! I also have one big playlist of songs that go all the way back to around 2019/2020. I’ve just gotten to the point of deleting them and even then, I still like to hold on to ones I know I won’t ever listen to again </3

  3. Omggggg Don’t Delete the Kisses is so good! I love this so much. I hope that one day I’ll have as many playlists as you do for so many different occasions. Also, you might want to check out Teenage Headache Dreams by Mura Masa, Wolf Alice, and Ellie Rowsell. It would definitely be a song on my coming-of-age movie.

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