One thing about me is that I am obsessed with making playlists.
Whether it is the changing of the seasons, a big life event or even if the sunset just looked especially beautiful one day, I’ll make a playlist about it.
Most of my playlists are little, hour-long, snippets, but one of the most influential playlists I ever made was almost 24 hours long.
I am, of course, talking about my cleverly named “Chill Out” playlist that I first started in 2018.
At one point it got too long that Apple Music would no longer let me add new songs to it and I ended up splitting it up into five different playlists (I can still vividly remember that taking ages to finish).
I wasn’t a big “album listener” at this time in my life. Instead, I would listen to whatever songs popped up on the radio or in my Apple Music recommendations that I liked and that was how I determined what made the “Chill Out” playlist.
I feel like most people would relate to me when I say that this was the one playlist I had that I would just add any new song I heard to.
By doing this, I seemingly created a time capsule of who I was six years ago.
The playlist is filled with a plethora of different genres, going from hard rap to sad acoustic ballads. However, my most consistent genre would have to be that of Indie Pop.
Revisiting this playlist made me realize how instrumental it was in cultivating the taste of music I have right now. It’s filled with artists like Ruel, Anna of the North, SALES, Dayglow, and Joji. I’ve even uncovered some artists that I remember loving, but completely forgot about, like COIN, Odie, and Spencer.
Yes, there are some questionable choices of songs I have on here (I’m looking at you AJR), but at the core of it there are so many good songs that I find myself revisiting often now.
It was also cool seeing how I was listening to certain artists before they really took off. I had multiple songs from the likes of Gracie Abrams, Conan Gray, and Beabadoobee. I had, unbeknownst to me, been a part of their original fan bases.
I am still very much a lover of Indie music, it is probably one of my top listened to genres still, so the impact my “Chill Out” playlist has had on my life is pretty significant. It pushed me to search for smaller artists and share my findings with my friends. It also was fun being able to look back and see how certain artists have grown as musicians, sometimes even reaching mainstream success.
So, if you’re ever looking for a “new” song to add into your rotation, but you’re not into the music that has been coming out lately, maybe look backwards into your old favorites.
As much as it may be a cringy trip down memory lane to see what your middle school self was listening to, I encourage you to do it. Despite what you may think, you may find that you were still pretty cool back then too.