Teen Angst Playlist

Oh, the days where you felt misunderstood by the world and your only escape was music. Do you remember shuffling to school with nothing but your iPod Mini (or WalkMan) and headphones on full blast, jamming to the beat of your own personal playlist? Like most of us, our teenage years were full of angst-ridden music that defined our adolescence and, most importantly, our musical taste.

We're ready to hear the music that spoke to you during those angsty teenage years for this Challenge! These were the songs where the lyrics felt like they were written just for you and helped you get through those tough grade school years. Tell us about your favorite teen throwbacks, why they were so significant, and spare no details about what you were going through during that time in your younger days.

Enter the Teen Angst Playlist Challenge and transport us back in time to an era full of punk feels, pop galore, timeless rap hits, and every other genre in between. Are they still some of your most played songs? Do the songs still speak to you and align with you who you are now? Or rather, how have these songs made you who you are today? Please be sure to embed your playlist in your story or include links to your top songs so that we can listen along. And, best of all, feel free to share throwback photos from the vault (you know, the ones that we're meant to be locked away forever) to help us visualize the good old days!

(Side effects may include flashbacks to Warped Tour and/or Summer Jam.)

For your story to be eligible, it must be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until May 11, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here. To learn how to embed rich media in your stories, please check out this resource here.

The Teen Angst Playlist Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.

To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or third place prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.