So, I wouldn't worry a great deal about which stack land in. Once you get familiar with HTTP, you can switch languages later, if you feel the need.
If you're wanting an exercise to help you build up to the confidence to approach your own webapp projects, I actually recommend porting kbwiki (https://github.com/yumaikas/kbwiki) to the stack of your choice, if you're ok with reading Nim (it looks like python, though it's rather different under the hood).
The reason I suggest this is that kbwiki covers both basic HTTP auth, and running as an HTTP client. kbwiki also is a real, but small web app. I use it to power https://idea.junglecoder.com and https://feed.junglecoder.com. If there is another project that does a lot of what you want to do, porting it to a different language would be a good exercise.
After that, think of an idea of something you want to use, and then try to pick off a small part of it. Working with the Spotify API, maybe just try to build something that lets you list your playlists, or maybe just one playlist. Then, build out one more piece, and continue doing so.
Though, one thing I will say: Working with 3rd APIs is often much harder than just building out something that doesn't rely on them, due to having to implement authentication. So if you have a hobby idea that doesn't rely on a 3rd party API, I would bias towards that for your first project.
See if you can find a friend or someone to discuss ideas in more depth. Having that second opinion can help unstick you, or help refine your ideas. I'd be willing to discuss over email, if you'd like an ear (yumaikas94 at the google one).
Also, be willing to do things that don't follow best practices as such (as long as you're cognizant of the fact). I've written 3 webapps in the last year, none of which implement their own authentication, because they are designed for one single trusted user. I have a Jenkins status checker I use at work that relies on me copying the "remember me" cookie out of my browser into the filesystem.
For now, don't worry about being "current" techwise, worry about building up a portfolio of different things. Get building, and eventually, as you build projects, you'll find a groove, and then, if you want to build things that are sophisticated on the front end, you'll end up looking into React/Vue/Angular. If you like backend webapps, Python, Go, or JS/Node will start to stand out.
If you take a left turn, and decide to instead go into desktop apps (I highly recommend making at least one or two in your life, but no rush), C# or Java might look attractive.
My overall point with the last two paragraphs is this: Learn tech that will let you build what you want to make, not just because it has a lot of articles written about it.
If you're wanting an exercise to help you build up to the confidence to approach your own webapp projects, I actually recommend porting kbwiki (https://github.com/yumaikas/kbwiki) to the stack of your choice, if you're ok with reading Nim (it looks like python, though it's rather different under the hood).
The reason I suggest this is that kbwiki covers both basic HTTP auth, and running as an HTTP client. kbwiki also is a real, but small web app. I use it to power https://idea.junglecoder.com and https://feed.junglecoder.com. If there is another project that does a lot of what you want to do, porting it to a different language would be a good exercise.
After that, think of an idea of something you want to use, and then try to pick off a small part of it. Working with the Spotify API, maybe just try to build something that lets you list your playlists, or maybe just one playlist. Then, build out one more piece, and continue doing so.
Though, one thing I will say: Working with 3rd APIs is often much harder than just building out something that doesn't rely on them, due to having to implement authentication. So if you have a hobby idea that doesn't rely on a 3rd party API, I would bias towards that for your first project.
See if you can find a friend or someone to discuss ideas in more depth. Having that second opinion can help unstick you, or help refine your ideas. I'd be willing to discuss over email, if you'd like an ear (yumaikas94 at the google one).
Also, be willing to do things that don't follow best practices as such (as long as you're cognizant of the fact). I've written 3 webapps in the last year, none of which implement their own authentication, because they are designed for one single trusted user. I have a Jenkins status checker I use at work that relies on me copying the "remember me" cookie out of my browser into the filesystem.
For now, don't worry about being "current" techwise, worry about building up a portfolio of different things. Get building, and eventually, as you build projects, you'll find a groove, and then, if you want to build things that are sophisticated on the front end, you'll end up looking into React/Vue/Angular. If you like backend webapps, Python, Go, or JS/Node will start to stand out.
If you take a left turn, and decide to instead go into desktop apps (I highly recommend making at least one or two in your life, but no rush), C# or Java might look attractive.
My overall point with the last two paragraphs is this: Learn tech that will let you build what you want to make, not just because it has a lot of articles written about it.