Every year at the beginning of December, Spotify users wait with anticipation for the arrival of their Spotify Wrapped. For the whole year, Spotify will keep track of members listening. They will measure the most listened-to artists, songs and genres. Towards the end of the year, they will release Spotify Wrapped, which is made in a colorful and fun way with engaging graphics. It gives listeners a run-down of their year in music.
Some other fun features of Spotify Wrapped include users’ total minutes listened to this year, a message from their top artist and a generated playlist of the songs they listened to the most in a year. This year Spotify added a new feature that gave users a listening habit. Some of the most popular ones at NHS were Time Traveller, Vampire and Collector, according to a survey of 89 students. Freshman Kaiya Anderson got the Time Traveller, which is given to people who will often go back and listen to the same songs on repeat.
“I listen to a lot of the same songs over and over again. Me and my brother have this app where we see what song we are listening to and he’ll just see the same ones over and over again,” Anderson said.
Anderson’s most listened-to artist this year was Talyor Swift. Taylor Swift was found among 10 out of the 89 students’ top artists. Anderson’s most listened-to song was “Cool About It” by boygenius.
“No, I don’t [feel like my Spotify Wrapped represents me]. I kinda do but I don’t know some of those songs it would be from me driving and so it would like for some reason it would keep going back to “Cool About It” on repeat,” Anderson said. “The only reason I listened to it in the first place was because I went on a trip and so on the plane I last minute downloaded songs and that was one of the only ones I downloaded so I just listened to it over and over again. But I feel like Harry Styles should have been my top artist. I feel like that represents me the most.”
Anderson listened to about 24,000 minutes of Spotify this year.
“My Spotify looked really basic to me for some reason cause it was like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, One Direction, Olivia Rodrigo. Like it’s just kinda what everyone listens to. But it’s true that’s all I listen to,” Anderson said.
Similar to Anderson, senior Lucy Buller’s top artist was also Taylor Swift. Buller listened to 167,115 minutes of Spotify this year and 103,198 of those minutes were all Taylor Swift. Buller was also in the top 0.005% of Taylor Swift listeners. However, her top four songs were Phoebe Bridgers songs with “Moon Song” being her most-listened-to song and Lavender Haze by Taylor Swift was her fifth most-listened-to song.
“I was kinda confused by like my top five songs. Like not the first four, but Lavender Haze was definitely not the Taylor Swift song I listened to the most I thought,” Buller said
Last year in January Spotify introduced a new feature called Playlist in a Bottle. Users were able to pick three songs to put in a bottle of their choice. To help pick what songs Spotify generated prompts. Some of the prompts were a song that sounds like the year 2023, a song that reminds them of their favorite person, a song that won’t make sense in a year from now and so many more. The bottle would be sealed until January 2024.
“I would guess I put “All Too Well “the 10-minute version
and the “Sad Girl Autumn “version for multiple things cause in 2022 I listened to that song like 2,000 times,” Buller said.
Anderson thought she would have put “Hoax” by Taylor Swift, “Only Angel” by Harry Styles and “About Your Love” by Michael Mayo. Unlike Buller and Anderson, junior Mara Oswald has no clue what she would have put. This year Oswald’s most-listened-to artist was Steve Lacy and her most-listened-to song was “Snooze” by SZA and her second was “Infrunami” by Steve Lacy.
“I would say [my Spotify represents me] because there are definitely some artists on there that I listen to frequently, but somewhat doesn’t because I don’t remember listening to Snooze that much. I feel like otherwise I’d say it was pretty accurate. The bottom four of my songs were probably more accurate than my top one. I definitely do not listen to as much music as some people,” Oswald said.
Oswald listened to around 33,000 minutes this year. Oswald was not that surprised with her Spotify Wrapped this year.
“When it shows you the charts of what months you listened to everybody, that was a little bit surprising because I feel like it was inconsistent and then also kinda interesting. Like what happened during those months that I was listening to that artist more?” Oswald said.
Oswald’s listening habit was the Mastermind. The Mastermind is typically given to people who listen to a wide variety of different genres.
“I would say it was kinda accurate. I mean I feel like a lot of those could be used more than once for the same person so they just kinda picked the best one. I think that there can be multiple that represent you,” Oswald said.
