Students ‘Wrap Up’ The Year With Their Top Songs

For some, the end of the year entails looking forward to Thanksgiving, Black Friday sales, Christmas, New Years, and enjoying the holidays. For avid music listeners, it means looking forward to one thing: Spotify Wrapped. 

In 2015, Spotify experimented with the concept of collecting its users data to allow them to know what music they listened to throughout the year, titling it “Year in Music.”  After 2015, Spotify decided they’d rebrand with “Spotify Wrapped” and with its quick success, it became a social media trend that resurfaced every year and became the talk of the week everywhere. 

Since 2016, Spotify users have looked forward to the end of the year to see what their Spotify Wrapped entails. Some people tend to be more excited because they are allowed to reflect on their listening habits throughout the year, while some already have a good idea of what it will look like as they spend their entire year carefully crafting the music they listen to. 

As someone who loves music and spends a majority of her time delving into new genres, senior Tandi Boyd claims that she “enjoys being able to know how many minutes I spent listening to music throughout the year and how they added up.” She says “it’s interesting being able to know more about myself” and that the trend’s success is probably because “most people enjoy learning more about themselves and sharing with others.”

Multiple users on TikTok have admitted to spending their time streaming certain artists and songs on purpose to ensure that their Wrap looks perfect. Some users even revealed that December was the only time they felt free to listen to whatever music they liked since that was the only time Spotify was not collecting data. 

Instead of just offering its users a summary of the music they listened to, Spotify dives more in detail in a fun manner. The Wrap is built off of every user’s unique data to allow them a more personalized experience. Users’ music choices are revealed ranging from what artists and songs they most listened to, the minutes they spent listening to music, and even what percentage of artists Spotify takes a trendy topic and theme and then blends it into their wraps.

For example, last year users were generated an “aura” that gave them a personalized image made just for them based off of the music they listened to. This year, Spotify approached an outer space theme, users were given a “genre-verse” that had different planets with the different genres they listened to. Spotify even made a personalized listening personality for every user that designed a shape with a name based off of their listening habits and personality traits. 

Junior Siddarth Shrestha top artist was C418. He claimed that he wasn’t surprised because he “fell asleep to Minecraft music.” He says it was “so good to wake up listening to Minecraft music.” 

Senior Tatiana Diaz’ top artist was Billie Eilish. Diaz claimed it was no surprise as she sees Eilish as her “favorite artist” and spends most of her time listening to her music and even attended her concerts.