Spotify Wrapped, Wrapped
With the end of the year comes the highly anticipated Spotify Wrapped, where users get to analyze their yearly listening. Photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels
As Marist College students eagerly look towards the winter break holiday, one year-end tradition dominates the world of music streaming: Spotify Wrapped.
According to Spotify’s website, Wrapped allows its users to “get a deeper look into your listening with a recap made just for you” and that “an account and a few hours with the songs and podcasts you love” is all that a user needs to earn Wrapped results.
The service traces its origins to 2015, though under a different name — Year in Music. Though it was popular, it didn’t gain the viral status that its successor, Wrapped, would when it launched two years later. In 2019, Wrapped was directly built-in to the Spotify app. That same year, Wrapped was intentionally formatted to be shareable on social media stories, like those of Instagram and Snapchat, further driving the program’s popularity.
The portion of Wrapped that generates the most conversation is the top 5 artists — both for an individual listener and all Spotify accounts as a whole. Wrapped popularity is a great early bellwether of an artist’s performance in a given year.
Marist students, though their enjoyment of Wrapped is near-universal, differ in predictions about who will be enshrined as global top artists.
“I think it’s a fun little thing Spotify has for its listeners,” said Rina Clinton ‘27. “Everyone likes looking at their statistics, whether they admit it or not.”
“I think it’s very good in terms of how it combines people’s music interests… so they’re aware of who they’re listening to most,” said Gabriel Powers ‘27. Powers also noted that it “creates a sense of community within Spotify listeners.” Clinton agreed, saying that “when the Wrapped comes out, it’s one of the most unifying times on X,” referring to the social media app formerly known as Twitter.
The uniqueness of the service is at its most prevalent when it comes to individual listenership data.
Powers went with “Hozier, Sabrina Carpenter, [and] Rainbow Kitten Surprise,” as predictions for his top artists, also claiming that “Billie Eilish could be up there too.” Clinton named “Nine Inch Nails, PinkPantheress, Tyler, the Creator…System of a Down, and probably Megan Thee Stallion” as her top choices.
Global predictions became somewhat more universal.
Powers predicted Taylor Swift as the top artist, but said he hoped for “Sabrina Carpenter or Chappell Roan.” Clinton also mentioned Taylor Swift, yet also argued for “Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande… Kendrick [Lamar] because of recent events, probably Drake…”
Music fans hoping to fuel their predictions can turn to competitor Apple Music, who, in addition to releasing their own version of Wrapped for their users, selects top artists in specific categories before their recap. The service tapped Billie Eilish for their overall artist of the year, as well as Charli XCX for having the best viral hits, Sabrina Carpenter for being the best in pop and Kendrick Lamar for being the best rapper.
Wrapped is not without its flaws, however. To push its usual release time of early December, Wrapped does not tabulate data for the entire calendar year.
“It should count for the whole year and come out next year. That’s a much more accurate figure…I think last year it stopped counting in October, which I think is stupid because there’s a couple months left,” said Clinton.
Brendan Codey, Associate Director of Creator Growth and Programs at Spotify, in confirming this detail to Newsweek in 2021, said that this was an intentional choice to assure the quality of the site and “to finalize assets for Wrapped, all of which takes a while.”
In 2023, though, contrary to popular belief and tradition, Spotify seemed to change course, posting on X that “Wrapped is still counting past Oct. 31st.”
Spotify Wrapped released on Wed, Dec. 4, while Apple Music released its recap on Dec. 3.