Highly anticipated Spotify Wrapped finally released
“Your Wrapped is here” popped up on Spotify users’ phones when opening the app on Thursday. This deep dive into users’ top-played artists, songs and genres is highly anticipated by many.
Throughout the day of the Wrapped release, social media is filled with users showing off their support for their top artists and how much they listened to them. The amount of minutes spent using the app is also a highlight.
“Spotify Wrapped is a really fun way to get people to interact or use Spotify a lot more because it’s like a high score in a video game, where you can see how many minutes you were listening to music,” said Ethan Baccam, a junior in psychology. “Your personality kind of shows through the statistics.”
Finding new artists is something Baccam aims for when listening to music, which is why he tried listening to an album a day of artists recommended to him. With this, he was able to increase the number of artists he listened to, ending the year with 2,018.
“I was really getting to learn about these new artists that I’ve never heard before, or ones that are up and coming,” Baccam said. “Before then, there were a couple of artists that I just listened to daily that I wouldn’t have ever found if I hadn’t tried to commit myself to an album a day.”
Since Wrapped is data-based, it is easy for users to guess who their top artist would be, based on what they listened to the most throughout the year. Baccam guessed Andy Grammer and Paramore to be in his top five, and they fell at numbers one and five, respectively.
Blake Petersen, a sophomore in journalism, knew his top artist would be Queen before Spotify confirmed it. His passion for their music secured his spot in the top .05% of Queen listeners this year.
Along with Queen, his time spent listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day crafted his top genre: Rock.
“I clocked in about 28,000 minutes,” Petersen said. “I just see people go above 100,000, and like, you have to play music 24/7. 28,000, I would say, is average, not very surprising.”
With multiple musicians finding themselves in serious controversies this year, Spotify Wrapped was not an exciting day for users who could not kick them out of their top five. Some Kanye West listeners found themselves in this position after he had made multiple antisemitic remarks in the months leading up to Wrapped being released.
“I know someone who I’m friends with in New York, who had Kanye West as his top artist,” Petersen said. “From recent controversy, he’s like, ‘No, I tried to change my favorite, but it didn’t work.’”
Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican rapper, ended the year as the most streamed Spotify artist, his third year earning that title. Harry Styles’ hit song, “As It Was,” was the most streamed song on Spotify this year.
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