Spotify has been reigning over the music industry for years, partially thanks to their annual tradition that has been increasing app downloads up to 20%, according to Hightouch. Spotify Wrapped is an annual event where users are shown a collection of data about their listening habits, and are encouraged to share on social media. The event happens for all users regardless if they’ve had Spotify for a full year, prompting many downloads before November.
An aspect of Spotify Wrapped that increases its spread is the encouragement for users to share their results with the world via the internet. The hashtag #SpotifyWrapped has 69.2 billion views just on TikTok, and countless posts have been made on other social media sites. Users explore online platforms to find other people who fit into their music niches, which is aided by the two new features debuted on this year’s Wrapped: ‘Me in 2023’ and ‘Soundtown’. ‘Me in 2023’ assigns you a cartoon character based on your listening habits, while ‘Soundtown’ gives you a city with music tastes that most closely aligns with yours.
Sophomore Chetan Gowda has noticed that the annual Wrapped has become somewhat of an event in pop culture, with users taking to social media platforms such as TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram to share and comment on their results.
“I’ve mostly seen people sharing their music taste, but also a lot of people trying to make competitions of who is the largest fan of a certain singer,” he said.
Spotify has ways of rewarding the percentage of users with the most listening minutes. For example, Spotify integrated artists more this year by allowing them to come out with exclusive merch offers for their top listeners. Further bridging the gap between artist and fan, over 40,000 artists recorded thank you messages to be shown to fans on Spotify. Additionally, Spotify tested out ‘Listening Parties’ with fans this year, which were live invite-only audio rooms for the top percentages of fans by select artists.
English teacher Brain McMullen speaks on his usage of Spotify.
“Spotify is definitely number one,” McMullen said.
Spotify undoubtedly trumps other music listening platforms with 226,000,000 premium users, and 348,000,000 unpaid users, according to 2023 statistics. Since 2019, Spotify downloads have doubled, according to Statista, and Wrapped is estimated to be a major player in this. Other notable features have also contributed to Wrapped’s effectiveness with their interactivity. One, ‘Wrapped Blend’ is built off on the tendency of users to share their results with their friends and over social media. It allows multiple users to create a shared ‘Blend’ playlist of the top songs shown on their Wrapped. The feature ‘Genre Sandwich’ stacks up users’ favorite genres in a digestible format. Spotify also added an alternate version of ‘AI DJ’, which plays through the top genres, artists, and songs shown on the user’s Wrapped.
“Many of my top artists are ones I play in class,” McMullen said, explaining how he uses Spotify to connect with his students. “I think playing music helps me build a sense of community among students.”
“It’s interesting to see music that I listened to in high school coming back, and students getting interested in that,” he said. “I see it a lot with students, someone in a different house or something will say ‘I love that band’ and they’re able to connect over that. Music is universal for humans; it’s one thing that we share no matter where we come from.”
