‘Tis the Season for Spotify Wrapped

        Well, folks. It’s that time of year again. It’s everyone’s favorite non-governmentally sanctioned holiday. We don’t get any time off, but we can learn a lot about ourselves and our music tastes. Yeah, you guessed it already. Spotify Wrapped is here.   

       Spotify Wrapped for the year of our lord (Josh Hutcherson) 2023 was released on Wednesday morning. As I’ve noticed, Spotify hasn’t made too many changes to the general design and format of Wrapped — everything is still brightly colored, all the information is organized and presented in a slide show-esque format, and users are still prompted to screenshot or download their top songs and artists of the year (arranged with the classic Spotify graphics and font).   

         So, what has Spotify changed as far as how it interprets your listening data? Well, for starters, Wrapped 2023 may include the month of this year in which you listened to one of your five top artists the most. For me, I listened to the most Radiohead all year in February. As you might imagine, that was a trying time for me. Turns out Thom Yorke and I were on the same wavelength for a while. 

        Also, Wrapped 2023 contains a section where they decide what type of “anti-hero” you are based on your music taste. Each “anti-hero” archetype has its own unique graphic associated with it, and the rest of the graphics floating behind it revert to black and white as if to maintain the focus of the presentation on your anti-hero characteristics. For example, my Wrapped labeled me as “The Collector,” which, according to Spotify, means I listen predominantly to my own playlists rather than to those generated by the app or entire albums as a whole. (Is this accurate? I don’t know, you tell me.) My partner’s archetype, on the other hand, is “The Hypnotist,” which Spotify describes as being “a person of complete focus” whose listening habits lean towards playing albums front to back. I think this is an interesting concept, and I’m curious to learn more about the other Wrapped 2023 anti-hero archetypes that exist.   

         Lastly, Wrapped 2023 crosschecks your frequently listened-to artists with those of populations living in other places — for instance, my music taste is statistically most similar to that of citizens of Burlington, Vermont. Is Spotify using metadata to correlate your listening habits to your personal location and therefore using that relationship to assume more of your personal info? Is that scary? Absolutely. Is it also cool to see how your music taste stacks up against other Spotify users across the country? Undeniably.    

        Anyways, Wrapped 2023 was pretty much the same as it is every year. They’ve remained consistent with the nature and amount of information they collect and organize for each user — they always include how many overall minutes you’ve listened to Spotify this year, your top five artists and songs, and notable albums or songs you consistently had on repeat. As per usual, they’ve slightly altered (perhaps even enhanced) the graphics for Wrapped, and changed the way in which they interpret or categorize user’s listening habits (anti-hero).   

        I have to say, Spotify (as a company) has done a fantastic job of getting us hyped about Wrapped without fail from year to year. If a company is going to steal and collect my personal data, the least they can do is give me an aesthetically pleasing, engaging and interesting little slide show presentation summarizing what they’ve learned about me and my silly little media consumer habits in a year’s time. I think all companies should have to do that.