Spotify users rejoice, because personalized “Your Top Songs 2019” playlists are now available for viewing. You may have noticed your friends reposting their 2019 Wrapped share cards on social media, revealing their five top artists, top songs, top genre, and minutes listened. Spotify Wrapped is an annual celebration where the company compiles each user’s listening data in an end-of-year showcase.
Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming service. The music-giant employs the power of streaming intelligence to create hyper-personalized experiences for listeners. Since 2013, this company’s passion project has transformed into a cultural phenomenon where Spotify uses its billions upon billions of accumulated data points to share stories about its worldwide users.
In 2017, Spotify said, “With more listeners and better data, we were able to give fans a tailored experience, showing that Spotify really gets them. And we keep building on it — taking data storytelling to new heights to make each year’s recap more special than the last.”
For example, using a year’s worth of statistical data, Spotify identified listeners’ “Tastebreakers,” a carefully curated collection of songs similar in style and genre to the ones they stream the most often. 2019 Spotify Wrapped also included a visual breakdown of their favorite genres and introduced a feature that highlights top artists’ hometowns on a world map, offering a new perspective on how global users’ music tastes range from.
On December 5th, 2019, Spotify said, “…for 2019 we’re focused on growth and velocity: all the ways your career grew, your music exploded, and your fans had you on repeat. There’s a lot of growth to celebrate: This year, more than 1.2 million artists were listened to for over 100 hours on Spotify.”
Leslie Huh (‘22), a Spotify premium user, said, “I’ve been on Spotify since 2015 and each year my listening time has increased exponentially. This year, I listened more than 45,000 minutes, which is about 750 hours per year, which is about 2 hours per day… Yes, I expected a really high number, but didn’t expect it to be that high.”
Since this year in particular marks the end of the decade, Spotify launched a “Best of the Decade for You” list of 100 songs you enjoyed streaming most since the early ‘10s. This sentimental playlist is available for all Spotify users, regardless of whether or not they purchased premium.
Doris Yuan (‘20), a Spotify premium user, said, “I find it interesting how people post on their stories saying how accurate their Wrapped is, but it’s just data, so of course everyone’s Wrapped has to be completely ‘accurate.’ I like using Spotify because I can crossfade songs and see my friends’ activity to discover new music, but this Wrapped feature doesn’t really stand out to me in particular. It’s more to cherish memories from the past year.”
Jordon Sun (‘23) said, “Spotify Wrapped is a game changer. It truly is a special platform that allows individuals to show off their authentic colors when it comes to music. Whether that be my favorite pop artist, Passion Pit, or the different podcasts I listen to, it creates the types of playlists that I want and I like.”
On the other hand, some artists are not as thrilled with Spotify for remitting only a small cut of the streaming profits. They have expressed backlash on popular social media platforms for reasons such as only making 0.37 cents per stream.
Take advantage of this wildly popular early Christmas gift to reflect on the story of your past decade told through music.
