Spotify Wrapped 2020

There has been an ongoing rivalry between Spotify and Apple music over the years and users will always feel strongly about which one does it better. Those who don’t own the Spotify app may feel a bit out of the loop right now with the overwhelming amount of posts regarding Spotify Wrapped appearing on Instagram stories. Spotify Wrapped is a feature on the app that reveals the most-streamed music and podcasts on Spotify around the world and comes out at the end of each year. As we near the end of 2020, Spotify released users’ Spotify Wrapped results just yesterday. However, what users really want to see on their Spotify Wrapped is which artists, songs, genres, and podcasts they listened to the most. The feature displays all this information, providing a recap on one’s music listening journey throughout the year. Some people look at their Spotify Wrapped lightly or with minimum curiosity of what kind of music they dabbled into throughout the year. Other people see it as a way of overviewing the music they resorted to or that gave them hope during different periods throughout the year. For example, for me, there are some of my top songs that define my summer of 2020 and it is cool to look back with nostalgia at those memories. Music means different things to different people and it’s cool that Spotify Wrapped can be looked at in various ways.

One individual’s Instagram story I scrolled past yesterday said that people were using Spotify Wrapped as a personality trait (because of the overwhelming amount of screenshots of people’s Spotify Wrapped results being posted on Instagram). To me, it sounded like she was mocking those who were willing to share their Spotify Wrapped to their followers. In doing so reveals something about who they are as a person. This opinion is definitely not an unpopular one, and to understand it a little bit more, it’s important to look at the evolution of music, or moreso the evolution of people’s perceptions of music. Gen Z’s in particular have developed a societal tendency to judge others, and music has become another victim to this act. There is now competition as to who has the best music taste— who listens to the best songs or artists. This is why in part music is evolving to center so much around the production of pop as kids think that that is what is “in.” Having unique or unpopular music taste is looked down upon, a real life example being when someone gets to control the aux in their car with their friends and an unpopular or unknown song comes on and the person is shamed or made fun of. To relate this all to Spotify Wrapped, it could be seen that people who share their Spotify Wrapped to their hundreds of followers is a way for them to assert their pride in their music taste.

Despite all of the controversy (if you could even call it that), I’m a fan of Spotify Wrapped. Seeing other people’s Spotify Wrapped shows something about them, although I wouldn’t go to say that music is a personality trait. Finding a common ground of music taste with someone is a powerful thing and it connects people more than they know.