Spotify Wrapped came out Wednesday morning and became the topic of days of debate, go-arounds and social media frenzy.
Every year since 2016, the Swedish music streaming platform Spotify has created a personalized recap of users’ listening habits. It uses data to calculate each user’s top songs, artists and listening minutes, while adding new fun features each year that gamify the music listening experience. This year, a Spotify Wrapped feature that took the internet by storm was the Sound Town element. Users were assigned a city or town whose listening overlapped with their own.
While Spotify Wrapped “dropping” is a huge event for some, sophomore Ethan He already knew what to expect. He uses a third-party listening tracking service, which gives him his listening data–top artists and songs–without the bells and whistles of Wrapped. However, he was still surprised by his top genre, Lofi beats.
“I kind of looped it for five nights in a row, I just didn’t really choose anything else. I’ll play it, it’s background music. And then it became my top genre,” He said.
Hours of Lofi beats made He’s Sound Town Davis, CA.
“Like Miles Davis,” he said.
Davis is home to the University of California, Davis. Many commonly received Sound Towns house a university or college that likely impacts listening in the area. Many users report being told their listening resembled Burlington, VT, or Berkeley, CA.
Similarly to He, senior Awaale Osman was not very invested in his Spotify Wrapped but was happy to see what he and others listened to over the year.
“I listen to a lot of music, but I don’t really care to be honest,” he said of Wrapped dropping. “I knew what mine was gonna be, but just seeing other people’s was interesting. Music tells a lot about a person.”
One impressive feature of Osman’s Wrapped is his total minutes of music listening. In 2023, he listened to 105,602 minutes, amounting to over 73 days.
“I heard that some people have like 150k, but I haven’t seen more,” Osman said.
Sophomore Ella England’s minutes were not as high as Osman’s but she has seen Wrappeds shared on social media boasting even higher numbers.
“I had a friend that had like 210,000,” she said.
Social media is a main venue for sharing and seeing friends’ Spotify Wrapped. Users take to platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and X to share their stats from the year, listing top songs, artists, and genre.
“I wanted to see what my top songs and artists would be,” England said.
One of England’s top artists was HOYO-mix, the musical name behind score and soundtracks for miHoYo video games.
“I play one of their games. Some of their music is really good. I didn’t listen to it that much– but it is my fourth artist,” she said.
England’s Sound Town? College Station, Texas, another college town, home to Texas A&M.
Want to listen to the year in recap? View Spotify Wrapped when logged into Spotify.
