Spotify Wrapped: a Blessing or a Curse?
While some may proudly flaunt their Tyler-topped Wrapped on social media, others with less-refined taste are forced to take more drastic measures.
It’s that time of year again: Spotify Wrapped 2020. The music streaming service’s interactive recap that highlights users’ top artists and songs for the year has finally arrived. While a select few may gladly celebrate its highly anticipated release, eager to share their superior taste in music on social media, the majority of users are less excited, seeing it only as a permanent reminder of times we’d rather forget.
Spotify Wrapped is absolutely a blessing for those content with their music feedback and analysis, providing well-attuned playlists that serve as incredible time capsules of songs and podcasts that make up each year. Given music’s innate ability to preserve experiences, these curations can be extremely useful, packed with nostalgia and memories of the good days. Plus, it’s always fun to flex how big of a fan you are of some of your favorite artists, with many taking to Instagram to share how they were in the top 0.05 percent (or 0.000001 percent in some cases) of listeners for their top artist.
But for those who went through a Hamilton/HSM/depression/etc. phase during these past few months of the pandemic, these playlists instead act as concrete records of the lowest points of our lives. I cannot describe how unexpected and disheartening it can be to see that WAP has made it into your top five songs of the year, despite all of your best efforts. For upperclassmen, Spotify Wrapped from 2016 and 2017 are particularly notorious for serving as brutal reminders of our worst moments, filled to the brim with jams from seventh and eighth grade that many, myself included, would take to the grave without hesitation.
Spotify Wrapped can also ultimately be unrepresentative of someone’s true taste in music. Those who listen to music while studying or to relax are particularly at risk, with many recently finding themselves dismayed at the fact that their top song of the year was a Mario Kart soundtrack or “Box Fan Sound Loopable Hour.” This year, in particular, many users are suspicious of the data provided by the service, with some being told they listened to over 1000 genres despite having three songs on repeat for months.
Whether or not it was met with rejoice or displeasure, as long as you received a Wrapped in your inbox, you are superior to those with Apple Music or, God forbid, Amazon Music, whose year was concluded with inaccurate and unattractive lists of songs, if anything at all. In the profound words of Fiona Goode, “Even the weakest among us [Glee fans I’m looking at you], are better than the rest of them.”
At the end of the day, there’s not much you can do if you don’t like your Wrapped, except try again next year and pray your taste in music improves. And in the future, before you hit play on “All I Want” for the fifteenth time that day, remember Spotify Wrapped is always watching…
Luke Leiden is a senior at Boulder High School and a new recruit to the BHS Owl team. Although Luke enjoys a variety of subjects and disciplines of knowledge, there is a special place in his heart for journalism and the power that it holds in modern society. Luke hopes to grow a lot as a writer and team player during his time in the newspaper, while also refining additional leadership and professional skills. In his free time, Luke enjoys torturing his body through long runs and sprint workouts, reading novels about post-apocalyptic societies, and sleeping through Netflix Originals. He also loves spending time with friends and family in the rain, ideally while hiking or attempting to construct...
Kaia Holicky • Dec 14, 2020 at 11:52 pm
This is an awesome article. It was so much fun to read because I can relate to a lot of it. For example I listen to music when I go to bed and sometimes it doesn’t stop playing and after one night I have listened to 8 hours of one artist and was only awake for 30 minutes of it. However, I do enjoy going back and listening to my top 2020 songs and remembering the joy that a lot of them brought me over the year.
Lex Dembo • Dec 14, 2020 at 11:47 pm
I loved the satiric approach you took to this piece! It was funny yet also brought to my attention the possible horror that Spotify users feel when seeing that in 2016 they may or may not have listened to “I’m Not Okay” by MCR for the 30th time. Although I am a Pandora user who doesn’t have the pleasure of receiving a “Pandora Wrapped”, I am always intrigued by the favorite artists and songs of friends and acquaintances. I also loved that you included some of the funnier top songs, seeing as I have actually used those in the past. Overall a great piece!
Miles Olbright • Dec 14, 2020 at 11:42 pm
I really enjoyed this article and thought it was funny that you addressed alot of this so accurately. As someone who listens to alot of different music i wasnt sure what to expect this year and ended up with some fairly out of the ordinary top artists for me. As for the embarrassing music and artists i thought this was great you talked about this alot of y friends gave each other a hard time but all in good faith of course.
Skye Aker • Dec 14, 2020 at 11:19 pm
I really enjoyed the segment about the memories that come with music and Spotify wrapped. I haven’t had Spotify long enough to have a Spotify wrapped overview but I can see why it would bring up good and bad memories. My very close friend always plays throwbacks and reminisces to the time of year that it was correlated with. For example, a specific song would symbolize the beginning of a relationship. I find it intriguing that music has enough influence among society to be associated with different memories throughout our lives.
Adrien Armstrong • Dec 14, 2020 at 11:17 pm
Fun article! Ha! I don’t think I have had quite the displeasure in my results as some but certainly have had some. Before I looked at my wrapped this year, I was a little nervous that Bruce Springsteen wasn’t going to be my top artist. No worries though, I was top 0.01% of his listeners. I can totally understand that feeling of disappointment that someone might get in their results. However, overall, I love Spotify wrapped. I love to see my breakdown of music because I love music! It’s a nice treat to get at the end of the year. Go Luke!
Saul Layman • Dec 14, 2020 at 10:50 pm
I enjoyed how this article highlighted a shared view that many people have that is not often acknowledged publicly. I have witnessed many people who have great taste in music have their tastes misrepresented by Spotify Wrapped and feel poorly that the recap was not more accurate to what they actually enjoy rather than a few songs that were played on repeat for a few days and then forgotten. What I always tell those who are unhappy with the result is that in the end, our playlists we have are the true wrapped ones. Although constantly changing, in the end the songs that we enjoy most stay, and the ones we do not are set aside. I highly enjoyed the article.
Clara Hassan • Dec 14, 2020 at 10:42 pm
What a great article! I think it’s interesting how you brought up how the Spotify Wrapped can be unrepresentative of someone’s taste in music, especially if they listen to music while studying, because that’s exactly what happened to me! As someone who hardly listens to music except for occasionally while studying and for ballet, I found my Spotify Wrapped very interesting. I didn’t recognize three out of my five top artists because they were all random accompanists on a classical playlist I listen to occasionally. I actually did share mine on social media because I thought it was funny, but I can understand why some people might not want to share theirs. I think it’s all just for fun though, and it’s super interesting to see what type of music your friends and peers like! And while it’s true that there might be some things people are ashamed of, I think everyone has probably changed and developed their music tastes over the years, so it’s normal to have your playlist be a little off.
Veda Weissman • Dec 14, 2020 at 8:29 pm
I really enjoyed this article, because I feel like a lot of people can relate to it, well at least I can relate. I personally loved when my Spotify wrapped was ready to be viewed, it showed me songs that I totally forgot I listened to on replay. This article is intriguing and it draws the readers in because it is very reliable to most teenagers these days, it was a good idea for Spotify to do this and it was a good idea for you to write about it. Overall this was a very intriguing and well thought out article.
Mia Haney • Dec 14, 2020 at 8:06 pm
I liked your article, I thought it was both entertaining and relatable. Over the past few years, I have also found my Spotify wrapped to be unrepresentative of my taste in music. Every year when I get the notification that my Spotify Wrapped is ready to be viewed I get super excited. Not long after though I am usually left surprised and slightly disappointed. I also thought that you did a nice job of taking the topic one step further and referencing the significant role music plays in many people’s lives.
Paige • Dec 14, 2020 at 7:23 pm
Luke it’s ok that you’re music taste was bad this year. It’s all about growth and reflection girl.
Evan Hassan • Dec 14, 2020 at 6:14 pm
I thought this was a fantastic article and I agree. So many people are so concerned over their spotify wrapped, and while it is cool to look at, it is a curse for a lot of people. Personally, I have no problem with any of past spotify wraps, and I honestly don’t care if people see my spotify wrapped, but I know many people are ashamed of the music they listen to or went through a phase of listening to music deemed as garbage, like WAP(although I do have to agree with everyone on this one, it is a garbage song.) Speaking of Hamilton, remember that Hamilton phase at our middle school? Interesting times….
Natalie Hill • Dec 14, 2020 at 5:35 pm
I really enjoyed this article. I found it to be both entertaining and relatable. I myself have Spotify and when I went to see my Spotify Wrapped I can confidently say I was very surprised. Either Spotify’s data is very inaccurate or I am completely unaware of how many times I have listened to some of these, very random, songs. I also liked how you touched on the fact that music is often a reflection of our thoughts, feelings, etc. and for some people seeing these songs can remind them of bad moments in the past year.
Jamie Hirshland • Dec 14, 2020 at 4:02 pm
This was such a fun article to read. It was so funny and was something that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I think Spotify Wrapped is such an interesting thing. First, it only accounts for Spotify users, so there is this whole superiority complex and slight competition between Apple and Amazon music users like you mentioned. Then, there are obviously the most important parts, which were how much music you listened to, which artists were your top ones for the year, and if you were in the top percent of listeners for that artist. Again, some superiority complex going on. It’s funny to see people showing this off, I did to my close friends because I thought it was funny, but there are some people who do post on social media unironically. It becomes redundant and I find myself being like, “Ok cool you listen to Tame Impala a lot”. I think it’s great that you touched on that in a humours way, as well as talked about how for some people it’s a curse. Some people don’t want to see that their top artist was HSM for example. It is definitely odd to see some people showing off certain top artists as I wonder if they really listen to them for genuine reasons or to appear sort of “in with the crowd”. Anyway, I loved reading this and I could relate to everything you talked about.
Ellie Miller • Dec 14, 2020 at 2:37 pm
This article was very entertaining and an accurate representation of how opening up your Spotify Wrapped feels. I can agree that some of the outcomes are quite embarrassing and shocking, like how Canon in D was one of my top songs of 2020. I’m glad to have found that other people feel more reluctant to share their top songs, artists, etc., because I thought I might be one of the only ones! Seeing Spotify Wrapped all over social media makes you question your music taste a bit. It’s also interesting, like you mentioned, to see the progression of everyone’s music taste from year to year. I’m sure we all have a few top songs from middle school that we’d be embarrassed to share as well.
Isa Bush • Dec 14, 2020 at 2:00 pm
I loved this article. I thought it was super fun and enjoyable to read. I know that for me personally, I could relate a little too well. It was fun to see everyones instagram stories with their favorite songs and artists to give me new ideas for things to listen to but I also laughed at some of the girls who were so proud of having 21 Savage as their top artist. I definitely questioned how accurate the data was as my top artist was Fleetwood Mac with Trippie Redd as a close second. I thought this article was really well written and, while I could tell that you are an intellectual thinker and a very talented writer, I appreciated how well you were able to make readers laugh.
Austen McCarty • Dec 14, 2020 at 12:35 pm
This was a fun article. I completely agree with the point about the Spotify algorithm. I somehow ended up listening to 65 new genres (most of which I’d never heard of) despite my collective use of Spotify adding up to barely over 2 days. I definitely enjoyed watching my Spotify Wrapped, but I also probably wouldn’t post it anywhere. Including the comedy made it a much more entertaining read; I especially liked the vaguely threatening nature of the last line.
Payton Robinson • Dec 13, 2020 at 3:42 pm
I loved this article and I thought it was funny. While I don’t have spotify, I have seen about 200 instagram posts this week that show my classmates Spotify Wrapped. Although it was a little annoying to click through all of these, I thought it was a good change of pace as to what is normally on Boulder High kids instagram stories. It was also something everyone could relate to and it cool to see what your classmates listen to daily. Although I was disappointed that no one at our school listens to Country Music.
Nathalie Pena • Dec 12, 2020 at 3:25 pm
I honestly enjoyed this article so much! While reading this article, multiple times, I found myself agreeing or chuckling at something you wrote. As someone who has “All I Want” in their top 100 playlist, I agree with the fact that while I do enjoy seeing my Spotify Wrapped, it is not something I would go posting on social media. I also loved how you wrote about looking back to our playlist for our tops songs in middle school. I thought this was a perfect thing to include seeing as we are all very different people than we were back then. Those were some weird years. I’m very glad you wrote an article which many people can relate to and makes them feel like they are not the odd ones out, who don’t have the music tastes that society says is superior. I really enjoyed the humor you added throughout the article, like calling out Glee fans and talking about how superior Spotify users are to Apple Music and Amazon music users. I very much agree with that statement. Overall, I loved this article a lot and I like how it was about something that isn’t really news, like politics or COVID-19, but rather something cool and fun to talk about. Good job!
Isabel Oliver • Dec 11, 2020 at 2:51 pm
Spotify Wrapped? idk about you but mine was more like Spotify WAP-ed…