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Your first gift of the holiday season has arrived: it’s time for Spotify Wrapped.
The annual package of the most listened to songs and artists by people begins to be published this morning. An unofficial start to the gift-giving season, Wrapped has proven to be a social trend that just won’t die. For some, its dominance is embarrassing (or a FOMO moment for non-Spotify users). Yet it resurfaces every year, with reminders of sad songs you heard during a breakup, your favorite artist’s favorite era, or your secret guilty pleasure songs (for many, Taylor Swift could dominate all of these categories this year).
For the 2023 edition of Wrapped, Spotify is planning 40,000 artist cameos, an integration with Roblox, and easy ways to share Spotify Wrapped in group chats or on social media. The FC Barcelona footballers have made videos in which they guess each one’s most listened to music. There will also be a feature called Sound Town, which matches people with cities around the world based on the style of music and artists they like, and DJ with AI Custom playlists to take users through your top songs.
This year, Spotify also grouped users into 12 listening habits, including categories like “vampire,” a person who listens to darker music later at night, and “shapeshifter,” a person who quickly jumps from one artist to another. .
The music streamer has been offering year-in-review content since 2015, but the feature didn’t take off as a major trend until Spotify started presenting the results in fun and edgy ways. Now, Wrapped’s increasing number of features makes it inevitable. apple music Repetitiona similar year in review feature, launched Tuesday, but lacks the complex layouts and experiential features that come with Wrapped, as well as notoriety as an annual meme holiday.
Every year, the excitement around the release of Wrapped overshadows the fact that it’s only possible thanks to Spotify. track listener data so closely: This year’s platform findings show that more than 200 people created playlists titled “Dump Him,” while thousands of others created playlists related to the Roman empire either girl’s dinner. Rihanna’s music skyrocketed after his performance at the Super Bowland the Succession The theme song had a moment when the fourth season premiered. Instead of disdain and skepticism, carefully presented data is often greeted (and shared) with delight. And in exchange for charming users with information they probably already knew about their listening habits, the streamer dominates social media for a day.
Listeners’ top picks for the year shouldn’t be too surprising: Taylor Swift was the most popular artist in the world, with 26 billion streams. Spotify mocked the headliner by hiding Swift tracks on billboards around the world in the days leading up to the performance. Then came Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Drake and Peso Pluma. Wrapped is based on streaming data from January to mid-fall 2023.
Spotify remains the world’s dominant music streaming service, having landed 30 per cent of the market at the end of 2022. The company had a profitable third quarter this yearis first since 2021since it gained subscribers and monthly active users.
With Wrapped, Spotify is walking the line between social sharing and hyper-personalization of its product, says Tatiana Cirisano, senior music industry analyst and consultant at Midia Research. People expect accurate, personalized playlists and want to see their own data, but Spotify also needs to find ways to bring that personalized experience to the social platforms with which it competes for attention. “They have to play with both hands,” Cirisano says.
Every year, Wrapped is also a way for people to express their fandoms. “You’re a fan of an artist because there’s something about their identity that resonates with yours,” Cirisano says. “Wrapped is a really smart way to take advantage of that.”
