By: Gemma Mastroianni
It's Spotify Wrapped season!
Every December Spotify gives their users a reflective in-app experience that summarizes each listeners listening habits over the year showing their top music, artists, listening habits, and more recently podcasts, which had a much bigger emphasis last year as the platform evolves. It's also a visually exciting experience making it a "shareable" one that tends to be a hot topic on socials.
You either view it in one of two ways: one being the time of year where you can reflect on your most listened to songs and get excited to check out your friends libraries. Or, you dread seeing it on your timeline and probably re-share some sort of sarcastic meme about it on your channels.
Where do I stand in all of this? I'm excited. If you're not stoked and you're reading this article, I'm here to tell you why you SHOULD be hyped about Spotify Wrapped and am hoping that maybe you can change your perspective. If you already love Spotify Wrapped, read along and get excited!
A REPRESENTATION OF GROWTH
Music is such a personal experience for all of us. Our taste in sound often changes with the seasons and our personal growth. Spotify Wrapped creates an introspective way of listening back at your year and seeing how music has been part of supporting all of your experiences. How have certain songs helped you through life's challenges, or supplemented the most beautiful moments? Was there a particular artist or album who you had on repeat that touched you in some way and perhaps influenced your actions? Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your growth and see how far you have come over the past twelve months.
REVISIT YOUR FAVOURITE MUSIC
Have you ever accidentally come across a song that you totally forgot existed, but then you actually remember every single word and then think back to yourself, "Wow, I'm so happy I rediscovered this!"
Every year for Spotify Wrapped they include a 'Your Top Songs' playlist which has your top played songs throughout the year in one playlist. Just press play and let all of your favourite songs come back to you.
REFLECT ON MEMORIES
It's amazing how music can tap into our associative memories and be tied to events, people, and some of the hardest and best times in our life. It's been another chaotic year filled with ups and downs (especially in Ontario) but I know I've definitely still had some unforgettable positive experiences with friends. I'm looking forward to revisiting all of the songs that acted as the soundtrack to these fun times, and reminiscing away.
CHECK OUT WHAT YOUR FRIENDS HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO
I can't be the only one who regularly creeps the Friend Activity bar on Spotify desktop, right? In all seriousness as someone who does love hearing what my friends are listening to, I truly love checking out what my friends top artists and songs were because of all the reasons listed above!
Music represents something bigger in all of our lives whether we realize it or not, and Spotify Wrapped is a beautiful experience seeing everyones summaries and acts as an opportunity to discover new songs that I haven't heard yet this year, or bond with those who had similar stats to mine.
This year I've expanded my music taste and have been into a few different genres than I typically would be, and have also been listening to a couple of new podcasts. I think it's going to be super eclectic for me and I'm getting pretty curious to see what the turn out will be!
We will have the answers soon in the coming weeks. Until then, you can actually look back in your library and check out your top sounds from 2020 playlist. Check out mine here, and a preview below:
If you're a Spotify Wrapped grump, I hope this changed your perspective. If you get excited for this every year, I hope this post got you stoked!
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