Top .05% of listeners… of “fan noises for sleep.” Spotify’s most wonderful time of the year is here: its data-fueled Wrapped activation launched yesterday. It’s the streaming platform’s chance to tell listeners their top genre was “vaporwave indietronica” and sum up their top artists and songs. In a year where artificial intelligence (shoutout to AI Drake) took the mic, Spotify said its theme is “real” — to highlight the relationship between fans and their fave artists.
“Coastal cowgirl” tunes: Listeners will see a video message from their top artist this year, with a character like “Vampire” that represents their Spotify habits and a “Sound Town” that shows which city’s fans they would most want to share an earbud with.
Beyond the app: Billboards around the world highlighted humorous data points, while others featured Swifty Easter eggs to tease that Taylor is the year’s most-streamed artist (hope runner-up Bad Bunny’s OK).
From Barbie to pickleball playlists… Spotify rolled out Wrapped in 2016 and created shareable Instagram graphics a few years later. In 2021, 120M listeners perused their personalized recaps and 60M shared their wraps on social. At this writing, the #SpotifyWrapped hashtag had nearly 70B views on TikTok, and #SpotifyWrapped2023 had nearly 130M. On X, Wrapped is trending, as usual. The breakout success of Spotify’s data-fueled marketing magic has inspired countless copycats, including from streaming rivals like Apple Music and Tidal, but also Duolingo, Nintendo’s Switch, and even WaPo.
Users like (fun) data tracking… As governments crack down on corporate use of personal data, Wrapped critics say it just wraps a pretty bow on personal-info collection. While consumers are averse to having their data mined for purposes like ad targeting, the perception shifts when their data is presented in a fun or helpful way. Some apps exist for that sole purpose (think: MyFitnessPal, Sleep Cycle, Goodreads). People are cool with sharing their data — when it’s fun.