Spotify Wrapped 2020

Diana Mendoza, Staff Writer

    As the year comes close to an end, the music streaming app, Spotify releases their feature “Wrapped 2020” for all Spotify listeners to take a look back at their music and podcast history from the year. 

          Wrapped is essentially a feature that follows the “Story of Your 2020” in which you witness your top song’s journey through the year, from it’s first stream to its 100th and all the notable listens in between, the app’s feature deeps dive into user’s data to personalize their users playlists “Your Top Songs 2020” “Missed hits” and “On Record” which are included in the feature. According to Spotify, Wrapped data only counts from January 1st to Oct 31st. So this means that the data from November and December are somewhat of a music irrelevance. This year’s Wrapped is full of insights and analysis of data of favorite artists, songs, and genres, as well as podcasts. It’s created from data unique to each and every listener.

          Wrapped also shares a deeper dive into podcast listening and how many minutes users spent listening and the most binge-worthy podcast of the year. It also comes with new personalized playlists that will help you make the most of what you listened to this year. It ranges from your top songs, the songs you loved the most this year to missed hits all in one convenient playlist. The Wrapped discovery playlist where Spotify recommends popular similar 2020 releases you haven’t listened to that they think you might enjoy. And as for premium users(paid users), they can look forward to new badges that crown listeners with various titles based on the ways they listened.

          On my Spotify Wrapped, I discovered 707 new artists this year! I listened to 1,007 artists this year, and also listened to 282 genres this year, including 207 new ones. As for my “Top Genres” I got K-Pop at number one on the list with Indie Pop, Pop, Adult Standards and Rock following after. For my “Top Decade” I got 2000s and my top song from that time was “Like or Like Like” by Miniature Tigers which is such a good song. As for my “Top Artist”, I got Cuco and actually was in the top 0.5% of his listeners this year and according to my wrapped I spent 3,494 minutes listening to his song “Dontmakemefallinlove”. Then for my top artists of the year I got Cuco, Clario, Monsta X, Conan Gray, and Joji.

          Personally, I didn’t really like my Spotify “Wrapped 2020” and I know I can’t really complain since I listened to the music but I just wish I would have found my new music taste sooner. It does suck that my taste in music improved up until the last few months of this year so a lot of my new favorite artists or genres weren’t featured on my Wrapped playlist but there’s always next year. I know I said that I didn’t really like my Spotify Wrapped but I could really care less about what a playlist says about my “Top Songs” or who my “Top Artist” is, it’s not very relevant since my music taste will continue growing.  

However, if you don’t like your Spotify wrapped and want to see your music analyzed elsewhere (or if you don’t have Spotify), say hello to Apple Music. Yasmin Lopez, a sophomore, stated her opinion on which app was better which she said “So I like Spotify but I prefer Apple Music, yeah Spotify has Wrapped but we had Replay, so I feel like it’s pretty much the same thing.” She added, “I like Spotify but Apple Music is just my overall preference.” 

Spotify Wrapped has some nice features that I think everyone should check out such as the “Missed Hits” playlist, which contains popular songs in 2020 that you haven’t listened to but Spotify thinks you might like. But even then I personally find Spotify to be easy to use and besides the ads and limited skips, it really isn’t all that bad and I quite enjoy it.

          There were a lot of interesting Spotify Wrapped playlists that I saw when the feature came out and it was cool seeing everyone’s “Top Artists” and “Top Songs.” I hope Spotify users enjoyed this fun little feature as much as I did. Besides Spotify Wrapped, Spotify also has many other features such as Spotify Premium, with this Spotify listeners can listen to music without ad interruptions, have unlimited skips, and can download up to 10,000 songs so you can listen to when you’re away from the internet.