Towards the end of each year, the majority of the Fieldston community spends a number of days impatiently waiting for one thing to come out: a new and entirely personalized Spotify Wrapped.
In essence (for those who use Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon Music, SiriusXM or others), the concept of “Spotify Wrapped” is a full-fledged recap of your year in music listening. It often features your top artists, your favorite songs, the number of minutes you listened to and many other fun features. But this year, some things were a little different. Wrapped arrived days after people expected it, with some beloved features removed and new features that were received with mixed emotions.
As early as November 27, the “Spotifynews” and “Spotify” Instagram accounts began to post hints relating to the new version of Spotify Wrapped like “This year contained multitudes. So will your Wrapped. Coming Soon. #SpotifyWrapped.”
The comments that followed this post and many thereafter included complaints like “IM TIRED OF WAITING SPOTIFY.”
Another commenter said, “Girl I thought it was today…,”
Another joked, “Coming soon…its soon 2030????”
The word “Wrapped” is never said in these comments and is simply implied, enforcing the cultural importance (and understandable dependence) on Spotify Wrapped.
But people continued to wait. November 27 became November 30. And December 1 became December 3…4…and finally, 5. December 5, everyone woke up to a new tab on the “Home” section of Spotify titled “Wrapped” with a reddish outline. Upon tapping the button, the message “It’s that time of year again. Wrapped’s ready. Are you?” appeared. From there, the app displayed the number of minutes listened to throughout the year, with a specific day that featured your biggest listening day (minutes-wise). The top song came next…which may qualify as nothing short of shock and maybe some excitement. With the top song then came another four songs listened to most, giving some perspective on what plays in the back of one’s mind during class each day.
But something new appeared, in which Spotify now documents “music evolution” throughout the year. “You’ve changed. And so has your listening.” Spotify hauntingly displays a recap of each month’s most played artists and category names such as “Boujee Football Rap” season and “Goth Permanent Wave Dream Pop” moments. Though the sentiment of exploring favorite songs and artists is understood, what is the explanation for these category names? How can “goth wave dream pop” be both permanent and a moment? How is football “boujee”?
“I can’t tell if I’m living for these names or they’re about to be canceled,” says Form VI student Patrick Kisling, “but I can tell you this…I will be holding space for this in my heart.”
Spotify Wrapped ended with the beloved “How many artists you listened to” and “Overall top five artists of the year” with a sincere “Thanks for coming along for the ride” and a foreboding “Until we meet again…”
But what is the overall, overarching, encompassing and across-the-board assessment of this year’s Wrapped?
To sum it all up, it was “phantasmagorically weird and I am lowkey still addicted to it, so no complaints overall,” says Gregory Brooks (Form VI).
