Spotify Wrapped 2020: Ending The Year On a Positive Note?

By: Deeba Mehr

Spotify Wrapped is essentially a summary of all the music you’ve listened to throughout the year. As much as we may complain about the algorithm and all the data that’s collected, we’ve got to admit that Spotify Wrapped is pretty cool. Let’s be real, they’re spying on us all the time anyway so we might as well get a banging playlist out of it.

For those of you who aren’t on the Spotify train, Wrapped tells you how much music you’ve listened to all year, which artists you’ve listened to the most, your top podcasts, and much more! Personally, this compilation of my listening habits is something that I forget about for most of the year, but when I get the notification it’s like Santa came and gave me a ~wrapped~ gift.

At the time of writing, 2020 Wrapped hasn’t been released yet. It usually comes out around the very end of November or early December, and I’m very excited to see what comes up. Having seen the past four or five years of Wrapped, I can attest that they top it every year – another reason to look forward to what they do this year!

But what can you do with the information? Personally, songs are often deeply connected with a period of time like July 2019, or January 2020. With a breakdown of all the songs you’ve listened to most in the year, you can make your own nostalgia playlists! Sure, Spotify also makes curated playlists for you, but still… the algorithm doesn’t have a 100% success rate as far as I’m aware.

Spotify’s aim in all this is not just to keep customers happy, but also to send out its message. Last year, they had a feature showing how diverse your music taste is; they did this by showing how much music you’ve listened to from various countries. They also showed you how many new artists you discovered. This all amplifies Spotify’s appeal in discovering new music; you can listen to unlimited amounts of the music you already know and love, but it also makes it so much easier to discover new music and broaden your horizons.

Wrapped is a brilliant marketing tactic too. By making the information so visually appealing with bright colours and bold fonts, people are more likely to share their music history on social media, furthering Spotify’s exposure. It’s not free publicity per se, since I’m sure a lot of money goes into the coding of the Wrapped package, and all the algorithms and data collection. Their revenue and overall profits have been steadily increasing year-on-year, with the 2019 revenue being more than triple that of 2015. Needless to say, their return on investment makes it well worth the cost.

Spotify Wrapped is intriguing for anyone to see. As humans, we’re pretty self-absorbed, and we all like to hear information about ourselves being told back to us. Spotify knows this and fulfils that little desire we have, while also ensuring that people are paying attention to them. If you have Spotify, don’t forget to take a look at what this crazy year has meant for your music taste!

Source: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/spotify-statistics/