By Henry Thompson
As the first semester comes to a close, there are many things for Lovett’s students to look forward to, including trips, the holidays, and, of course, a break from school. However, there is one item on this list that garners its own sort of attention, bridging the gaps between students through their enjoyment of music, but only if you’re a Spotify user, of course. This is the infamous and culturally celebrated Spotify Wrapped.
If you’re curious (or live under a rock), Spotify Wrapped is an annual event where Spotify provides an overview of your music taste and trends over the past year, including such statistics as total minutes listened, top artists and songs, and the newly minted listening age (an estimation of your age based on the time period of the music you listened to).
Spotify Wrapped is incredibly popular, as millions share their personal recaps online and discuss the implications of their music taste. This is no different for Lovett students, with many even looking forward to the event’s release all year.
To start, here are some interesting statistics from the people I interviewed:
Overall, the number of minutes listened to varied greatly, ranging from around 9,000 at the lowest to around 73,000 at the highest.
The students’ taste in genres was varied as well, ranging from rap to classic rock, jazz, and “math rock” (one can only guess what that sounds like). Interestingly, I did seem to find a lot of people who listen to what Spotify has deemed indie pop, but I’m still not entirely sure which artists fall into this genre.
Despite the variety, everyone I interviewed unanimously agreed that their Spotify Wrapped was accurate, explaining that while they were surprised at times, Spotify’s information made sense.
Now for the new stuff: listening ages. People’s listening ages all landed within a wide range (I’m starting to notice a theme here…), coming in anywhere between early twenties to late nineties. This piece of data caused quite a stir this year, with students discussing how they should interpret the fact that Spotify seems to have placed them on their listening deathbeds.
Senior Alex Morton, for example, said his listening age is 72. His top artist is the Grateful Dead. Gunner Jones is 79, with the Allman Brothers at the top of his list (“Melissa” is his number one song). Gunner is not much younger than English teacher Ms. Waterman, whose listening age is 83. Her top song? “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers, which she said is played at Buffalo Bills games. Other artists: Blood Orange, Brian Eno, and a lot of jazz.
On the other hand, David Rumph’s age is around twenty-five, perhaps because one of his most listened-to songs is “Insecurities” by Lil Baby. Senior Leah Woolfson is a modest “thirty.” Her top artists are Zach Bryan, Cage the Elephant, and the Lumineers.
Looking closer at the social aspect of Spotify Wrapped, there is a level of embarrassment and even pride that you might expect to come from such a social phenomenon.
Mr. Albano vocalized a sentiment that many other students also felt, exclaiming “Taylor Swift, obviously. Let’s be real” when prompted about what he found to be the most embarrassing in his Wrapped (Taylor Swift was his top artist). Aside from feeling ashamed for listening to one of the most popular music artists in recent memory, other students also expressed embarrassment over their listening age and minutes they listened.
On the more prideful side, multiple students expressed satisfaction over how varied their tastes were, as freshman Madigan Edwards explained, “My ones are so different, [a] mix.”
It seems there are many reasons for Lovett’s students to look forward to their Spotify Wrapped, from wanting to see how their taste has changed over time to simply competing with their friends, like Freshman Eknath Kamat. “I like how it’s a little bit competitive between your friends about how much music you listen to,” he said. “I actually made a bet with someone, but they backed out.”
No matter what the reason, though, Spotify Wrapped is an event that even users of alternative music apps should look forward to, either for the excitement of getting to know their peers better or just to have a good laugh at the absurdity of someone’s statistics.
