“If I’m in your Spotify Wrapped just know I truly wouldn’t be here without you,” quoted singer-songwriter Noah Kahan after this year’s release of Spotify Wrapped. 

Since 2016, Spotify users have been anticipating what is known as “Spotify Wrapped,” an encapsulation of users’ yearly listening habits on Spotify that comes out in early December. For $10 a month, listeners are not only supplied music, but recommend new songs and playlists personalized specifically for them. It also helps keep track of the most streamed artists worldwide. In 2023, Taylor Swift was the most streamed artist, having more than 26.1 billion streams since the beginning of the year. 

Listeners look forward to this summary all year, some even base their listening solely for good results. 

For example, sophomore Jack Caratenuto says he does exactly this.

“The last 4 months of the year I listen to music that I think is cool so it appears on my Wrapped so I get to brag,” he said. 

Junior Ayden Fernandez says he also does something similar to this. One of the features of Spotify Wrapped is displaying how many minutes you listened to music that year. Fernandez says he listens just to get this number high, ranking in at around 90,000 minutes listened. 

“It’s something I anticipate all year and I listen to music solely to get minutes listened,” he said. 

Listeners say that they never know what to expect with their yearly Wrapped. Whether their music taste varies or sticks to the same handful of artists, listeners seem to be surprised by their Wrapped. Sophomore Isabella Yoder agreed with this statement, stating that she was surprised by her Wrapped.

“Honestly, I never know what to expect from Spotify Wrapped. My music taste is so all over the place. However, I pattern I’ve noticed that it really highlights big name artists and not so much my favorite smaller local ones,” Yoder said, also quoting that her Wrapped highlighted artists such as Gretta Van Fleet and Hozier. 

South High art teacher Eric Ludlow was also surprised by his results.

“Yeah, it’s kind of weird. Some of the bands weren’t as high as I thought the Flaming Lips would be because I was listening to a bunch of them this year,” he said. 

One feature that was highly discussed was the artist’s messages. Listeners receive short clips from their top artists generally thanking them for listening throughout the year. This year was different because artists were required to film one of these videos for their fans. One largely spoken about video was from rapper Lil Peep. Peep died in 2017, obviously making it impossible for him to personally film a video, so his mother stepped up and made a short documentary of a sort for fans. 

“The artists’ messages were cool. Mine was the guy from the Pixies but they weren’t on my top 5,” Caratenuto said when asked about his artist messages. 

Overall, “Spotify Wrapped” was a hit this year among listeners. Spotify Wrapped is a cool way to see how your music taste changes and evolves throughout the year. 

Students emphasize their overarching love for “Spotify Wrapped,” such as students like Fernandez. 

“Wrapped makes me want to live. I love Wrapped,” he said.