As 2021 came to a close, students eagerly anticipated the arrival of their Spotify Wrapped. “Spotify Wrapped”, a tradition since 2015, shows Spotify users statistics, such as the top artists, genres, and songs that they listened to during the year, so that they can share their music tastes with their friends and family. 

Senior Mya Morgan was especially excited to see what music she had been listening to during 2021.

 “I really look forward to [Spotify Wrapped] every year,” Morgan said. “My music taste changes very often and I see it as a really fun opportunity to see which genres and artists prevailed above all the others.”

Junior Levi Xayachack saw their Spotify Wrapped as an exciting guessing game to see if they could recall which artists they listened to the most throughout the year. 

“It was very surprising to see that Joji, who was my number one artist last year, didn’t show up in my top artists at all,” Xayachack said. “It’s also fun to see something that you expected and have a moment of excitement when you find out [that] you were right. I guessed that Tyler, the Creator and A Tribe Called Quest would be in my top 3 artists for the third year in a row, and I was 100% correct.”

Spotify Wrapped highlights how entertaining it can be to see one’s music taste summarized in an aesthetically pleasing way, but many see that as only half the fun. In addition to being excited to see their own, many look forward to seeing their friends’ Spotify Wrapped at the end of every year. Junior Maddy Bills was particularly excited to see what music their friends had been listening to.

“I always look forward to seeing my friend’s Spotify Wrapped because I like knowing how my friends’ music tastes compared to mine, and sometimes I find new music that I end up really loving,” Bills said.

More often than not, students can find pleasant similarities between each other’s Spotify Wrapped, whether that be that they listen to the same artists, identify themselves with the same genres, or even see that their friends have been taking them up on their recommendations.

“I get super excited to look for similarities between my friends’ Spotify Wrapped and mine,” Xayachack said. “For example, when I saw one of my friend’s Spotify Wrapped, I was surprised to see hyperpop as one of their top genres, and it made me really happy because I had given them a bunch of hyperpop recommendations throughout the year.”

Many even see Spotify Wrapped as a bonding opportunity for friends and family, as they all share their love for music with one another at the same time.

“I see Spotify Wrapped as a golden opportunity for people to bond with one another over music because it can show similarities between music tastes, or help to introduce each other to new artists and genres that they’re passionate about,” Bills said.

Spotify Wrapped can also be used as an opportunity to reach out to people that you are not very close with, or people that you might not even know.

“It’s like a free opportunity to engage with other people that you might not have [even had] a conversation with before,” Morgan said. “I might know next to nothing about someone, but if I know they like the same music [that] I do, it gives me something to talk to them about; [in] that way, music brings people together.”

Spotify Wrapped may just seem like a fun little promotion put in place by the company, but over the years it has truly become so much more. It can serve as a  conversation starter, a bond former, and even a community foundation. It helps make it clear to more and more people that music serves as Earth’s universal language. 

“Music has been around forever, and it’s one of the only guarantees in all cultures,” Bills said. “Music bonds people in a way that’s entirely unique because it’s one [one of the only] things that all humans have in common across all languages and all countries.”

When looking closely, there is quite a lot of beauty to be found in the way that music can connect people.

“I think music can connect people because it’s always been a part of human culture. Even if you don’t like music that much, everyone has at least a few songs that they really like to listen to. You can find out a lot about a person from their music, and once you know the music they like, it becomes easy for you to form a bond with them, and I find that [really] beautiful.” said Xayachack.