It’s that time of year again, where Spotify, one of the most popular global music streaming services, releases their yearly “Wrapped” compilations of users’ music tastes and artist choices. But what exactly is Spotify Wrapped? And, how did it get started?

Each year Spotify has a roundup of your top songs and artists and puts them into a reel, which is known as a “Spotify Wrapped.” This personalized reel showcases the music users listened to over the years, which restarts when the new year begins. Spotify has new features including your very own personalized 2023 “Top Songs” playlist, a DJ playing suggested songs, and a ‘play suggested’ shuffle button for playlists. 

“I thought it was interesting seeing my top songs from months ago and the beginning of the year. I didn’t like the location aspect of it because it seemed like the majority of people got San Luis Obispo. Overall, I really like Spotify and I use the app everyday,” said Mari Rode, junior at Archie Williams High School. 

This feature initially started in 2015 as a “Year in Music,” the first iteration of Wrapped which included statistics like the listener’s most played songs and how many hours of music they listened to. But it wasn’t until two years later that the platform would introduce Spotify Wrapped as users know it today, which spans unique features with each yearly iteration. This year, Spotify introduced “Me in 2023” and “Sound Town,” with the former assigning a listening character to describe a user’s streaming habits and the latter matching users to a city based on their shared artists. Spotify also added the most recent and most played podcasts that users have listened to in the past year. 

“I love Spotify and I love Spotify Wrapped. It adds a quirk to the streaming service,” said Ruby Frederick, a senior at Casa Grande High School. 

However, despite the widespread popularity of its features, Spotify Wrapped has also faced controversy over its data tracking habits. Given that all the features mentioned above come from the data Spotify mines from listeners, the company has been criticized for using Spotify Wrapped as a veil to hide their demographic tracking of users. The algorithms Spotify uses for determining what is featured on Wrapped are the same ones used to obtain marketing data for businesses to provide personalized advertisements targeted towards listeners. The specificity that individual profiles have only adds to this concern, especially when Spotify tracks the exact amount that users have used the platform to the minute. Despite this controversy however, Spotify remains as one of the most popular music streaming platforms,

Today, Spotify Wrapped is largely used as a fun summary of a user’s top songs, artists, and overall musical inclinations. But, it has faced criticisms for what this tracking might mean for targeted advertisements and user protection. For many listeners though, they can’t wait to see what next year’s Spotify Wrapped brings.