The year is winding down, which means Spotify Wrapped is here yet again to reveal just how cringe your taste in music really is. Like it does every year, Spotify will show you basic listening stats, like your total listen time, favorite artists, top songs, and top podcasts, if that’s your thing. But this year, there's more.
For one thing, for the first time you don’t need to use the app to get your Wrapped. You can get it from Spotify’s Wrapped website, as well. Of course, if you open the app, Spotify will show a splash screen, or a banner to guide you through retrieving your Wrapped. If it doesn’t, you’ll find a Wrapped button in the top toolbar.
And along with the usual stats, Spotify Wrapped has a few new surprises: You'll be assigned both a "Sound Town" and a listening character, each based on your musical habits during the year.
One of Spotify Wrapped's new hooks is called Sound Town. Basically, Spotify will match you with a city in the world that had similar listening habits or listening activity as you do. It's fascinating, to say the least.
I live in India, and my two biggest genres were Bollywood, and Atmospheric lo-fi music. And turns out my Sound Town is Leuven, Belgium, whose residents I suspect are bigger fans of atmospheric music, more than the latest Bollywood number. Still, that’s interesting to know.
Spotify is also assigning users a listening character, as it assigned a listening personality last year. I’m apparently a Vampire, because I like listening to atmospheric and sad music. I'm a bit surprised to learn I’m emo, but hey, data doesn’t lie.
Lastly, Spotify is adding a new angle to its list of your top artists: This time, it will tell you when your consumption of a particular artist peaked. I listened to Post Malone a lot in August, and then it dropped off. Summers are weird.
Once your Wrapped is wrapped, you can add your top songs of 2023 to a playlists, and Spotify will make it easy to share your stats on Instagram Stories, and other social media platforms (because that's the entire reason it exists—to give your friends who use Apple Music or Amazon Music major FOMO).
