Spotify Wrapped 2023 is now out with exciting new features and data that will surely have any avid music listener gasping. Millions of Spotify users around the world impatiently wait for the end of the year’s Wrapped, a personalized recap of their listening habits throughout the year. Spotify Wrapped has become an internet sensation with easy shareability on social media. Users routinely post their Wrapped results to social media platforms at the end of the year, showing off their most listened-to songs and artists.
Certain segments of this yearly recap have even become memes, with templates being available each year to use the Wrapped format for jokes. Though it started as a simple “Year in Review” back in 2013, Spotify Wrapped was born in 2016, and ever since, new changes have been added each year. How has the platform’s extremely popular recap changed since 2016, and how has it evolved to be a holiday that music lovers call “Spotify Wrapped Day”?
2016: Spotify Wrapped is Born
Previously known as “Year in Music,” the first-ever Spotify Wrapped was available to users in December 2016. This started the tradition of Wrapped being released in the first week of every December. At the time, the feature wasn’t included in the Spotify app itself and had to be accessed on a web browser, which users were notified about through an email. Categories included a quiz that aimed to see how well users really know their listening habits and playlists that showed global listening trends for all users. While the features in this year’s first Wrapped were much more limited than what was to come in following years, it was a start.
2017: More stats are introduced
In December 2017, personalized playlists were released in the typical Wrapped fashion, providing users with a list of their most played songs from throughout the year. There was now a larger breakdown of user listening data, including top genre, top five artists, the total number of minutes listened, the number of songs listened to, and the number of genres explored. The story style of Wrapped was created, with each of these statistics being neatly displayed on multiple pages that users could click through.
2018: Easier sharing to social media
In 2018, Wrapped was still based on a web browser. However, there were even more categories to define users’ listening habits. Information about the number of new artists a user had discovered and their top genre breakdown was included. The most important new feature was the option for users to share their results on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Then, the social age of Spotify Wrapped began.
2019: Wrapped takes place in the Spotify app
Due to the increasing popularity of this end-of-year recap, Spotify Wrapped became available to view in-app in December 2019. While still accessible on the web, this was a move that brought Wrapped even closer to its users. More creative categories were showcased to users, such as which music they listened to each season of the year and an additional playlist of their top songs throughout the decade, known as “My Decade Wrapped.” 2019 was also the beginning of competitor Apple Music’s “Replay” feature, which was created to mimic Spotify Wrapped. Wrapped was getting increasingly more anticipated each year.
2020: A deeper dive on listening activity, including podcasts
The main difference in 2020’s Wrapped was its full relocation to the Spotify app. However, it was available for non-premium users for the first time through the web. Podcast data was expanded this year, with users able to see the total number of minutes they listened to podcasts, including their most “binge-worthy” podcast of 2020.
Another new feature was the breakdown of listening data to include the day that they streamed their top song the most and the day they streamed it for the hundredth time. Badges were introduced to Premium users, awarding them if their playlists had a certain number of followers, if they added a certain number of songs to their playlists, or if they listened to songs before they had a certain number of streams.
2021: Audio Auras and Artist Messages
2021 was a big year for Wrapped, as even more creative features were added. One of the most popular new features was “Audio Auras,” a group of Spotify-created moods that were matched to each user. Some examples included green for calm music, purple for energetic music, blue for emotional music, and more. This year also included percentages that compared users’ activities to other listeners, such as listening to a specific genre more than others. A new feature added in 2021 was Artist Messages, short videos of artists thanking their top fans.
2022: Listening Personality and Audio Day
Along with the traditional statistics of Spotify Wrapped, such as top artists, genres, and songs, 2022’s Wrapped included features known as Listening Personality and Audio Day. Listening Personality matched each user to one of sixteen personality types created by Spotify. These distinct personalities were based on how users listened to music and included names such as “The Adventurer,” “The Early Adopter,” and “The Deep Diver.” Audio Day was a feature that served as an interactive look at how users spent their mornings, afternoons, and nights based on which genres they listened to at each time of the day. This year, Artist Messages was expanded, adding thousands of more artist videos to deliver to fans.
Due to Spotify Wrapped 2023 recently coming out, I won’t spoil the new features this year! Like the trend of past years, there are different ways that user listening habits are broken down, including different graphics and presentations. If you have the Spotify app, you can see these cool displays of data that are personalized to you. Like in previous years, I’m shocked and not surprised by my Wrapped results, and I’ll be waiting to see what crazy style Spotify Wrapped takes up in 2024.
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