In years like 2015 and 2016, it was an annual event that my cousins and I sat around avidly waiting for YouTube Rewind to be released. As if we had achieved anything world-stopping with ages ranging from 8 to 12, each time it came out we would throw around phrases like “good times” or “how nostalgic!” Just as YouTube Rewind perfectly summarized each YouTuber and trend that dominated the year to a remix of all of the world’s most replayed songs from those eras, Spotify Wrapped blows the perfect punch of nostalgia just in time for year-end reflections about how much you and your life has changed.
These days, our hearts jump when the first person in our social circles gets to post their top 5 artists of the year as we get to judge whether or not it matches their vibes. Of course, following this initial heartbeat-skipping event, those who have Spotify run straight to the app.
We then decide whether or not it’s a social media worthy share, but for some of us unfortunate ones, it often feels more similar to tearing a page or five out of your diary and plastering it on a bulletin board. As if seeing the top 5 artists, songs, and albums were not embarrassing enough for me, Spotify Wrapped 2026 presented us with a new way to judge ourselves this year – listening age.
I unfortunately don’t have much of a music taste that comes from outside of trending audios and binge listening to the albums they come from. I definitely have the minutes to prove that I don’t spend enough time on Spotify to have an original music taste, which I find formidable when other people do. To give you an example of this, while it is safer for my dignity to keep the remaining details of my Spotify Wrapped confidential, one of my top albums this year was the soundtrack of the movie, KPop Demon Hunters. As I am writing this, I am not sure how I will feel when this is published for the rest of HerCampus to see.
Okay, since I’ve laid that out anyway, I have one more detail I am willing to share. One of my dearest friends messaged me as I had just finished accepting that I was once again basic AF for the year, while at the same time wondering if I was really turning 20 years old in 2026 or maybe 8. She asked me the dreaded question: “what’s your listening age?”
I answered 66 and was met with two lines of laughter in a message and the response, “I thought 28 was bad, but I still love you.”
So, to my fellow senior citizens by the rule of Spotify, of whom most probably want to have the power to customize their own Spotify wrapped, here are five songs that I personally rank the best and most vibey based on my listening age.
A fair warning: If you are planning on listening to these songs, I don’t recommend that you listen to them in this specific order just as I did while writing this article, it’s both chaotic and an emotional rollercoaster. But if you would like to try to feel what I felt while listening to these songs, I’d say it’s worth the rollercoaster.
- Friday I’m in Love by The Cure
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I’m not exactly sure how I discovered this song, but it definitely accompanied some of my most “I want to feel like I’m in a movie” moments when I was really just trying to get myself out of bed for school.
To me, this sounds like starting off your day with a perfect waking up moment without begging yourself for five more minutes, and your morning routine just cutting to you getting your breakfast done in one singular motion just like in the movies. Your waffles, fresh fruits, and orange juice are waiting for you to sit down and enjoy. Except the closest I can get to doing this is in my imagination because I live in a dorm.
This song makes me feel like everything will go right for the rest of the week. No matter what happens, each moment is temporary, and every day is different. Whether it brings a lot of crying or abdominal pain from laughing with your friends, none of us can predict what will happen within the day. The song itself highlights both the lowest of lows and highest points of each day, giving me the encouragement to simply accept each day as it is, reminding me that there is always something to look forward to anyway, just like how most of us look forward to Friday. Or more specifically, the feeling of being in love on a Friday.
Although what I can attribute the most to being in love on a Friday these days from my personal life is how it felt to be eating ice cream on ICU’s Bakayama at night after a long week of school, this is just a small example of what peace the end of the week brings, and that it means different things for each of us.
My favorite part of the song is the intro and the opening verse from 0:00 to 0:56.
- If by Bread
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When I first listened to this song, I had to let out a small laugh. It had such a strange, deep, and pulling sound that no possible instrument drew itself up in my mind, even when I tried to guess. I suggest that you listen to it and help me discover how to put it in words. After research, I learned that it was made by a Celesta, a keyboard percussion instrument, combined with synthetic sound effects.
The start of the song is already captivating in itself, in an initially silly way turned comforting. This song has accompanied a lot of my naps or moments where I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. I also think that it’s one of the most romantic songs I’ve ever listened to, but one of the most chest-clenching too. For some reason, it just adjusts based on how I feel about my day. To give you an example of this push-and-pull feeling on the heart strings, here is one of the parts of the song, 0:39 to 0:49.
“If a face could launch a thousand ships
Then where am I to go?
There’s no one home but you
You’re all that’s left me too”
In the way I perceive the song, the irony is that it has imprinted so deeply in you but is out of your current reality’s reach. It sounds like the kind of love that makes you not want to run with excitement and giddiness to the person you think about when you listen to this song, but instead to sit down with them – either in pure calm and peace, or shared sadness and a painful acceptance where you know that the only good place for the both of you to be together is a place where circumstances are so specifically tailored to what you envision as the “perfect time and place”.
Okay, that was getting a little serious, but I hope you did listen to the song as it’s one of my favorites and would like to share its magic to everyone! We move onto the next and boppiest song I know, which is:
- Kiss on My List by Daryl Hall and John Oates
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I was first introduced to this song which is now one of my most beloved songs on my playlist when I watched the 2010 romantic comedy, She’s Out of My League. Just like in the scene in the movie where this song was first used, it just oozes of desperation and helplessness. I think this whole song in itself is pure yearning.
That being said, taken in the context of the movie, I see this song as a perfect representation of the main character, Kirk, played by Jay Baruchel. He’s just such a pathetic character that I completely fell in love with the movie because of his personality’s dynamic with whatever goals in life he feels like he cannot attain, including getting with Molly, played by Alice Eve. The song is so emotionally charged and I would rate it a 10/10 for singing in the shower.
Among all of the songs in this list, I’d say it’s most similar to Friday I’m In Love. Both of the songs give such a personal and “screaming from the heart” vibe, singing from the soul in an empty classroom just like in what you would think would be a scene in School of Rock.
My favorite part of the song is actually just one line that starts at 3:15. It felt like a short, tired, out-of-breath moment of the performer, which I felt held more emotion than the rest of the song, even if the rest of the song was basically a scream from the heart.
- With or Without You by U2
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Unlike most of these songs, I didn’t discover it on my own through an ungodly amount of screentime. I grew up hearing it through my dad’s speakers, whether on weekends in the house or long road trips in the car.
The feeling I can most closely attribute this to is the feeling of getting out of class as the sun sets. This is also most definitely a song my younger self would have watched the raindrops on the car window as they race, and as I imagined myself in a music video. In yet another imaginary circumstance where this song would be perfect, although I have never been, it sounds like what I think looking out into the Grand Canyon would feel like. Why the Grand Canyon specifically? I truly have no idea. But one day, when I do get to visit it, I’ll keep you guys updated.
While I wouldn’t necessarily say this song is sad, I do think it belongs in the yearning category. And while I can’t put myself in the shoes of any of the U2 members as they are playing this song, I feel like I’m feeling the feelings that the singer wants to get across. No hidden message, just pure yearning, carefully and wholeheartedly laid out by this 1987 classic.
- Under Pressure by Queen, David Bowie
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I also have no story as to how I discovered this song, but it is my strongest belief that every human is born knowing it. I can tell you how I rediscovered it, though. One movie night with my siblings a few years ago, we watched a movie called Small Foot, a star-studded family movie released in 2018 featuring the talents of Channing Tatum, Zendaya, James Corden, Danny DeVito, and more.
In the movie, the song Percy’s Pressure is sung by the character played by James Corden, Percy Patterson, a struggling journalist and environmental influencer who is pleading with Brenda, his coworker, to help him fake a Yeti encounter to improve his show’s ratings. This song absolutely cracked me up every time I listened to it, but made me love the original song more.
Under Pressure’s lyrics share the feeling of needing to reach certain expectations and wanting to be better. It doesn’t only share the singers’ stories, but on how much pressure we put on ourselves as a society. It challenges us to give love and understanding more than anything else, especially in the bridge that starts at 2:28 of the song.
Both versions, the original and the one from the movie, have such a strong way of making the listener also feel the pressure. It also reminds us of our own pressures in life, but it twists it in such a playful way. It feels like trying to find the balance between the chaos in life and pretending to keep your cool, and I love the chaos and urgency in its entirety.
Embracing My Listening Age
While it may have not shown in my top artists, songs, or albums, the background music to a lot of my most peaceful, most chaotic, angriest, most joyful, and even loneliest moments were reflected best in my listening age.
I’ve spent a lot of my downtime being chronically online as I’m sure you can pick up from my references. By doing this, I’ve come across many videos and articles of discussions about whether or not society needs art. If you haven’t realized by now, I think it’s been obvious throughout this article that music as a form of art is very important to me, even if I did not pick up the “all Filipinos sing well” gene. Even if it’s not music, I’ve seen ways forms of art can help anyone express themselves or take out their frustrations in life or tell a story of the better moments.
So, if there’s any lesson you can get from here, I’d like to present this: it doesn’t matter whether your Spotify Wrapped is Instagram worthy or not. If it has brought you comfort in any way, own it and love it. Each of these songs or genres that some people may have been embarrassed about were someone’s work of art and way of telling their story. So like David Bowie asks you to do in Under Pressure, let’s keep giving ourselves chances to show love – including love to the music we like, without owing an explanation to anyone.