When December rolled in, many music lovers excitedly awaited the arrival of Spotify Wrapped. Quickly, this annual music recap became the stars of students’ classroom discussions and Instagram stories.
“Spotify Wrapped is our annual thank you to users, artists, creators and authors around the world” according to Spotify.
Through the app, Spotify users are provided with an engaging recap showcasing their music journey throughout the year; a summary of their listening habits. The information this recap highlights includes your top artist, album, song, and genre, whilst also listing off the amount of minutes you’ve listened to music this year.
The global fan-favorites were all over social feeds – Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, Drake, and SZA.
According to our school-wide survey, Pop was the top genre most shared by the sample of students (22.1% out of 276 responses).
Apple Music Replay is the music recap for Apple Music users and provides the same information as Spotify Wrapped except for the following interactive features: the “Artist Clip” – a thank you message from one of your top artists. Also, Spotify creates a personalized playlist with your top 100 songs, even revealing how many times you’ve streamed each one.
A newly added-on feature to Spotify Wrapped this year was the “Listening Age”, where you were given an age, based upon your listening habits. From our survey, the largest chunk of sampled students (43.5%) had a listening age of 20 to 40 years.
“I think Spotify adds a lot of niche details, like the listening age was new this year…everyone was talking about that,” said Paige Gunther, a beach music and pop-country listener who received a listening age of 65 for streaming music from the 70’s.
For SJHHS students, Spotify Wrapped is more than just an end-of-the-year music report; instead, their Wrapped can serve as a reflection of their personal growth, emotions, and major life moments.
It’s seemingly more about the music and becomes a snapshot of our year, where we’ve been and what we’ve felt.
“I think it’s exciting to see how you’ve grown within the past year because a lot can happen. Maybe in the beginning of the year you had an awful breakup and then when your Wrapped comes out, you remember all the songs you listened to and something memorable,” said Luciana Heresi, who noted how her Apple Music Replay – comprised of Jeff Buckley blues and alternative music – reminded her of life’s ups and downs.
With the change of seasons, it may be that you listened to different music in the spring than you did in the fall.
More often than not, Spotify Wrapped comes with surprises. Whether it’s a top album you did not think would make it on your recap or a shocking amount of listening minutes.
“I thought, like, I had less. Because, I only listen to it when I get home, and yeah, in school too. I don’t listen, like, overnight, but I guess I have more,” said Hugo Amil (12) in shock of his listening minutes of over 156,000.
His Spotify Wrapped told the story of his 2025 year by spotlighting his broad, contrasting music taste of both heavy and mellow material. There was a mix of screamo and shoegaze genres – the former he would play while studying and the latter while he was in nature or rock climbing.
“Most of the time, I just listen to music so I can lock in. Sometimes when I don’t have my phone, I could live without music. Most of the time, I just have it as background noise, I guess to keep me sane” said Amil.
Overall, Wrapped is an annual tradition that gives people something to talk about and bond over. Students are able to lightheartedly laugh over and compare their music taste, bonding over similar artists and teasing each other for unexpected results they may have received.
“I think it’s interesting to see what other people are listening to and compare and share with each other,” said Gunther.
