Every year, Spotify releases Wrapped, a review of users’ musical taste presented in a colorful animation. The Wrap highlights users’ total listening minutes, top songs, podcasts, and artists, plus the all new Music Evolution. Released on December 4th, students passionately opened their spotify apps once word got around it had been released. An opportunity for bragging rights and confirmation one is not a fake fan, Spotify Wrapped has grasped the attention of North Atlanta students.
Directly after opening the animation, the Wrap presents students with their top songs, which often surprise. Spotify uses data from the entire year, including your music taste from nine months ago. That song you loved back in February? Yup, that might end up on your leaderboard. “I share an account with my family, so when Sabrina Carpenter ended up as my number one, I was surprised,” said Issac Liu, Junior. “But I love remembering what music I used to like.”
For the podcasts lovers across the school, seeing them hold such a dominant role in the Wrap was satisfying. Skyrocketing in popularity during the pandemic, podcasts have slowly taken over the entertainment industry. They’ve also captured the ears and eyes of quite a few North Atlanta students. Andrew Hart, a Junior, said, “My favorite podcast, Basement Yard, had more listening minutes than my music, so I was excited when they added the listening details.”
The addition of ‘Music Evolution’ to the Wrap received mixed reactions from NA students. Some thought the AI powered addition was informing and interesting, while others found it confusing and all-together disastrous. Students’ music tastes throughout the year were given labels such as Softie Duduk R&B phase, or Wild West Banjo Outlaw phase. Junior Sophia Khorsandi said, “I really enjoyed this year’s music evolution because it gave me a deeper look of which artists I liked during which months of the year, that was pretty cool to me.”
A high school student’s top artist can make or break their Spotify Wrapped. Spotify knew this reality and addressed it by humorously writing, “While it’s not a competition… There is a leaderboard.” The Top 5 artists chart left students satisfied, heartbroken, angry, ecstatic, and in the rarest of cases emotional. Opinions varied heavily, but one trend stayed consistent. “You can’t escape the Top 5 artist chart. I love that about it, it surprises people quite often,” said Junior Arjun Mitra.
2024 Spotify Wrapped was far different from prior years, and NA students had varied responses to the changes. Whether they were satisfied or not, one thing is clear: our student body’s music taste is as diverse and unique as the individuals themselves.
