A teenager’s highschool years are a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences, often defined by music, and the music platform Spotify analyzes listeners’ data for a comprehensive yearly reflection.
As 2022 winds down, users can access a feature called Spotify Wrapped, which gives them personal statistics, including their most listened songs, artists and genres. Wrapped also includes other features, but those have varied over the years. This year’s Spotify Wrapped released on Nov. 30, and these other features included a listening personality that resembled an Meyers-Briggs personality type and a description of the users’ music moods during different times of the day.
Nordic News asked citizens of Inglemoor about the tunes they were jamming to all year. Overall, Vikings listened to music on Spotify for up to 222,000 minutes, with genres spanning from Americana to Metalcore.
Senior Steven Escobar (he/him)
Top Artist: Ruel
Top Song: Nothing Breaks Like a Heart by Mark Ronson (feat. Miley Cyrus)
Top Genre: Pop
Minutes Listened: 39,627
As Escobar looked through his Wrapped, he lauded the accuracy of Spotify’s algorithm in calling him a replayer.
“So, I’ll find a song, and I’ll replay it for hours on end. There were some songs that I would just listen to forever,” said Escobar. “While doing homework, I just wouldn’t change them, and then one of those songs was Nothing Breaks Like a Heart, because I played it 152 times.”
Sophomore Yameena Shameem (she/her)
Top Artist: Taylor Swift
Top Song: Mirrorball by Taylor Swift
Top Genre: Indie Pop
Minutes Listened: 19,195
Shameem is a newer Spotify user, who was “ten out of ten excited” for Spotify Wrapped.
“It’s the highlight of my day,” said Shameem, who claims that Dark Red by indie artist Steve Lacy reminds her of January.
“I was in my emo era,” was all she offered as an explanation.
Junior Caroline Sheehan (She/her)
Top Artist: JID
Top Song: Sandstorm by Mereba (feat. JID)
Top Genre: Rap
Minutes Listened: 28,376
Sheehan ties a large amount of her Spotify experience with her family, and the platform has been a staple in her life since she was young.
“I got my phone at a really young age. And then I would listen to music in the car on the way to my soccer games with my really big awkward Beats headphones. That’s what made me get Spotify because my family loves music, too. So it’s always there,” said Sheehan.
Revealing more about her Wrapped, Sheehan said she associates one of her top five songs, Rich Girl by Hall & Oates, with her dad.
“It’s my dad and I’s favorite song, and right when I got my license at the beginning of summer, I listened to it all summer.”
Senior Noah Zhao (he/him)
Top Artist: Elliott Smith
Top Song: The Boy With The Arab Strap by Belle and Sebastian
Top Genre: Alternative Rock
Minutes Listened: 191,212
Zhao sees his music as an accurate reflection of his music taste, and said he listens to music the most in the fall and winter.
“It just hits different during that time. I can’t explain it,” said Zhao. “Like, in January? That’s when I started listening to a lot of rock that was really noisy, like Sonic Youth. And all that noise music kind of just reminds me of that time.”
