My 2021 Spotify Wrapped. Surprise it's k-pop!
- It's Hannah
- Dec 2, 2021
- 4 min read
If you're a music enthusiast or just someone who's interested in your listening habits, more than likely, you've probably already checked out your 2021 #SpotifyWrapped that was released just this morning on Dec. 1st.
Spotify wrapped?
The concept of a wrapped playlist is relatively simple.
Over the course of a year, Spotify actively tracks what song, genres, albums, artists, and podcasts you listened to most and accumulates that data to show you a personalized year-in-review recap.
Sometime around the first week of December every year, users are taken down memory lane as a feature similar to Instagram stories presents your listening data in consecutive punchy graphics, all while your favorite artists and tracks play as background music. The experience is entirely customized and gives Spotify users the chance to reflect on all components of their listening habits on the platform.
This year, Spotify even added new features to their 2021 wrapped:
2021: The Movie – a personalized movie soundtrack (opening credits, the song playing in a battle against your rival, a reflective moment, etc.)
Your Audio Aura – your top 2 music moods
Playing Cards – how well do you know yourself? "two truths and a lie" in which you guess which statement about your listening habits is false out of 3 options
My wrapped Stats
This year was probably the most excited I've ever been to check out my #SpotifyWrapped.
Before even checking out my 2021 wrapped, I knew that this year was a bit different in that I had listened to a wide variety of genres and songs I normally don't listen to — this was because I started audio live-streaming just this year and I tend to take my listeners' song requests using my personal Spotify.
Further, I also knew that this year I had just spent a lot more time listening to media on Spotify. In previous years, I used to balance my music streaming platforms between Spotify, Youtube, and Soundcloud.
2021, however, I almost exclusively listened to music on Spotify.
That said, there are some listening habits that just never change for me.
Not really to anyone's surprise, almost the entirety of the music I listen to on Spotify involves BTS and k-pop.
Last year's #SpotifyWrapped, I had quite the surprise when I found out that I was actually in BTS' Top 0.1% of Spotify listeners.
This year, however, my expectations weren't as high considering how many other music artists and song genres I spent time listening to.
But once a BTS ARMY, always a BTS ARMY.
According to my 2021 wrapped, I am in BTS' Top 0.5% of Spotify listeners this year and I spent roughly 15,700 minutes listening to them. Compared to last year's stats, my numbers for BTS aren't as high as they used to be — considering I spent a lot of this year just exploring new artists — but for a BTS fan, they are still relatively high.
Either way, I'm not too bummed about it because I know that being a genuine music fan doesn't always translate to music listens anyways.
Of course, that doesn't mean you can't have some genuine fun when it comes to learning about your streaming numbers.
As a part of the BTS ARMY on stan Twitter — the platform's fan community — one thing we enjoy doing is sharing our #SpotifyWrapped stats on the platform to see just much BTS we each listened to and what our favorite songs of the year were.
Sharing our results, these posts usually spark a lot of interesting fan conversations surrounding "which song was best?" "what was the best collab this year?" etc.
Moreover, it also becomes a fun game on Twitter searching for which ARMY had the highest streaming numbers.
So if multiple people were in the Top 0.01% of listeners — yes, they exist — they usually compare their "minutes listened" to see who spent more time listening to the music. And although it can seem like unnecessary competition among fans, there's usually a level of respect that comes with just showing that you really enjoy listening to an artist's music.
For me, that's not exactly my goal — getting to that 0.01% that is — but if I ever do achieve that number someday, well, you can 100 percent be sure that there will be a post on this blog about it.
Self-Reflections
For me, I absolutely love the concept of being able to see how my music habits have not only changed but also stayed the same over the years.
As a longtime fan of k-pop music, I don't ever really expect that my top genre or favorite artist [BTS] will ever change, but it's interesting seeing how I branch off from what genres and music I do already enjoy.
This year, it seems that those explorations directly translated to listening to a wide variety of music genres and artists. Not that I haven't done so before, but seeing as to how Spotify has now become my primary streaming platform, I couldn't be any more appreciative of being able to see how my listening habits have evolved over the years.
So thank you #SpotifyWrapped. I truly do appreciate the resource.
And though I know Spotify only counts listening stats from Jan. 1 to Nov. 15, you can be sure that I'll still be streaming music on the platform this month of December.
It's really a fun journey seeing how you progress and change along with the music you listen to, and even though it might be way too early to say, I'm already looking forward to the process next year.
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