"Spotify Wrapped: Show me your favorite songs, baby, 'cause they don't bug me

Music preferences - "Spotify Wrapped: Show me your favorite songs, baby, 'cause they don't bug me

For many of us, it has become as much a part of December as Santa's stocking or mulled wine with a shot: The annual review of the year, which the music streaming service Spotify provides somewhat lovingly for each of its users. "Spotify Wrapped" is the name of the fun, and it reveals: Which artists have you listened to the most? Which songs, genres, podcasts? And what does that say about you?

The Swedish company serves this up in pretty graphics that are great for sharing on social media. And every year, we have great fun posting our own annual charts everywhere - and getting upset that everyone else is posting their own "wraps" everywhere. Typically human. But ... something is different this time. Yes, of course there are the usual annoyed comments in the vastness of the internet, but time and again you stumble across something completely unexpected: kindness and appreciation! When in doubt, at least patient leniency. What's going on there?

Everyone loves it, everyone hates it: "Spotify Wrapped"

Musical taste is something that certain parts of humanity place great value on. In other words, everyone who doesn't listen to "basically everything", "charts" or "well, that's just radio" (and enjoys it). There is an unbridgeable gap between these people and those who know exactly what they consider to be good music. Within the latter group, however, it almost doesn't matter whether someone listens to black metal or Luxembourgish street rap: Anyone who puts a bit of heart and soul into searching for personal favorite artists and top songs deserves respect. Even from someone who has completely different tastes.

Why is that? Because your taste in music reveals something about you that you may not be able to express in words. Or want to. Maybe you're always telling silly flat jokes, but your "Spotify Wrapped" is full of heartbreakingly depressing songs. Maybe you're always nice to everyone but listen to Dimmu Borgir at home on volume eleven. Maybe you're always the tough alpha, but you like Taylor Swift. Anything is possible, anything is cool. And sharing your own year in review on Instagram & Co. allows your extended circle of friends a brief insight into your emotional world, which you otherwise deny them 364 days a year.

ab einem bestimmten Punkt sollten Spotify-Jahresrückblicke als Überweisung zu einem Therapeuten zugelassen werden

— E L H O T Z O (@elhotzo) December 1, 2021

Music says a hell of a lot about you

And that's exactly why we like to share it so much. To show: This is me, this is what I stand for, maybe you didn't know that about me yet. Yes, and of course: I HAVE AN EXCELLENT MUSIC TASTE. (But that's also something to be proud of! "Actually everything", pah!) The problem is that most of us tend to find ourselves more interesting than others. And when everyone in your circle of friends and almost everyone on the entire internet posts their "wrapped" almost at the same time, friendly interest quickly fades and collective rejection sets in.

"No one cares about your Wrapped", "Everyone just stay away from it" - these are the usual comments that pile up on Twitter a few hours after everyone's delight at the annual launch of the Spotify feature. We'd like to speculate that most of these comments come from "charts" listeners or people whose children have ruined the annual list with children's radio plays, but that's the way it is: Even the biggest music lover is annoyed by the never-ending postings after two days at the latest.

This year, we're being nice to each other

But why are the mockery, annoyance and abuse so limited this year? Why are people on Twitter suddenly even demanding that others share their "wraps" because, contrary to all expectations, people are interested in them? The answer is probably as simple as it is bitter: we've all had a tough few years. Years in which only a few things were nice - and music was one of them. Years in which we argued about a lot of things - but musical taste was never the reason.

And perhaps our sudden leniency when it comes to the omnipresent "Spotify Wrapped" postings is simply the realization that we can make life a little nicer for ourselves when life, for its part, makes so little effort to do so. Crazy idea: be nice, show interest, put your high horse aside for a moment and be happy that someone is in as good a mood thanks to Anton aus Tirol as you are thanks to The National. We can gloat to each other again next year when things (hopefully) get better. But until then, let's stick together and support each other with and through music.

PS: Oh, you've been listening to a lot of Taylor Swift, have you? You must have been the only one, right? Crassly original, I can hardly stop yawning ... oops.

Sorry.