Spotify Wrapped is an annual Spotify tradition that has been occurring every year since 2015; it is your “year in review.” It showcases your top artists, songs, and genres of the year. Many people look forward to this coming out each year, sharing their spotify wrapped on their social media. 

This year Spotify added some new features unique to this year’s wrapped! It introduced the features called ‘Your Audio Aura’ and ‘The Movie’. ‘Your Audio aura’ comes up with a visual based on your top two music moods of the year, such as confident and bold, or happy and romantic. The feature ‘The Movie’ pairs some of your top songs with a fun scene from a movie all about your life. 

In 2020 Oakdale student Nicole Akumatey covered how the pandemic affected the use of music to cope with the crazy year. As the world has been going back to ‘normal’ life people have been finding more opportunities to discover and listen to new music, while they’re at the store, working on school work or still relaxing at home. Music is an important part of many people’s everyday life.

Spotify and other music streaming services are a fairly new concept, the first one being MP3.com that was created in 1997. Spotify is one of the most popular ways to stream music, with 172,000,000+ premium users, and has really impacted other online streaming websites and apps. 

Mr. Nate Smarick, the music discussion club leader and history teacher at Oakdale High School, shared that he isn’t too fond of streaming services in general.  “I think it has made people less interested in instruments such as guitars.” 

He added,  “When I was a kid I would listen to music by records, cassette tapes, and CD’s, and I still do.”

On the other hand, younger people have based a whole culture on the reveal of Spotify Wrapped. With many young adults excited to see their entire year in streaming.  

Emery Clark, freshman at Oakdale High School, remarked: “I listen to Spotify everyday, whether I am going to school, doing homework, or painting.” 

Clark explained further:  “My audio aura was calm, so I think my wrapped was reflective of what I do.” 

However, Clark, like many other spotify users, voiced skepticism with some of her results: “Some of the songs it said was my favorite, I haven’t listened to in months”

Adriel U., a freshman at Oakdale High School, spoke on her Audio Aura. “Hype and Bold” Adriel went on to say, “It was considerably accurate to be honest” while yes some had some speculation on their results, she believed it was accurate. 

Spotify wrapped is a tradition that is bound to continue year after year, many are excited to see what new additions they’ll add. But in the meantime Spotify is already collecting your results for Spotify wrapped 2022, an all new year of listening.