This should not matter. It is a marketing ploy. It’s the insidious work of a massive company that has throttled the music industry and forced artists to feed off the crumbs from its table. So why do I feel anxious as though it’s the morning before an exam?
For the uninitiated, every year the Spotify corporation makes worldwide headlines by releasing an individually curated PowerPoint presentation to every listener on the platform. It includes fun facts, such as which band is your favourite and what percentile of top listeners you fall into – a terrific way to make you feel less like a music fan and more like an obsessed stalker. They will often include a fun made-up stat such as “Which city are you?” For the record, I was Hobart, Tasmania, which is an insult to me and to Hobart.
The presentation has become one of the few monocultural moments across the internet age, with everyone sharing their own individual top listen lists and showing off what they have been listening to, while choosing not to listen to the complaints of Apple Music users.
This morning, the results dropped, the PowerPoint was distributed and we were once again confronted with the passing of time. It has become a Christmas tradition on par with the yearly rituals of Mariah Carey hitting number one, arguments about Die Hard and cousins having to go to the emergency room after being injured doing something incredibly cousin-coded (think, pool noodle to the head, trying to jump from one high place to another, etc. The things that cousins do. You know what I mean.).
You have to hand it to Spotify, it’s a brilliant idea. What do we love more than proof we’re all individual, beautiful butterflies who think and feel more deeply than anyone else on the bus? It’s flattering to think that somewhere an algorithm has output data specifically about you.
That said, for those of us with less flattering tastes, those whose listening habits could be described as “Hobart, Tasmania”, this can be a difficult time of year. Perhaps what makes this so compelling to share is that your listening habits in the modern era are so private. No one else knows what is going on between your ears as you walk the streets.
The algorithm is not perfect, of course. They have tried other interations of this idea across the year, including only a few months ago, when Spotify offered to tell you what generation your music habits belong in. Apparently, I have gen Z ears, a huge surprise to both Mr Dizzy Gillespie and all the members of Creedence Clearwater Revival who were playing through my headphones at the time. These campaigns come and go but neither of them have the cultural status of the Spotify Wrapped.
The point is not so much to be “on trend” as it is to be you. Maybe that is what is so confronting. Every year, whatever image I have of myself as a cool-enough, young-enough man comes tumbling down like the walls of Jericho. Then, you have to face the unrelenting march of time, when your stats sheet of cumulated listening minutes is placed before you like the kind of report card you would be handed by Saint Peter at the end of your life.
The downside to this process is that it leaks into every aspect of your life. Suddenly, you’re aware you’re being monitored. That everything you listen to in March will be on the final exam in December. Your individual predilection to listen to the part of the song that really hurts over and over and over again is going to return and be put on display for the world.
The tragic news is that the results have dropped and for another year I have failed to become cool. Unfortunately – and this is a shocking development – the person I am in December is a culmination of the person I was in February, March, April, May, June and the rest. Here I was hoping a whole new, more interesting human being would emerge.
Ah well, I’ll try again next year.
