The awesome genius of Spotify Wrapped

María Fernanda arrived early at the office on November 29. Although she didn’t have to do it, because the young creative from Bogotá had left all the pending digital work for brands ready a week before, with a single purpose: have time to share and chat with your friends through direct messages and chats the result of your Spotify Wrappedthe list that the Swedish giant streaming launches at the end of November with the most important music lists of the year.

José Manuel, an adult advertising agency executive, opened his Spotify a half hour after Wrapped had been revealed worldwide. His top did not suffer the same fate as María Fernanda’s top, since the long car trips were at the service of his two children, who take turns playing the music on them. This will also be reflected in your year-end summary.

Both María Fernanda and José Manuel are part of Spotify’s 226 million global paying users, that is, with a subscription (in total there are 574 million users) –figures from the third quarter of 2023–, and none of the two have the same number 1.

For María Fernanda, an excellent fan of electronic music, number one was the album For That Beautiful Feelingby the Chemical Brothers, while for José Manuel the most listened to song was Splash for the soulsby Ferxxo, the favorite of his two traveling teenagers.

30 years ago, the magazine Billboard and the American Top 40 on the radio they attracted all the attention of the massive audiences, and MTV was preparing the big music video party of the year with this type of listings. All that is now part of the past.

The reason is that those cancerbers of global pop taste consolidated a single number one, and this, in turn, dictated the success of an artist or, even, of a genre. Nowadays, the only number 1 that matters is the staff.

Spotify Wrapped is the most sophisticated listing that has existed since Billboard He began to measure every commercial music movement in the North American market. A summary of all the songs, albums and artists that users of the Swedish platform listened to during the year that is ending. By allowing us to understand their musical habits and present them as stories and publications on networks that can be shared, the user becomes a walking magazine, and an agent of contagion and adoption of the platform.

viral marketing

Spotify Wrapped is the most powerful viral marketing campaign of any streaming service. streaming of music in the world. The result is a huge free advertising exercise through a fun exercise, through which users receive a detailed summary of which were the 5 artists and 5 songs they listened to the most. between January 1st and October 31st of the current year.

Since 2016, each end of November is an opportunity to share personal tastes and see those of others. This year, Wrapped surprised with a very special detail: the artist you listened to the most sends you a personalized greeting, thanking you for playing his songs during the year.

But it’s not just users who share their data. The platform, which offers the tool Spotify for Artists‘, presents musicians with a summary of the number of times their music was played on it, the number of listeners they had, the number of hours they listened and the number of countries where they were played.-

And while the fight over how much money artists make from Spotify streams remains a relevant discussion in the music world, time seems to stop for a few hours while many Musicians share their numbers with their fans on social networks.

But the data is not just a reflection of the personality of Spotify’s millions of users, it is also a fascinating display of local, global and global tastes. Colombia, for example, stands out as one of the 5 countries in the world that listens to Mexican music the most. The recent popularity of the regional Mexican genre, thanks to artists such as Carín León, Christian Nodal and Peso Pluma, has contributed to an 85% increase in consumption of the genre.

Colombia also stands out for a type of consumer, which Spotify calls ‘super listener’: according to figures shared with this newspaper, the platform’s listeners in our country listen an average of 105 minutes a day, it has created more than 57 million playlists and is located among the 10 countries with the highest concentration of music lovers or ‘superfans’ in the world.

Taylor Swift, la reina

And although the queen of Spotify in 2023 was indisputably Taylor Swift, Four Latinos were among the top 10 most listened to in the world: Bad Bunny, Peso Feather, Feid and Karol G. EReggaeton continued to be the largest musical force in Colombia: Feid (Ferxxo, as it is currently known after its incredible transformation), was the engine of constant growth: consumption of the urban genre multiplied 31 times in the last year globally this year, compared to 2013.

Without a doubt, one of the most beloved slogans by the Colombian public implemented by the radio in our country is part of consumption on Spotify. The slogan ‘Since September it feels like December is coming’, from the Olímpica Estéreo radio station, has such a profound impact on our idiosyncrasy that We hit itthe most recognized song by Los Hispanos and Rodolfo Aicardi for the Christmas season, saw a growth of 331% in relation to the average since the first of September.

Just as radio exerts a strong influence on the platform’s consumers, so does nostalgia: the trend is growing on all fronts of pop music, since the rebirth of Bohemian Rhapsody thanks to the movie of the same name, and Runnin’ Up That Hill, by Kate Bush, in the music of the Netflix series Stranger Things. In Colombia, ‘old catalog’ songs (that were released more than 20 years ago) such as Bolivian lamentfrom the Green Dwarfs, and Searchby Chichi Peralta, were part of the preferred consumption of Colombians.

The ‘baby’ catalogue, made up of songs released 18 months ago, is also a favorite: It’s a secretfrom Plan B, and Monasteryby Ryan Castro, occupy the first two positions in the reggaeton nostalgia.

Carolina

Karol G got all the attention of the industry and users: Tomorrow will be nice was the most listened to album in our country, followed by the acclaimed A summer without youby Bad Bunny. The Medellin native, whose ‘Tomorrow will be beautiful Fest’ profiles her as the most important figure in Latin pop worldwide, closes the most important year of her career with a recognition that is difficult to achieve: the top of the list in our country on Spotify and reaching to the billion views club with his song TQGalong with Shakira.

On the global album chart, A summer without you, by Bad Bunny, continued to occupy first place in popularity. His recent album, Nobody Knows What’s Going to Happen Tomorrow, did not have the same luck.

Shakira took the title of the Latin female artist with the most views on the platform of all time, according to data from September 2023. In the global charts, both Shakira and Karol G were the only Colombian artists to occupy the first place on the list, coveted by the largest labels in the world and for which they have been fighting every Friday for a few years.

Rock: nowhere

Although the Beatles and the Rolling Stones released a song and album respectively, the numbers of the legendary rockers pale in comparison to the overwhelming numbers of the urban, Latin and regional Mexican pop industrial complex. The Stones, whose album Hackney Diamonds It was released on October 20, and as of the date of writing this note, it has 67,850,069 views. The figure is tiny compared to the numbers of QLONAde Karol G: more than 415 million views. Now And Thenby the Beatles, released on November 2, has more than 34 million views.

The most visible rock artist during the year on the main charts was the Arctic Monkeys, whose album AM turned 10 years old in 2023. The anniversary, accompanied by the closing of the Monkeys’ tour of the United States, helped songs like Knee Socks y I Wanna Be Yours They will manage to get into the list of the 10 most popular on the platform.

I Wanna Be Yours entered the billion views club this year. The nostalgia indie saves, therefore, the presence of rock in the streaming in 2023.
This comparison is important to make, not because it seeks to equate talent or gender, but because it is indicative of the great importance of young audiences in Latin America within Spotify. A second audience is the second and third generation Latin audiences in the United States, which makes these new artists superstars of the Streamg.

The Stones have no problem selling out their upcoming tour dates without the need for Spotify, and the Beatles nor do they require the billions of plays del Ferxxo or Bad Bunny, but the low consumption of the two rock icons on the platform draws a lot of attention.

Although there are evident hegemonies in current pop culture, it is worrying that in the midst of the rise and development of artificial intelligence, our lists, summarized in Spotify Wrapped, become indecipherable.

Every time we find more people on our path who share less common musical tastes with ours thanks to the precision of “the data”, which services like Spotify collect to increasingly personalize the experience of your users.

That same algorithm, which María Fernanda cares for with zeal as the owner of the much coveted “heavenly jukebox”, could become over the years a bubble that only we ourselves want to listen to, taking away from music its social spirit, and turning us into more insular beings. and more alone.
It is not a prediction or a prophecy. But it could happen.

Cut and debate over payment to artists

Not all the news about Spotify is good: this week the company announced a cut of 1,500 employees globally, 17 percent of its workforce. Daniel Ek, CEO of the company, assured that the layoffs are due to “the gap between the state of our financial goals and current operating costs.” Last Friday, its chief financial officer, Paul Vogel, left the company.

He announced that this was “entering a new stage.”

Spotify also reported that it will pay royalties only to songs that have more than a thousand views on the platform, and reignited the debate about the current artist remuneration model.

AUTHOR: ALEJANDRO MARÍN
For the time
@themusicpimp

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