The annual Spotify Wrapped celebration is one of the things I look forward to year on year. It’s presented in such an amazing way, I can see how my tastes of evolved (or devolved for that matter) and I have a pretty permanent record of it. It is such an amazing service that I honestly don’t see myself ever leaving Spotify even if there were an alternative music streaming service that was objectively better. If I did, it would mean I’d lose all the records of what songs I favoured in different parts of my life.
Given how viral it gets everywhere, I am surprised that the social side of music listening has not matured at a commensurate rate. Clearly the appetite is there for people to be sharing what it is they listen to and engage with people they know who listen to similar music. In fact, I would happily pay a premium to be able to be connected with people I know who listen to the same artists and genres as I do –– that has been a pretty full-proof way to find kindred spirits for me, and it’s always such a precious thing when it does happen serendipitously.
The other part of it is I love discovering what types of music people I know listen to. There is no inherent competition with something like listening to music (I find a similar phenomenon occurs with running), everyone is just here having a good time and not really concerned with what other people are listening to necessarily. It nevertheless is a fun exercise to discover that a friend you know to be one way listens to music that is, at least on the surface, incongruous to how they are. Getting people to talk about the music the listen to, albums they love, concerts they have been to, never fail to provide good chat.